Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Social Construct




The kids and I made a lemon cake on Monday morning. We celebrated my daughter’s half birthday. As I cut off small piece after small piece, at 9 am, I said, “Dessert is just a social construct. You want to have cake, just have cake. Besides, we could call this a muffin, and how does that make it any different?”

Eating cake for breakfast, and drinking coffee at night. I ramped up my coffee intake, and started giving myself headaches. When my kids are gone, and I just feel like thinking, I have coffee. It’s 7 am somewhere, am I right? Who cares if I’m watching TV till 2AM, time is just a social construct.

I’m not working a farm here, I don’t need to adhere to a color coded white board schedule to make it through the quarantine. I always have a list of stuff to do, and never really suffer from a lack of motivation. It could be the coffee. I see this color-coded white board in my head. Sometimes, it’s annoying because the list is always there, lingering, like those people who only Russell Crowe can see in A Beautiful Mind. There tends to be one toe that’s not willing to stay in the present moment, and it’s never a good idea to cut your toe off.

This list was on my mind as I was driving back from McKinley Park the other day. I wasn’t even looking at my phone, but I drove thru a four-way stop, and then heard this man yelling at me, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?”
It scared the shit out of me, and then I had a heart wrenching moment of panic when I realized, I almost ran that guy over, his accompanying woman and dog. So, how could I explain that to an officer, I was looking at the road, driving the route I’ve driven four thousand times before, and this fucking trifecta of Patagonia wearing folks just appeared out of nowhere.

Thank God, I didn’t hit them. I was so startled after the guy yelled at me, that I felt a knee jerk reaction to yell back him, but how do you tell someone to fuck off you almost just accidentally killed. Luckily, I stifled the urge, because one of my toes would stay on that moment for much longer than it needed to.

Last night my son was seriously distressed because he felt like he had to pee but it wasn’t coming out. Eventually he cried himself to sleep. This morning we called the doctor, and had to go into the office so they could get a pee sample. We moved through the office like we were in a bubble, excessively squirting ourselves with the hand gel.
Hopefully, he doesn’t make a habit of peeing in cups, because he found that to be very exciting. Luckily, he doesn’t have a UTI. The doctor thinks his bladder gets irritated from too much sugar. He really went for that cake yesterday, having his fifth piece right before we went to start bedtime reading. Watching the sugar intake was just added to the mental color-coded white board.

My kids go back to their dad’s today. After getting a lecture from him on how to properly social distance, I’ll probably drink a Monster energy drink and pick apart my busted ass manicure. My finger nails will end up jagged and flimsy, but it’s not really worth a complaint, since, well, people are dying, and of course, because beauty is just a social construct.

Last night I dreamt that I ate my own poop! Just straight out of my underwear, like a burrito wrapper. It is disgusting, but in the dream, it was just like, whatever, I’m eating this doo. My kids found this to be incredibly fascinating, and so did I. An online dream dictionary (so there, it’s more common than you think!) says, to dream about eating your own poop means that it is time to think about a change.

Well, there has never been a better time for this task. I will move it to the top of my mental color-coded white board. I think I’ll make myself some coffee and start on this now. Thinking of change, and so it starts, a personal construct.


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