tranquilité

i am sitting in a pitch dark basement in the quiet of mid night.

my mother gave me flannel pyjamas several years ago for christmas, they're white with pink and purple hearts on them (i was born on valentine's day, so she takes it upon herself to bestow valentine themed gifts at any time of year) and i found them in a box the other day. she got me a size large, so they're way too big (in case you forgot, i'm 5'3)...but they're very comfy because i feel like when i was three and i used to wear my dad's t-shirts as nightgowns.

i am sitting in the pitch dark in my gigantic jammies, in a pile of my best blankets. here i would like to tell you about them, because they are very important--blankets are one of my top three best things about life probably. one, naturally, was a gift from my dear mother--it is a small fleece one with polar bears on it (she bought it special because i used to lahlahlove polar bears and i probably still do i guess) and fleece is good because it helps me trick my body heat into staying with me (it takes after me--love 'em and leave 'em--i brought this on myself i suppose). another is a vintage 80s barbie comfortor from when i was like 6. and the pièce de résistance: the seafoam/pistascio green horror that is the comfortor i always slept with at my grandma's house (she gave it to me when i was sick at college, it was very nice of her and the blanket helped immeasurably). one of my best generally unnoted qualities is my nesting ability.

which brings me to my next topic of the night: i think i might be made of trees. that's kind of hard to explain though, so we'll leave it at that.

thirdly (i don't really know if it's third, but who cares right): i have a lot of stuff in my arms. like, not actually in my arms, as in carrying something (obviously, or how would i be able to type all this junk) but ... well i got suckered into working a couple hours tonight (moving getting pushed to next week = shaina getting suckered into stuff) and it wasn't so busy and i was supposed to delegate this job of cleaning under some shelves...which turned into me feeling like it would be lame to give that job to someone who had to be there all night and i just like to do the sucky jobs sometimes because i figure folks "in charge" need to be participating in the process y'know? so anyways, i moved this shelf to clean under it--super gross to begin with--(i get grossed out easily), but then i noticed the shelves themselves had a bit of mold on them...and then..i looked under them...and two hours later i had cleared, bleached, and restocked the entire shelving unit from roof to floor. (there were brief intermissions wherein i polled people on the likelihood of me dying a hideous death, but we concluded that only black mold kills you. this stuff was white and actually kind of pretty until you let yourself think about it.)(if anyone is actually still reading this, i would like to point out that the entire duration of this was spent in an 8x10x8 refridgerated room--for extra credit/pity/etc.)

so why the big story about the moldy shelves? and what did it have to do with all the imaginary stuff in my arms? well i don't know i guess. but have you ever had the feeling--it could have been in your legs too, or your chest, or your eyes, or anything--that straining, electric sensation...the dull, warm ache of something being ready for something it's not got yet? my arms are like that now. they are sickeningly, disablingly ready for something (i think it is ink and blank pages, bolts of fabric, exotic recipes and intricate designs, inventions and decorations, art shops and used book stores, snowy twilights and swinging children [i met a girl who was very good at swinging on sunday afternoon--she was in grade two and had the demeanor of an agressive ragdoll and wore a fancy purple dress that really offset her knee-high faux motorcycle boots and punk rock pixie hair cut, and she insisted i swing her with complete disregard for everyone else in the universe.] .. but anyways, what do i know. it could be something i've not dreamed up yet.)