Then I walked to work, ten minutes along the highway and up a small drive to Bill's small mobile home.
He was glad to see me, very chatty but unable to hear hardly anything I said. Finally he said, "Guess I better put my ears in!"
He asked me if I'd caught a guy yet.
"No. They are too crazy. Guess I am, too."
He laughs. We share our recent travel stories. He points to a gift bag. "That's for you. It's not a Christmas present, but a thank you. For everything you do, and for coming last minute and all that stuff."
"Oh, that's kind of you."
I clean his two bathrooms, wash his sheets, vacuum his bedroom, and clean the kitchen and livinroom well. I compliment him on the new couch placement and for the back room now cleared of most of its junk.
After two hours, I'm paid and walk toward home.
I pass a neighbor, he's standing in his lawn. We chat for a good moment. I tell him, "Let your wife and daughters know they may come over and knit whenever!"
I walk to the post office and purchase a money order. It's for a speeding ticket I received a couple weeks ago, plus $5.38. That extra money spells out the beginning of my name on a flip phone. Why would you pay extra for a ticket, you might ask. Well. To annoy the government.
According to what my dad has done before, they will send me a check with the extra. I will never cash the check. They will never be able to close the case or put it against my insurance. So goes the hope.
Monday I'll send it off along with a complaint form against the cop who issued the ticket (I have reasons to complain, aside from the fact they are taking my money).
The post office guy asks about the odd number. "Yeah, I'm doing it to annoy someone."
(The blue bag has chocolates inside 😋)
At home I watched some YouTube tutorials to see about hemming the suit jacket sleeves. There's a small issue concerning the cut button holes. I video chat the guy I work with to explain the situation. The project is put on hold while he tries to contact the client.
And so I must change the course of my day. I clean my kitchen. I eat pomegranate with chopsticks. I write a bit on my novel Bluntly Yours. I put away laundry and organize my purse and take care of paperwork. I take a half hour nap, then beta read Adeel's book. I chat with friends.
My little sister sits on the couch and we talk a bit. I call Jesse to come over to help carry a large box. He has something hot and lets me have a few sips.
When I can read and write no longer, I grab my wool bodice and start embroidering. I do that for hours.
I think about what it means to be stupid and how yesterday I felt very stupid whereas today I've been contemplating making stupid decisions, as one must always do when in a rational, melancholic way. I don't mean stupid as in drive into a curb or jump off a building, or even get a tattoo. I mean the sort where you put aside heart, mind, and gut to do something that might free you from the said heart, mind, and gut and give you a relatively solid life in return. It's stupid because you know that you'll still be driven by something and you won't actually get the solid life, but will certainly lose hope of what you truly desire.
Stupid as in, "Maybe I'll be boring so I won't feel the urge to write anymore. Maybe I'll tie myself to something I can't escape from, and convince myself I wanted to be there all along."
Doesn't make sense? Not really supposed to. It's not sensible after all. But it's some of what I entertain as I embroider.
I also wonder if maybe I could rent this wool dress out as a costume to some production film? Now there's a thought I'll keep ahold of awhile longer.
I tire of embroidering and decide to move to my room to read, write, and maybe dampen my pillow.
This is part of a series requested by Melissa to share what my life looks the week leading up to Christmas.
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