reading

bedroom galilee clive barker bathroom martha stewart's living car/walk beach boy ardashir vakil

listening

office up r.e.m. car breakheart hill [book-on-tape] thomas h cook living room the sci fi channel

surfing

brand x   the message came from out of the blue: Brand X welcomes you into its clutches.

1999 may 12

too far away

i'm still tired.

my sleep patterns have been unusually horrid of late. i nod off very quickly, but it seems i jump right off a cliff and land in a deep sleep full of very realistic dreams that seem totally plausible whilst i am dreaming them, and even somewhat plausible just after i awaken, but completely surreal upon further reflection. still, they are so real, and so full of detail, that i catch myself wondering, "did that happen? or was that in one of those dreams?" i wake up about four or five times a night, take my bearings, occasionally get up to pee, and then back to sleep and more dreams. i wake exhausted every morning, and for the last three days, that waking occurs at 3:30.

work is worse than usual. as a department of one [they still have not seen fit to post a position for the one vacated by the officemate from hell] i am even more overworked than usual. three different departments are all screaming at the top of their geeky lungs for things that cannot, apparently, be done by anyone other than me. of course all three have equal priority and i spend my time being yanked back and forth between all these projects as the department heads get their tasks reprioritized to number one after some successful ass kissing. i think the veep's arse cheeks must be getting puckered from all the slobbering attentions they have been receiving of late.

and on top of it, my monitor is starting to die, flickering ominously just when i have to stare at it for hours and hours and of course, there is no spare monitor nor any money in the budget for a new one just now. "maybe next month, claire."

but the thing that is most exhausting me, the thing that is overwhelming me at the moment, is the news i received about theodore's mother monday afternoon. s. was driving home from arizona with her husband, a., [they do that snowbird thing] when she had a series of extreme headaches and some other symptoms. they stopped at a hospital in las vegas where at first the doctors thought she had had a small stroke, but after tests and scans discovered she has a massive tumor near the top of her brain. it is so massive and putting so much pressure on her lobes they wouldn't allow her to fly home for the surgery but are doing it today, there in nevada.

doctor d was in bali or new guinea or some other exotic island location and we just managed to track him down yesterday. he is going to try and get a flight to vegas but is unsure when one will be first available. i am so anxious for him to get there it is making my stomach ache. i don't know if he could handle something happening to his mother so soon after theodore's death. i say so soon, even though it has been a year and a half, but it still feels so fresh and painful whenever i even think of his name. i know it is the same with doctor d. he worshipped his brother and the only person he may have loved more is his mother.

they are too far away. i want to be in the waiting room with a., to hold his hand and whisper those nonsensical "it'll be all right"s that somehow manage to make you feel better in spite of their banality. i want to be able to give doctor d the hugs he is going to need, but won't ask for. i want to take one perfect flower into s., just to see her smile. i haven't seen her since last summer.

tearily, claire

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