One Thing and Then Another

I am sick. Even beyond the help of Akla-seltzer Plus. I tried to sleep forever, but there comes a point when you’re having dreams about eye abscesses and multiple tiny cats and Dr. J. living in a commune full of puppies she’s trying to protect from children she is convinced are evil and she’s begging for your help, but you have to find an optometrist and get rid of the garbage you’re carrying and you realize, “Shit, I need to wake up, because at this point, the ole brain is just throwing random nasty crap at me.”

I feel better when I’m up and walking around, but it makes me so tired so it’s like a terrible circle of stupidity.

But here’s the thing I wanted to say about my parents’ latest stop through, that struck me upon seeing them interact with my nephew. There’s no consistency from moment to moment. One minute they’re happy with him, the next they’re annoyed.  At this point, I can kind of see what is going to set them off.  But I have had decades of study.

And I can’t help but wonder if that’s what it was like when we were kids–to have one moment of my dad almost completely unmoored from the next, to be constantly unsure what of what you did would lead to what reaction from him.  I think it must have been, which is why I did nothing and why my brothers did what they wanted.

And why I write, and why we all self-medicate in ways that are practically guaranteed to lead to storytelling.  The idea of a coherent narrative is practically irresistible.