Short Stories From 10 Years Ago – September 28, 2004
“Dear Diary”
Short Stories From 10 Years Ago – September 28, 2004 – I have no idea what happens when I go to bed feeling pretty darned good and wake up a few short hours later in neck-snapping mode, my own or that of anyone unfortunate enough to cross my path. Last night was one of those nights. I chatted with Big for about half an hour before I went to bed, read some more of my Moby Dick Book Club selection and turned out the light.
I slept fairly well, got up about quarter to eight and looked after The Alphabet Boys. As I was making my morning coffee I realized that I felt like crying. “Nothing”, I repeat, “Nothing” happened to me during the night that would explain the sense of doom and gloom that had wrapped itself around me like a heavy, black cloak. Perhaps it’s related to my difficulty in reading Rohinton Mistry.
I know he’s an acclaimed author – a man of intellectual repute – a curious traveller on life’s highway – while I am a menopausal ma’am – but I just can’t get into this book. I’m struggling with this one because the Mobies are unforgiving. I must finish it, but it’s turning me into Rosemary Misery. Perhaps my first novel should be called “The Lost Hours” – a gut wrenching drama about a plump, middle-aged Toronto woman who goes to bed feeling perfectly normal and wakes up with crazed, homicidal thoughts dancing through her head.
I didn’t bother having a good cry, even after I looked in the bathroom mirror and saw my mother’s face looking back at me. It somehow doesn’t matter when that transformation took place. I wasn’t paying attention and now all of a sudden I’ve morphed into my mother. I can see doddering old age just around the next corner. I’ll never be a babe again. Perhaps I should be putting the finishing touches on my scintillating personality in lieu of my departed “babe-like” appearance.
I’ve heard that beauty is only skin deep, that it’s what’s on the inside that counts, that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that personality takes over when beauty fades. Go ahead, if you dare, and tell that to my mirror. I have no idea what you’ll hear back, but it probably won’t be printable.
I had to go to the bank today and that’s always a good sign, but after I topped up my tax account and paid “Paul and the Girls & Boys of Ottawa” their due, I was almost back to where I started. But never mind, I like to do my part in contributing to the pension plans of those hard-working M.P.’s. You just never know when Canada Steamship Lines is going to have a bad year and Paul will need our support. When I left the bank I decided to stop off at the drug store on my way home. Time to pick up some “one-a-day” aspirin to ward off a future heart attack and get some nasal strips to help clear my clogged sinus cavities when I try to sleep at night.
I suddenly realized that I’m not having a senior’s moment – I am a senior. I found myself in the face care aisle looking for age defying creams and special eye de-crinkling products. There is a warning on the L’Oreal product that I should avoid getting it in my eyes. Great – I can hardly see my face in the mirror without my glasses on and when they are perched on the end of my nose, I can’t apply the cream to my “tender eye area”. There is no fixing this – I can only attempt to alter my thinking, and that’s not going to happen on a day when the devil has sprinkled “evil dust” over my head during the previous night.
It’s become exceedingly clear that I just need to get through this blah day. When I wake up tomorrow this miasma of self-indulgence will undoubtedly have passed, and I’ll be fit for human consumption once again. Right now I’m down right nasty-natured and churlish. No amount of acknowledging my blessings is going to help today. I’ll slog through the next couple of hours, read a few pages of the mighty Mistry, slap on one of my clear nasal strips, get naked, have a hot bath and tumble into bed.
As I drift off to sleep, I’m going to forget about the new wrinkles I noticed this morning, my pudgy tummy and my mother’s reflection in my mirror this morning. The fact remains that I’m one lucky woman and deep down I know it. I used to be able to blame PMS for a day like this one, but menopause has robbed me of that excuse.
So, Dear Diary – it’s off to the bath for me – maybe I’ll feel better if I shave my legs – you never know who I might meet in my dreams. I once had sex with Kevin Costner in a dream, but he was married to his first wife at the time, so we agreed that we shouldn’t see each other again.
We didn’t have dinner together or even go to one of his movies – it was just straight off to bed. Really, it was just a one-night stand, but he was good – he really was. Enough to make a gal hope for a repeat on the dream circuit – but maybe with Viggo this time, or some other young Hollywood hottie in need of an older woman’s touch. After all – Kevin’s married again.
