I gotta tell ya – I’ve had better days. We are officially staying in Hoboken and killing the deal for the place in Maplewood, termites and all. It’s one thing to juggle happy stress, quite another for the unhappy kind. Running ourselves ragged and living in a land of mess was bearable when there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Now, the rainbow has disappeared and it’s pouring all over our cardboard mountain and making one hell of a mess.
Counting the seconds to my hot date next Tuesday with Doctor Doom doesn’t really alleviate any pressure either. Somehow I managed to fall into one of those pits of despair where every piece of bad news you receive begets more bad news, and then more bad news, and then you convince yourself that all your upcoming news will also be bad. Let me tell you, this girl can wallow.
So what did this gal do to get herself out of the dumps? Sit-ups and laundry. Want to know how well that worked? You guessed it. Now my ridiculously sore abs (or flabs might be the more accurate term) are weeping every time I pick up the laundry basked to lug it up and down four flights of stairs. My flabs also scream each time I try and move a box over to try and rescue Lucy when she repeatedly rolls of the peak of Mount McCardboard and gets herself trapped. (Seriously, that cat could be a member of the Republican Party. “Wait, I feel like something bad happened the last time I did this…oh what the hell.”)
So still working the self-pity angle pretty hard, I finally caved and ordered some dinner. Though it took me a solid eight trips to look at the empty cupboards and fridge to confirm they were devoid of food, then another three peeks at the pile of boxes to see how far down the pans were (way too far for the sore flabs) before I finally caved.
I headed out into the sunny (and annoyingly cheerful) day to pick up the french dip that would soon be joining my flabs. There he was. My favorite 14th Street dancing machine. My first spotting of the season! Had I moved out this morning as was originally planned, I would have totally missed him. (Then again, if I’d moved out this morning as originally planned I probably wouldn’t be wondering where the hell I’d packed my Xanax.) He was a vision in all black with chartruese earbuds wires waving in the wind. And he was working it…hard. And I smiled for the first time in days.
And as cheesy as it sounds, I remember life goes on. French Dips get eaten. Laundry gets done. Strange Hobokenites get their grove on. Kitchens get scrubbed. Gals in remission get scanned. Litter gets scooped. Boxes get unpacked. Groceries get bought. Sailors get flashed. (What?! It’s Fleet Week. It’s my patriotic duty.) And life goes on. Thank goodness.
And it turns out you CAN un-forward your mail. See? This is a breeze.
We’ll be just fine. I just may have to wallow a teensy while longer.