So in the midst of my internal dialogue on Sunday, I cleaned this fan in the bedroom. A lot of dust had accumulated on it, and I decided to take care of it and brushed it mostly off.
Of course, I did not get everything, and when I went to sleep on Sunday evening at some point, a few hours after I fell asleep, I awoke with my sneezing and my dripping, running nose.
It was not very good, and it disrupted my sleep. So despite my disrupted sleep, I got some in, woke up, and went to work on Monday. I was fine most of the day.
Mike met me at the apartment, and as soon as I walked through the door, my nose started running again, which led me to believe there was dust in the air that had found its way up my nose and irritated my sinuses.
It was annoying, and I had some Nyquil, which helped dry out my nose and enabled me to sleep, but also knocked me out, and by 10:30, I was ready for sleep.
And of course, when I woke up this morning, the first 20 minutes were me debating in my head whether or not to go to work.
Of course, I did go to work since next week is a 4-day work week with the holiday on Monday, being Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Mike is at my apartment. He’ll probably leave when I get home tonight. His beloved will be flying in from San Francisco tomorrow night, so his arms will probably be tired.
I’m in the office, and it’s quiet as hell. If I were busy, the time would fly, but I am not busy; instead, the time is not flying. My end of the year review yesterday went well, and I’m still floating comfortably on that.
But right now I am just looking forward to going to bed tonight, which would probably be about 12 hours from now.
So I got a flu shot the first Sunday of the year, so I guess I am covered, basically if I get the flu, it won’t be as severe as others who did not get the shot. I’m feeling lethargic but not ill. Occasionally, my sinuses will act up, but they haven’t in a few minutes, so I’m going with that at the moment.
I am thinking about having a salad for lunch, which is healthier than Wendy’s. Wendy’s was selected because it was affordable and good-tasting. But I have to look out for myself healthwise, and so a salad might be in order. Salad was the right choice, and I feel a lot better- more awake, more alive
Right now, I feel I could take a nap, and that would be so very good.
I just set up my desk and closed my eyes for a few minutes, and was rudely awoken by Paul McCartney and the Beatles singing I’m Down
5 hours to go and 15 minutes, which should be bearable.
If there was somebody around to talk to, it would make a difference in the energizing, but there isn’t, and so it’s not.
I just had an idea, perhaps for a story that dialing an old phone number that you might have had in the past for example I dialed 845-7822 and my mother answered the phone even though my mother has been gone for 35 years it would have been a weird thing almost like it’s Twilight Zone story I better check with the lawyers first
Okay, I just got a phone call from somebody that I’ve been trying to reach for a while, since Marianne Faithfull passed away. I have left messages and have not had any calls returned.
Just now the phone rang and announced to me jokingly, saying I’d like to speak to the caller who was calling, and then they hung up.
Now this person is not that tech-savvy, and as long as I’ve known them, it’s always an awkward goodbye on the phone. And I realized that as I was saying, but I was saying so, I pumped the brakes only to find them hanging up on me.
I called them right back, only to hear that they don’t have time to talk to me, even though they had just called me less than 1 minute before. Life sure is strange, I would have to say.
Well, they called me back. First time I couldn’t take the call, a minute later they called again, so I took it as I was trying to work, which was a distraction that I probably shouldn’t have done, but there it was. I have known this person since the early 80s. They’re a dear friend of mine, and sometimes they drive me crazy.
Although most of their news was bleak, it was good to hear from them.
They asked me where I was working, and I told them about the Peppermint Lounge, which used to be there. They remembered that we used to go there before 11:00? 10:00? And having to sit there for hours on end waiting for the band that we wanted to see to come on.
The Google Gemini rewrite as a Dorothy Parker essay
## The Wages of Virtue
There is a particular brand of zeal that strikes one only on Sunday afternoons—a fleeting, treacherous urge to improve one’s surroundings. It is a fever that passes, usually, but not before one has done something irreversible. In a fit of domestic industry that I shall regret until my interment, I decided to “clean” the bedroom fan. I brushed the dust away—or, more accurately, I insulted it, and it responded by relocating itself into the very air I am forced to breathe.
By midnight, the universe had exacted its toll. I awoke to a nose that ran with the persistence of a small-town gossip and a series of sneezes that threatened to dislodge my teeth. It was, in a word, wretched.
Naturally, I went to work on Monday. Martyrdom is so much more effective when there are witnesses.
Upon returning home, Mike met me at the door. I had no sooner crossed the threshold than my sinuses staged a second, more violent uprising. I suspect the dust I “cleaned” had merely been lying in wait for my return, lurking in the draperies like a creditor. I sought refuge in NyQuil—that thick, emerald velvet that promises peace but delivers a stupor so profound one forgets one’s own middle name. By ten-thirty, I was horizontal and oblivious.
Tuesday morning arrived with its usual lack of charm. I spent twenty minutes in a spirited internal debate regarding the necessity of my presence at the office. I went, of course. Next week offers a four-day reprieve for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and one must earn one’s indolence.
As for Mike, he lingers still, though he shall vanish tonight. His “beloved” flies in from San Francisco tomorrow, and I expect his arms shall be weary from the sheer effort of the reunion. God speed, I suppose.
—
The office is quiet. Not the productive, focused quiet of a cathedral, but the hollow, ringing silence of a tomb. If I were busy, the hours might possess the decency to hurry; as it is, time has simply sat down and refused to move. I am sustained only by the memory of my year-end review—a rare instance where the powers-that-be failed to notice my flaws—but even that glow is fading. I am looking forward to bed with a longing usually reserved for lost youth.
I am told I am “covered” against the flu, having submitted to the needle on the first Sunday of the year. I feel lethargic, though not quite dead. My lunch was a salad—a grim, leafy penance for past indulgences at Wendy’s. It was healthy. It was vibrant. It made me feel “more alive,” which is a terrible thing to feel when one is trapped in a cubicle.
I attempted a brief, desk-side siesta, only to be jolted back to this weary world by Paul McCartney shrieking *I’m Down*. The irony was not lost on me.
Five hours and fifteen minutes remain. If there were a soul to speak to, I might find the energy to continue, but I am surrounded by ghosts and furniture.
—
In the vacuum of my boredom, I had a thought for a story—a bit of *The Twilight Zone* for the lonely. Imagine dialing an old, discarded telephone number from one’s youth and hearing the voice of one’s mother, though she has been in her grave these thirty-five years. It’s a lovely, haunting idea. I shall have to check with the lawyers; the dead are notoriously litigious.
Then, a ring. A real one.
A friend, silent since the passing of Marianne Faithfull, finally graced me with a call. This individual’s grasp of technology is roughly equivalent to a Victorian curate’s. Our conversation was a comedy of errors—awkward goodbyes, accidental hang-ups, and a return call placed only to tell me they hadn’t the time to talk. Life is a series of such small, pointless cruelties.
We eventually spoke. It was a distraction I shouldn’t have invited, but I have known them since the eighties, and one must tolerate one’s relics. The news was bleak—as news so often is when it’s true—but the nostalgia was potent. We spoke of the old Peppermint Lounge, of sitting for hours in the dim light, waiting for a band to go on, wasting time as if we had an infinite supply of it.
Now, the time is no longer infinite. It is five hours and eight minutes. And I am still here.