Tuesday  

Tuesday was a very tough day I will admit.  Physically I feel fine. But mentally I was really depressed.  Brenda and I continue to play “Guess my Pulse Ox” which is pretty fun.  We’ve become quite familiar with each other’s oxygen levels and resting pulse rate.

Sometimes I’ll hide and scare Brenda to see if I can get her heart rate a -jumping.  It’s fun.

But didn’t have any fun-scaring in me today.  I just felt depressed.  Felt like I couldn’t go anywhere, which I couldn’t, I felt trapped in my own house.  Wait, I was.  So, I laid my fat ass on the couch and binge watched Little Fires Everywhere.  Again, I had already seen this and read the book, just didn’t want to cheat on Brenda with a new series.  I recommend this series, it’s good.  Not sure why I was serial watching Reese Witherspoon, but it got me through.  I’ll have to send Reese a thank you note. 

At some point in the afternoon my phone rang.  It was one of my favorite people, she is the closest thing I will ever have to a daughter.  I’ll call her Lisa.  I’ve known her since she was five years old.  Long ago and far away I ran a theater company.  It was free to kids in the community, a fantastic program with kids who had some amazing talent.  I was the acting teacher and director.  

Lisa was this scrawny little freckle faced kid who would try anything, was full of life, and fearless.  Except, I did learn, years later that she was actually terrified of me when she first started.  Huh.  Perhaps she picked up on the fact that I secretly did not like children.  I mean, I love teaching kids, just never wanted any in my space.  

Anyway, Lisa is grown now, I think she’s in her 60’s.  No, that’s not at all true.  But she’s a hell of a lot older than five.  She has her own kid now, a little girl named Unicycle.  Ok, that also is not true, her daughter is not named Unicycle, but what if she was??  Lisa said, she had been reading this blog in the evening when she was waiting for Unicycle to go to sleep.  As a result of this, she said she was having very bizarre dreams about Brenda and me.  She didn’t go into a lot of detail, something about a castle and moat and Brenda being Brenda – which could mean anything.  It could mean Brenda falling up the stairs into the moat to trying to sell her social security card at a yard sale. 

*Oh my god, as I write this, I’m on hold with the Walgreens pharmacy.  I love their hold music, but they keep saying there is one caller ahead of me, but that has been for like 15 minutes.  What the hell one caller, this isn’t a doctor, it’s a pharmacy!

This is a true story.  Brenda and I were having a yard sale, this was before we lived together, we had it at her house because it had better drive by traffic than mine.  A lot went wrong with that sale.  I put up signs, not well, because they had all blown down.  Brenda was selling a wallet.  I looked in it and there was an AWESOME family picture.  Brenda looks very very different now than she did then.  Also in that wallet was her social security card.  I shit you not.  She was literally going to sell her identity.  Her identity was on sale for $2.00, but she would have probably taken .50.  I love you Brenda. 

It was really so good to hear from Lisa.  As she grew up, we always laughed, and it was always about some of the strangest things.  For some reason, Lisa began to identify herself as the Unabomber.  I really can’t remember why this came about, but she would leave me notes from U.B.  shack in the woods. 

She would also leave voice mails for me in a creepy voice saying “Janelle, this is your conscience… I know what you did.  Head the warning!”  It was very unsettling; I mean what the hell?  Did she really know what I did?  And then I would try and think about what it was that I had done?  Shit.  I could go on, but honestly, Lisa is a blog post in and of herself.  If you’re reading this Lisa.  “This is your conscience; I know what you are thinking of doing!  You are a mother now; you can’t do that!  HEAD THE WARNING!”  I love you Lisa and can’t wait to meet your little Unicycle.

As far as Tuesday went, that phone call from Lisa saved me.  Got me out of myself and like she always does.  She made me laugh.  I felt so much better, I did some hiding in the house to jump out and scare Brenda.