Shocked face over that last entry date. Didn’t think it had been that long since we talked.

TOTALLY HONESTY TIME:

I’ve been quite busy devolving into a thoughtless, unblinking, possibly lizard-like creature. My brain cannot handle the opposing truths

Everything Is Completely Wrong

versus

Is There Anything Really Wrong Right Now? Nope? Just Sitting At Home, With Nothing To Do? POOR FUCKING BABY.

It’s causing a systems crash, in which I wake up fairly energetic. I go out for a jog! I drink some coffee! I make plans for low-level productivity!

By lunch, however, am making deals with myself to get hella drunk during dinner prep, perhaps wearing the fancy apron I got one White Elephant Christmas, and definitely looking the very model of a ‘50s sparkly-but-vacant-eyed housewife, despite the further illogic I’ll be in sweatpants, wash’n’wear hair, and popped elastic foundational garments. There are sometimes sincere promises to take a shower and blow dry my hair.

But by 3:00, I’m exhausted and by dinnertime, sadly too tired to drink. My college self scoffs, and I promise her we will start drinking at noon tomorrow to make up for today’s quarantine failure. We will make an event of it, wear a belt like Stanley Tucci.

A very distant Voice of Reason suggests this is stress, but a much more compelling Voice of Tinfoil Hat insists these all must be symptoms of Sourdough Starter Overdose.

#

I did finally text my mother, telling her I simply could not talk or video with her for the purposes of socialization. She took it OK.

For those invested in the My Mom’s Psychic Energy Messing With Phones Storyline, the very next day, I got up early to get some exercise and have some time completely by myself, only caring for myself, only listening to my own thoughts. My cheap-ass wireless headphones, which only have TWO buttons (PAUSE/PLAY & volume control) CALLED MY MOM.

I pressed PLAY like I have for the past two years of ownership, and headed out the door. Instead of music, this weird Blip-Blip-Blip started. Looked down and saw to my horror: CALLING LAST NUMBER and below that MOM.

Even weirder (I guess? What do I know about the rules of witchy?) it was not only a phone call, but a FaceTime call, which is exactly what my mother has been asking for.

Cursing wildly, I hit cancel about three times before the phone obeyed. But of course, it left a technological paper trail, and three minutes later, my mother texted, WERE YOU TRYING TO FT? DID YOU WANT TO TALK? I AM HERE.

Which, JFC, it was 6:30 in the morning, which is far too early to textplain to her I didn’t want to talk, leave me alone for fuck’s sake, especially when it was technically me trying to contact her. Brighsiding things, at least a text and not a FT back.

Since then, there have been daily texts with varying degrees of hints, and more than a few guilt trips, about her loneliness. I think it must be beyond her comprehension/extroverted life experience that if she is needy for human interaction, it could possibly be overwhelming for someone else. Although the texts fill me with guilt, they also very much feel like a little kid’s ploy, in which she will keep nudging into my silence bubble until the amount of energy used having to look at incoming texts is greater than the cost of picking up the phone and giving her what she wants.

Related/unrelated? She sent my kid a full sized/full volume keyboard through the mail.

It arrived yesterday. To date, I have heard Mary Had A Little Lamb approximately 40 times, Happy Birthday To You a dozen, and MOM, MOOOOOM, LISTEN TO THIS until my brain stopped processing. Which is OK, this is exactly the type of situation I’m willing to spend my emotional contact energy.

But yesterday, I did manage a drink at dinner.

#

Wes Tank rapping Dr. Suess.

And my very favorite for all the wrong reasons Shakira video, which never fails to deliver a new dose of utterly laughable WTFedness. I mean, it just keeps on giving.