On Parking Spots, Germaphobes, and Flaking on Parties
November 29th, 2022, Tuesday:
Yesterday was the least disappointed I’ve ever been about Mommy not coming. I’m getting good at not getting my hopes up!
I did shave my legs this morning though, so there’s bound to be some disappointment if she doesn’t show now…
It’s been feast or famine with Mommy recently. It felt like we were together for half of October. It was amazing.
Then, starting a couple weeks ago, BAM nothing but the universe playing tricks on our plans.
I don’t understand that, sometimes, except that it seems suspiciously like more lessons in non-attachment.
Which is dumb and stupid!!!!
I remember my dream from last night.
I’ve been trying to remember my dreams. When Hannah was visiting, she said that she used to be able to lucid dream, and that it all starts with becoming aware of what’s going on when you’re sleeping. She suggested I start with a sleep journal, writing down a dream the second I wake up so I’ll remember it.
I’ve been trying to follow her recommendation without being totally OCD about it. It’s been interesting, almost like I’m trying to weave a bridge between my conscious and unconscious self.
So it should have been pretty exciting that I remember last night’s dream.
But do you know WHAT I dreamt about???
I went to bed at 10pm last night, and pulled myself out of bed around 8am. Which means (sorry, I’m really not trying to brag) that I was in bed for 10 hours.
And as far as I can tell, the entire portion of my sleep spent dreaming…
Was spent dreaming…about my parking spot.
Seriously?!
Long, elaborate conversations with a woman I hadn’t met yet (who my subconscious just invented), the imaginary friend of my new second-floor neighbor.
A huge white trailer had parked crookedly across the whole space, taking up the entire lot.
My dream reflected my current anxiety; I’m renting my spot out and last night I told him to put the cones back, but he didn’t, so now he’s gonna show up to no spot and get mad at me even though it’s not my fault!!
This morning, when I woke up, I did a quick calculation: I’m already giving them an amazing deal, $80 for the month, and they keep squeezing in extra days all innocent-like. Which I’ll tolerate to a point, because this is money in the bank that comes practically from nowhere, and at least having a car there half the time dissuades people (mostly) from parking in it when they shouldn’t.
But still, there are the people who park there when they shouldn’t, and it’s already happened twice that my renter showed up and had nowhere to park.
It’s interesting that I’m devoting even my sleeping energy to this, given that it’s earning me a couple dollars a day. It’s seriously not worth the amount of emotional energy I’m giving it.
Meanwhile, my fucking landlord is probably never going to answer my email about the refrigerator. And my rent is actually worth something to him.
It seems like nobody has work ethic, or ethics in general.
So yeah. Here I thought that my dream world would be full of unicorns and butterflies, while instead, I’m getting anxious about things that aren’t my fault and actually don’t matter.
Why is this not a surprise?
The surprising thing is that I expected anything different.
Oh well. By the time I’m through practicing lucid dreaming, I’ll be flying through the forest on a magic broomstick, Bun Buns by my side with a cape, using her ears for wings.
My dreams are gonna be excellent. First I just have to stop pushing my anxiety into my subconscious. Should be easy, right? Right.
And here I had been so proud about my mental health!!!!
I suppose anxious-dreams are better when they’re about parking lots than when they’re about me literally dangling from a precipice. Like, not a symbolic precipice. A real one.
Sometimes it’s a really tall cliff, or a road that people are driving up that is just too steep…snow, ice, a raging river…one second I’m floating lazily along, and the next second my heart is racing because I know the current is taking me in the wrong direction, I’m gonna go over.
I never know what happens after I fall. I just fall, and then the dream shifts, or I wake up.
One time, I dropped Fern from the top of a really tall tree. It was horrifying, terrible, watching her fall and being unable to catch her.
Those dreams are worse than parking lot bickering, I guess.
The girl in my dream wouldn’t tell her friend not to park in my spot!
I was like, “Seriously? I’m going to be calling the tow truck on repeat offenders [even in my dream I was bluffing. Well, I have to do some research first anyway, and make sure I won’t get charged/my neighbors won’t make my life a living hell]. You would rather she get towed than just politely tell her where she should park?!”
People. I can’t handle it.
Something else happened, though. I just remembered.
In my dream last night, I saw a cliff, or a wall, or, a…a precipice. And in my dream, I thought, that’s the kind of thing I usually fall from in my anxious-dreams.
So…that’s pretty meta, right???
It’s 1:22pm now. My acceptance-of-the-universe-deciding-whether-or-not-I-get-to-see-Mommy ran OUT. So I turned my phone on.
And there were NO messages from Mommy! Not a one, since yesterday afternoon when she had told me she was definitely coming yesterday!
Outrageous!
Me: Where are my Mommy words??? Are you okay? Are you coming over today? I WANT you to. Stamps foot.
Mommy (an eternity later): I’m sorry kitten. I wrote to you yesterday but failed to send it. I saved it, maybe I’ll send the message later. Anyway, it’s been hell. I’m mobile now, but have to be very careful. I’m definitely coming. I wish I could have been with you instead of in pain.
This, for the record, is why I thought Mommy was sickly back in the day, mentioning it casually in reference to Mommy’s potential high susceptibility to COVID. Mommy was like, “Um, baby girl, I know I might not be a yoga-chick, but I AM strong as an ox. Is there a reeeeason you think otherwise?”
I wasn’t sure, actually. It took a bit of digging for us to find the reason: All the times I haven’t been able to see Mommy because she “isn’t feeling well.”
That’s when Mommy pointed out that debilitating pain from old injury is not the same as chronically and potentially terminally ill.
The nuance had been lost on baby girl.
So now I think she’s coming, and my hopes are back up to where they clearly were before.
I need my Mommy.
I think I got scammed at Marché Newon. This rice cooker is spitting starchy water everywhere. I even tried to de-starch it and keep it in one place, thinking that might help. It spit with the sushi rice last time, too.
The basmati rice it cooked too dry.
Blergh.
I’m making the veggie sushi of my childhood, hippie vegetarian from the food co-op. Except I don’t have cucumber and I found fish cakes at the Korean store (along with daikon root and pickled plum!) so I guess it’s pescatarian now.
I also made ginger cookies this morning, after I helped myself to an extraordinary it’s Tuesday morning let’s start the day this way hit on the bong.
The ginger cookies are divine! I grated two tablespoons of fresh ginger, ignoring somebody’s suggestion of cutting down on the spice.
They’re as yummy as the ones I used to buy at the Fruiterie in the Plateau, which I was willing to overspend on until they stopped selling them. And I made the brownies after I paid waaaaay too much for some mediocre bakery eclairs.
I guess that’s why I’ve suddenly started baking. :) I may as well make it myself. It costs less and I’ll do it right.
While my phone was on, I texted the parking spot renters. I was like, Hey, up to you, but the best way to guarantee that nobody takes your spot and makes you late to work is by blocking it.
Cuz I’m just waiting for the day when I’m indisposed and there’s a car that won’t move and they’re all annoyed.
If I continue to allow so much mental aggravation from this, I’ll quit. It’s not worth the $80 a month.
But I’d like the $80, so I think the key is to stop giving this task so much importance.
Honestly, this is just what my brain does, though. I’m actually doing so well, I’m struggling for reasons to get anxiety. So my brain is like a proud puppy dog now: I found one, I found one! You can get worried about PARKING!
Hmm. I think that sushi was too not-like restaurant sushi and too not-like-sushi-from-my-childhood-sushi.
I think I’m gonna have to keep playing with the fillings. And probably need some avocado.
Cuz that’s reasonable, in Northern North America on the second-to-last-day of November.
12/2/22
Friday with challah rising in the bowl
I flaked on my plans for this weekend. The entire world is sick right now, and I’m finally physically healthy and mentally stable, ish, as it were…
And I don’t want to go to a party with a bunch of strangers and risk getting sick for two weeks because that’s how long it takes me to recover from a cold.
Gale has Covid right now. The crazy thing is, she had it when we were together last weekend and possibly when we saw each other at dance a few days prior, the night I danced with Bryan and then found Mommy on the metro.
But both of us had worn masks. I was like, dude, just don’t come if you’re sick, which is when she changed tacks from, “I have a really bad cold,” to “I’m practically better, and it’s been a long time, since Monday!”
It was Wednesday. Gale has a strange conception of time.
“Please don’t get everyone we’re gonna dance with this weekend sick, pretty little butterfly,” I said. “The entire world is sick right now.”
I walked in with my mask on, and when she saw me, she didn’t make eye contact before grabbing hers nonchalantly from a bag.
“I’m really fine!” she said to me sheepishly in greeting. “I’m pretty much over it.”
(“I kind of pressured Gale into wearing a mask,” I admitted later to Mommy, curled up against her in the metro. “Good,” she replied.)
I felt a little ridiculous with my mask on, self-conscious in the huge group. We were the only ones.
The workshop came a few days later, on Saturday, and I was really like, okay this is silly, it’s six hours and wearing a mask will be awful.
But then I walked in and Gale was wearing one. Of her own accord this time, no pressure from me.
“It didn’t go away,” she murmured with a nervous giggle. “I wanna make sure I don’t give this to anyone.”
I reverse-pressured myself and put one on. Dance involves being in each other’s faces, and the entire world is sick right now, have I mentioned that?
The workshop started with group warmups, doing silly little stretch-walks across the floor.
Like the game piece on the ouija board, I somehow moved magnetically toward Etienne, by his side by the time they told us to pick groups.
I was almost going to catch his eye, or maybe I wasn’t, when Gale said, “LORELAI! You don’t have a partner? You’re with us.”
And we were off.
It was an awesome group, me, Gale, and Jade. Jade is adorable. Petite, strong, stretchy…As three women, we still managed to do almost all of the moves, me flying on Gale, Jade flying on me, me convincing Gale I should fly her too, her flying both of us…
By the end of the day, my legs were struggling to bend from leg-pressing my friends all day.
I think it was the most fun I’ve ever had at a workshop.
And I didn’t hear the word “Richard” even once. Not even once.
Monday, Group Message to Jade and me, from Gale:
Hey ladies, I had a wonderful time with you on Saturday. Also, I just tested positive for Covid. I hope you’re both feeling okay and that you don’t get sick. Lorelai, thanks for the mask encouragement.
Okay, well at least now I didn’t feel like a complete jerk, anyway.
It’s been a long week, waiting to see whether or not I’ll get sick. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t, because I literally didn’t give the viruses a bridge into my body, but…you know viruses. They’re wily fuckers.
I sent Etienne a message last night saying as much, and felt immediately self conscious. He’s the opposite of a germaphobe, and maintains that by listening to your body and “aligning yourself properly,” you won’t get sick. Whatever that means.
I’d roll my eyes, except he’s pretty much the healthiest person I know.
Blergh.
But either way, he doesn’t tend to get sick, and I do. And when I do, it lasts a long time. So it makes sense that I’m a germaphobe, and until my body-listening and positive thinking really takes off, I’m gonna keep wearing a mask and flaking on parties.
This morning I woke up knowing in my bones that I wanted my shabbos back.
Within a few moments I’d composed a text to Karen and Jessie:
Hey beauties, hope all is well. So, I was exposed to Covid last week. I’m pretty sure I’m past the point of being worried, but I’m still masking just in case (and also to avoid the trillion viruses that appear to be circulating.) The thing is, masking at a party is neither practical nor fun. I had a card ready and a dessert…maybe we can celebrate Jessie sometime in the next couple weeks?
Then I juggled some drawbridges and turned off my phone.
Right then. It’s just about time to put the challah in the oven. I split the dough into two braided rolls and one smaller braided loaf. I’ll eat one of the small ones and give the other one to Naomi. The bigger loaf will come with me to Lynn’s tomorrow, ‘cuz we’re ‘sposta spend the afternoon together. She is better now after having been sick all week, so she’s likely the safest person I can hang out with. Right? Right.
Naomi loves my challah, so I try to bring her some whenever I can.
Once, I invited her to Shabbos and she was like, yeah, no. But I love the bread…
She’s like my dad, I guess. Childhood memories bad enough to poison the whole religion. It’s a pity, really.
I think I need to not be looking at a screen anymore, and this post is getting pretty long. I feel like there are a thousand loose ends everywhere, and I want to wrap them up. But I think I have to do it in my head before I do it through words.
In any case, my eyeballs are angry with me. It’s been a long week for Super Boss Bitch.
So I’m gonna stop writing, now.
Happy weekend, everyone!
Love,
Lorelai
PS Mommy said the reason I was getting all triggered about parking spots is ‘cuz it was symbolic of me having my boundaries violated. It all made sense after that. I’ve finally stopped obsessively checking up on things. Also, I gathered up my courage. In response to the third “exceptional request” to park an extra day, I sent a friendly but firm reply. I informed them I’ll be charging the “very reasonable rate of 6$ a day for, any extra days outside the pre-agreed monthly schedule. Caveats about snow removal, cones, and advance notice still apply.”
They responded with a thumbs up, so I guess we’re good to go.
