Looking at our feet, as we lay in bed, I noticed my boyfriend and I both had holes in the toe of our socks. I said something about it only mattering if you go to someone’s house who makes you take your shoes off. He made me laugh when he said, “All you can say is, ‘Sorry, I’m a piece of shit.’”
The next weekend I took my kids to an ice skating rink. With the skate rentals, I had to take my shoes off, so I planned for it. Watching the three of us on ice skates explains why driving my kids around after school and on weekends for sports is not the best use of our time. Kiki clutched the side of the rink as she walk-skated the perimeter. Lap after lap, she refused to let go. By the end of our time, there was a slight improvement, I know this because I was right behind her.
People whizzed by us. An older person caught my eye. They were pretty big too, which made them even more impressive. On our third lap, I noticed that person fell, and they were surrounded by ice skating employees. On our next lap, the employees set up cones around them, and everyone skated around this possibly concussed-broken-backed senior. The next lap, EMTs were there helping the injured person. They took off their ice skates, and as I went by, holding Kiki’s hand, I saw they had a hole in their sock.
The start of the week was unusual because I left for work without my phone. I stomached the anxiety that no one could reach me for six hours, but by the time I was in my office I remembered I could text from my laptop, so I let everyone know.
I text my older sister, “I forgot my phone at home!”
Just like Nancy Drew, she wrote back, “How are you texting me then?”
I explained modern technology, and we text-chatted.
The very next day, I left my phone again. How I got in the habit of leaving my house without my phone surprised the shit out of me.
I usually listen to podcasts as I inch into Sacramento on the freeway, but instead, I had to listen to NPR. After the first day, I felt pretty caught up on world news. I heard one person say, “On average, Americans check their email seventy times a day.” And I felt quite smug, as I considered myself liberated from smartphone shackles.
When I was in my office I did the same as the day before and messaged everyone from my laptop. When I initiated a chat with my sister, I made sure she knew it was me. I wrote, “I forgot my phone again! Remember that time in your apartment in Philadelphia, when I woke up in the middle of the night and shit in your kitchen garbage can?”
It must be a familial problem because she wrote back, “Hahahaha. I almost just peed my pants.”
I wanted to write back, “Sorry, I have a hole in my sock,” but the inside joke would have raised her suspicion.
I haven’t forgotten my phone since, and I’m back to being shameful instead of smug, as I repeatedly check email. I find myself checking the weather a lot. In case you’re not listening to NPR, Northern California has been under a storm for what feels like four months. Every day has a raincloud next to it.
Assuming the internet has divine knowledge, I googled “When is it going to stop raining in California?”
And she told me, “Mid-April.”
I obsessively checked the weather because of a half-marathon I signed up for after concocting my New Year’s Resolutions on January 1. I picked up my race pack in a torrential downpour, and let everyone know I was probably not going to the race the next day. They were all volunteers, standing in the freezing cold, so they gave me a look that yelled, “Fuck off,” and I left even more conflicted.
I had the suspicion that if I didn’t go to the race, the sun would miraculously come out and I’d spend the rest of my life feeling like a little bitch. Maybe not for the rest of my life, but for at least ten years. I’ve listened to too much Tony Robbins. In an interview, he said the reason he does an ice plunge every morning is not for the health benefits, but as a lesson to himself, when he says he’s going to do something, he does it.
So I amped myself up, “When I tell you to do something, you better do it.” I added some Samual Jackson flare at the end. It was a motivation barrage against myself from some part of myself that acts like it's better than myself. Very confusing.
God did me a solid, and when I checked the weather that morning, the gray clouds next to 8 am and 9 am didn’t have the usual rain slashes underneath them. I couldn’t train because of the aforementioned rain, so I was going off of two cups of coffee and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
My runner’s high kicked in on mile four. It made the run a literal stroll down memory lane. I passed the place the kids did gymnastics as toddlers, the Embassy Suites we stayed at when my brother got married, and the dentist I went to three years ago when I had dental insurance and never went back to get my cavities filled. This reminded me to add “don’t miss open enrollment again” to my New Year’s resolutions.
Everyone was in high spirits, even the volunteers giving us our dixie cups of Gatorade. I recently watched the documentary Stutz on Netflix and had the realization while listening to Wilco’s Jesus, etc, “Jeff Tweedy must have been a Phil Stutz patient.” The high was really peaking because I shouted at myself, “EVERYONE IS A BURNING SUN.”
By mile twelve the high wore off. My resolve was strong, and I trotted along like a horse with eye patches on. When I crossed the finish line, there were crowds of people celebrating. I got my free burrito and sent a text to everyone of a picture a volunteer took of me holding my medal. They gave me some of God’s money.
Back home I kicked off my shoes and looked at my feet. As I crossed this off my New Year's resolutions list, my inner voice and Samual Jackson proclaimed, “You don’t have holes in your socks, motherfucker.”
Then I limped to the kitchen and took Tylenol because I told myself to.
