I got to stay home today, seeing as in a smidgeon of time I will be knocked unconscious and any number of instruments will be crammed down my throat, such as a harp. I will literally be a harpy, finally.
Today is the day of my endoscopy; it's at 10:30. I had to go all of yesterday not eating anything red or purple, which turned out to be super-annoying. First there was the Damn, there-are-blueberries-in-my-flaxy-so-you-can-poop oatmeal that I eat every day. Then at lunch I had leftover tomato and spinach pizza, which, nope. Red.
So I went to that hippie, NPR, give peace a chance grocery store near me that never fails to get on my FUCKING nerves, and headed to the salad bar. Turkey chili. Nope. Has tomatoes in it.
GODDAMMIT.
Salad! Oh. Some of these leaves are pretty red and purple, because hippie pretentious lettuce. Just to freak people out one day, that place should just chop up a big batch of iceberg. WE HAVE A HIPPIE DOWN! HIPPIE DOWN AT THE SALAD BAR!
By the way, this time there were two men having an awareness session or something DIRECTLY IN FRONT of the salad bar. At 12:20 on a weekday. Look here, Feather Sky and English Leather Necklace, I understand your whole life you've been a part-time professor over at the community college, but most of us are SCREAMING THROUGH LUNCH HOUR at 12:20 on a Wednesday. You lilly-livered pretentious salad-bar-standing dinks.
So I loaded up on chicken, spinach, carrots and a buttermilk biscuit, all of which are distinctly not red or purple. I had to contort myself like I was in the Blue Man Group to get around the two men hugging it out at the salad bar, but finally I had my beige-family food.
After work, a bunch of us from work went to a really cool new place downtown (Downtown!). When you're alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go downtown!
Ned loves that song. I don't know what to tell you about Ned.
The point is, I just stayed for a bit, but when Ned came home from work, I told him about the place and he said, "Let's have dinner there!" and seeing it was my last night on earth, I said why not.
Here's something you never see, and I was pleased to capture it on film.
I spent a lot of time looking for food that wasn't purple or red. Eventually, I had a turkey sandwich (beige) and some mac and cheese (orange).
Am I blue? This was Ned's camera, and look how it isn't as good as my new one. Am pleased with my iPhone 6. Dear iPhone people: Send me free shit now.
I wasn't stalking the hostess, THAT YOU KNOW OF, I was just wanting you to see how pretty it was in there.
"This place is so pretty. I can't believe this sat here empty for years," I said, between beige bites.
"It was some kind of bookstore that was never open," said Ned, who lived downtown (DOWNTOWN!) for years.
Have you ever heard the B52's version of Downtown? I like it.
That Fred guy from the B52s kills me every time. I want him to narrate my life story, when they make one, which should be fascinating. June. She had cats.
The point is, when we got home, I had an email from someone who'd read my latest Purple Clover and had nice things to say to me. When people email me about Purple Clover, it means they clicked on my name over there, looked at the little writeup about me that's one sentence long, cut and pasted my blog address because PC doesn't link to my blog and I wish they would, then once they're at my blog they have to find the "email me!" button. I mean, they have to really want to talk to me, is what I'm sayin'.
So that was nice, and it occurred to me that that article must be up on PC's Facebook page, because that's usually when I get contacted by people, is once it's up there. I mean, Purple Clover on Facebook at this point has close to 2 million Likes, which if I start to think about that many people potentially reading my crap, I get sort of poopy-feeling.
See? My stomach just rumbled. I had to stop drinking liquids at 8:30, and girl, you know I had that coffee cup in my hand till PRECISELY 8:30, because addict. But now I'm typing you, and I always always have coffee while I'm typing to you, and this is dreadful. I don't know how people do this.
So, I stupidly went on Facebook's Purple Clover, and looked at my article, and they'd in fact run two of mine yesterday, and what do you know. MORE MEAN COMMENTS.
Why do I do that to myself? Why do I look?
Ned was on our front porch, and I galumphed out there like I was Snuffleupagus. "I suck," I said to Ned. "I'm the worst writer in the world. I am useless, and now my looks are gone." I slumped in the chair dramatically.
"Were you looking at Facebook, then?" asked Ned.
I HAVE TO STOP LOOKING AT THOSE. And no one tell me what you saw over there. The last time I had this people-are-mean crisis, you have no idea how many people gleefully reported back to me what was going on, like I wanted to hear that mess.
Sigh.
Anyway. What can you do? People are mean. I have never once, in my life, left a comment that was mean on anything anyone wrote. And I'm a terrible person! But I've never felt the desire to do that. I don't understand the impetus. These must be people who don't write, themselves. They have no idea what it's like to put something in the universe that you slaved over, just to get, "This was dumb."
Okay, slaved over is a bit of a stretch. Usually I just sit down and write and it takes me 30 minutes. STILL. They're a very concentrate-y 30 minutes. And I write stuff in my mind for days before I write it, sometimes.
For some reason, this reminds me of Marvin's mom, who doesn't cook very often, and once when we came to visit, she'd made a key lime pie, Marvin's favorite. I have made that guy a key lime pie, and let me tell you, it isn't easy. Do you have any idea how TINY key limes are? Plus, you have to grate the metal key part.
Anyway, she set it in front of Marvin and he said, "This looks like a quiche."
I mean, it did, but it was delicious, and I think of her slaving away in a kitchen, which was not her forte, just to be told her pie looked like a quiche. Poor Marvin's mom.
Ima go get ready to take Propofol now. I hope Ned doesn't record me coming out of the anesthesia, because have you met my inhibitions? Imagine my inhibitions on drugs.
Do you know where this surgery center isn't?
DOWNTOWN.
Throatily,
June
P.S. OH! Oh guess what. As we were leaving the restaurant last night, up at the bar was midcentury modern furniture guy. We made eye contact and as I was about to say hello, he looked away. ACK! HE KNOWS. HE KNOWWWWWWS.
You know where he lives and works?
DOWNTOWN.
