Painting the coat red

This day could have gone one way or the other, I wasn’t sure. Seeing as how I’m still in pyjamas, though, I guess it went the other.

I spent four hours downloading music from our library onto the iPod Touch I got for Christmas, giving unfamiliar selections a quick listen to determine if they were worth trying out. And that’s about it.

Rather than cooking, I took the easy option of instant porridge for breakfast and a cheese sandwich for lunch. Thank goodness there’s a ready meal in the fridge for later.

One of our friends we rarely ever see anymore asked me to come out for someone’s birthday drinks. I briefly considered it, as it seems unlikely this day is going to get any livelier on its own. But I’m not really feeling the standing up vibe, let alone the get-on-the-tube-and-drink-and-dance-and-make-awkward-conversation vibe.

Most things I’d like to do at this point are not even possible. Such as:

Lying very still in a shoebox fit with a lid that has a million tiny pinpricks, the whole operation rotating slowly on a turntable. Someone would agree to play music appropriate to lying still in a shoebox, gazing at fake constellations. They wouldn’t speak to me; they would just quietly switch tracks all evening.

Dragging a large basin into the living room and filling it with perfumed oil and leaves and soft petals and heating it up slowly with an electric kettle conveniently located on a bathside table. A blindfolded someone would play music appropriate to having a sensual bath alone in one’s living room.

Curling up in a rocking chair in a remote country home, in a white room that has only a dresser, a mirror and a large, soft mattress hung low inside a cast-iron frame. I’m wearing a rough, cotton nightgown and my hair is tangled and unwashed but my feet are scrubbed pink and I’m just about to become aware that Bruce has been watching me from the doorway, a glass of iced tea in his hand and dust on his shoes. (The iced tea is for me.) (I gave the DJ the night off.)

Being tucked into the cab of a Ferris wheel with two heavy blankets over my lap, drinking coffee and watching the sea rise up to meet me and fall away again, over and over for hours, or until I had to pee.

I think I might have a bath.