SLIPPING UNDER

Praying

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I’ve been out with a nasty head cold that’s floating around the office. I still feel like a bit of a zombie even though I am awake, showered and dressed, sitting at my desk. I have my slides for a presentation I’m working on open, along with a paper about achieving high levels of simultaneous amplification of RNA and DNA. I said that paper is open, not that I’m actually grasping the vernacular. I will have read this paper by the end of the day. I swear it. I will also write up a new protocol for running a batch of slides on the spinning disk.

Goals. I’ve got them.

Last night Micheal asked me if I was going to make it to work today and I replied with a confident yes. In truth, I felt better on Tuesday. I had just slept poorly the previous night, tossing and turning. I would wake up sweaty and then wake up again an hour later freezing. So I gave it another day. I emerged back into the world just in time to be reminded not to forget about the significance of this date. Which is stupid because some dates, no matter how hard I’ve tried, seem to never erase themselves from my memory. Chris, Todd and I sat staring blankly at the TV in Galileo’s, slightly numb and wondering how it was possible that we found ourselves glued to the TV watching scenes of terror that were uncannily familiar to the ones we watched just six years previous when the Murrah building was bombed.

Maybe I should have taken an extra day.

I could not because I already feel guilty for taking those first two days. I feel guilty and bad about a lot of things. Last week’s holiday and conference stuff messed up my gym routine and my yoga practice. Half of this week was spent laying on the couch, feeling like a poopsicle. I am super paranoid about giving this virus to Michael and have asked him half a thousand times if he’s feeling okay. Just forget it if he sneezes or coughs. I might be overdosing us on vitamin C. I received a vintage camera and I managed to purchase the wrong film so I can’t test the camera. Then the actual film for the camera is expensive and so I have to be serious about the pictures I take with it. I think maybe I should have not been so impulsive when I saw the camera and was all “I want it!” Not because the film is expensive but because I don’t have the talent required to use this camera. Then today, my facebook timeline is clogged up with “Never forget!” and images of rubble. I think, of course I’ll never forget. This horrific event in history inspired J to go fucking save the world.

I feel myself beginning to slip under and I wonder how long I can hold my breath this time. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three…

We all have our battles.