not my day

it's not easy for a day like today to suck as bad as it has. at least given the way i go about these few more days before grad school starts. i wake up whenever i want, i grab some breakfast and then get on the computer. then i think about lunch, eat lunch, then go on the computer. random activities like playing the guitar, reading a book, or hanging out with my parents are interspersed throughout the day. but pretty much i just do whatever i want.

but today i woke up feeling pretty blue. so blue in fact that the rest of this post will be in blue font. it is a dark blue i feel, so with a dark blue font i will continue. so i woke up, a little bit past the time when it'd make sense to eat breakfast but before the time normal people eat lunch. i stayed in bed and finished the rest of Naked by David Sedaris, which is mostly a great book, but ended with a whimper. i was sad about that and all of that negative energy must have rushed into my bowels. because then i had major diarrhea which has lasted throughout the day.

my first bout of the runs forced me out of bed and ruined any semblance of a morning routine that i had developed these past few weeks. normally i'd get on the computer and check my email, a few websites and sign on all with a few keystrokes. i would mean to browse a thing or two here and there, but i'd end up staying there for a good half hour, doing next to nothing. there's this illusion of productivity while i'm at a computer, but the reality is i was probably more productive today, clearing out my system of bile and poop, than i would be checking the latest tech crap or reading blogs or participating in inane chat. but... wasting time at the computer is what i'm used to, and evidently what i'd choose to do with the beginning of my day if i didn't have a job, school, or any real responsibility.

so today i was in the bathroom for most of the morning, which isn't uncommon for me at all. i used to think having daily stomach pangs of varying degrees of pain was totally normal. it was normal for me to be hunched over on the can with what felt like my intestines pouring out of me. and it was normal for that to happen on average twice a week. one time in the church bathroom, i thought that i would surely die. i must have passed twelve litres of life fluids and i was sure my heart would explode under the duress from my body's cry of pain. i wondered how long it would take for someone to find me. i guestimated it would take a few weeks. the smell of feces would probably overwhelm the smell of a rotting corpse, and since the church bathroom always smelled like poop anyway, people would think i was passing some kimchi jigae or something. usually the extended thoughts on death-by-diarrhea would help pass the time, and before i knew it the pain was gone, and i'd realize i had been sitting on the toilet for a good hour since anything last came out of me. alive and butt-sore, i felt no sense of relief. just tiredness and insecurity - the next bout of diarrhea could be just around the corner. it was useless to prepare for it, and useless to fight it. i'd pull up my pants, flush, wash hands, and waddle out of the bathroom, knowing it hadn't seen the last of me.

today was nothing like that, except for my reoccurring visits to different bathrooms throughout the house. i usually spare my parents bathroom mostly because the toilet is fully exposed to the rest of the room. i'd never take a shower there either unless i had time to blast burning hot water to steam up the glass door that anyone, upon entering the doorless bathroom, could see. i mostly just stuck to my bathroom, defecating, reading, and then wiping with fewer and fewer squares so as to save toilet paper. it turns out my mom buys quintuple ply toilet paper, so really i only need one square to wipe and still protect my dainty fingers. but i use two, cuz using one would just be really weird.

other than my stomach problems, my day was... well, sad. sad and unfortunate. i thought about lunch and decided on stopping by Borders before i pick up a burger at in n out. i almost bought another Sedaris memoir, but something about that seemed like a trap. was it all just the same stuff, told differently? more elaboration on a story he'd already told me? who knows. i guess i won't until i befriend someone well enough who wouldn't mind me borrowing his other books. so i decided on a book that my small circle of friends seems to be reading - pilgrim at tinker creek by Annie Dillard. it's described, from my friend (actually from me, guessing what it could mean, and my friend affirming that guess) as a modern-day Walden, without the ridiculous flowery language. being that i'm going to uc davis, a school known for environmental and agricultural studies, and that my major is agricultural and resource economics, and being that i bought a mini plant for my room that i tend to neglect, i decided to embrace the gardening/ecology section of Borders and pick up a copy.

they carried two copies of the book, both of which had mangled spines. maybe some nature-loving fellow came in and read a chapter or two, switching off between books each time he/she came in. people like that probably don't care much for book preservation. they're probably the types that fold the book in two when they read, then put the book in their back pocket when they had read enough. as cool as that seems, i like my new books relatively untouched and unread by others. that way i could say that it's mine, and when i read it the words would be mine and the themes and messages would all be for me. even time i devote to reading is really just time devoted to me - i can't imagine being useful to anyone else while i'm reading. i can't make rice, look up directions online, or hold a conversation. i guess reading as a form of self-improvement is okay, even though it's totally selfish. if someone finds me reading, they don't think of me as lazy so much as intelligent, interesting, something like that. there's a peace to that - the same peace that people take for granted during a (normal) bowel movement. if you're on the john, nobody's going to harass you saying that you need to be somewhere else. really, you're doing the most important thing you could do at the time, and no one else can say anything. reading a book is a less powerful activity, but it has similar benefits, if the reader's goal is to get by doing something enjoyable without harassment from the people.

i bought the book then headed over to in n out, which wasn't the closest fast food restaurant, but had become my favorite. the burgers were fresh and the flexibility of their menu allowed me to order them "animal style", which means that they add some delicious things to the burger. i haven't quite figured out what those things are. but after today i've definitely become a bit more suspicious. as the story goes, i pull up to the in n out drive-through, which is backed up by other hardworking american patrons who, like me, appreciate the fresh ingredients and friendly faced workers. i do like i always do, ordering a number one with no cheese, my burger animal style, with a coke. $5.10 at the window. i pull up, listening to a sufjan-inspired band, St. Vincent. and by listening i mean punching the track-forward button on my steering wheel after each annoying five second intro to each ridiculous "song". there are a few keepers on the album, but mostly the girl can't think of a melody if her life depended on it, and her singing is stylized in a way that makes you want to squint your eyes and shake your head, or just end your life. i settle on a quiet ballad and turn the music down as i hand my credit card to the woman at the first window. no hello? no thank you? no nothing? maybe she was having a bad day. no person can be bouncy and friendly every day. grace. i will give grace. i pull up to the next window and the jolly lady hands me my coke and my mysteriously animal stylized burger and fries. i don't even check the back to see if it's right - these guys never let me down.

i pull up to my house and unload the carton of fries as i turn the tv on. something catches my eye but i'm too busy looking for "law and order" or some variation of it - i mean, criminal intent or special victims unit, not cold case or the closer or any of those other jokes of detective/courtroom shows. i carefully extract the burger and then say a prayer of thanks to the God who provides beautiful, piping hot food for just 5 bucks. as i reach down for a fry, something small and black draws my attention. i pick it up hoping its just a stray hair. and thats exactly what it was. a stray pubic hair. black and curly and laying under two fries i had just put in my mouth.

a more proactive person would immediately spit out the fries, get pissed off and then drive the ten minutes back to in n out to raze the place in hellfire, then find the pervert worker, probably that unfriendly girl at the first window, and make her eat a few fries covered in ketchup and pubes. the manager would come out apologizing like crazy, offering me free food for life. going back would have been the smart thing to do. but instead i just kept eating. i ate my burger and ate all the fries, wondering what the hell i was actually eating, what disgusting particles were in my otherwise delicious food. i tried not to think about it, because when i did there was little to no accident about it. how could a pubic hair "accidentally" fall into my fries? was the guy that chopped the fresh potatoes doing it in the nude? the inevitable truth was that someone put it there, but i pushed it out of my head. after i finished my meal, i couldn't help but feel a little sick. the fries were actually delicious, but still i felt used. i felt like the butt of a joke that some 14 year old in n out punk is laughing at right now.

but then i realized the feeling was just my diarrhea coming back again. whatever entered my body has or will surely pass through to a watery grave.

today is not my day. a pall of sadness rests over me, a sheer veil that darkens the otherwise beautiful California sky.

and later i'll be off to a bbq to schmooze with people in my department. i'm one of the new guys. it saddens me further that they'll be meeting a kid, ravaged by stomach problems, by pubic hair, by life itself. i will bring my sadness with me. i will be the rain that forces everyone inside. where we can sit and talk over coffee. where we can listen to music or read pilgrim at tinker creek.