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- I woke up the other night smelling smoke. Smoke wakes me up. It took me a while to figure out where I was - I had no idea - why would I set up my bed downwind from the campfire? I hadn't. I wasn't camping, I was in a bed. Where? It's that feeling you can get when you travel across the world, when you go to bed at night half a world away from where you got out of bed that morning. Where am I again? I'm in a bed. Where is that bed? ... After I figured out where I was, that I was at home in bed and smoke was coming in the window, I got up, stumbled to my window to close it, stumbled to the bathroom to turn the window fan down. But now I'm not entirely sure there was any smoke. The smoke we've been getting is distant smoke, old smoke, odorless smoke, way up high - it's not the kind that wakes you up at night. And I don't know if anyone else smelled it. Oh, we were supposed to be mid-90s, 95 today 96 tomorrow, but this thick high layer of smoke is filtering out the sun and we're only at 81 right now. Oh there's this line of dark gray thunderstorms coming in right now as well. Oh, the sprinklers haven't been running, not since late last week at least, and the lawn is getting crispy - I send a text letting him know this - the control panel is in the basement - in happier times I'd have gone down there and started a cycle myself, but these days it's stone-cold silence. I feel so isolated now, no one to talk to about these things, all these things, all these things we would have talked about, would have noted to each other. I am desperate and clingy with people, desperately trying to force things to happen - go to the beer run, go hiking, go to the concert on Friday, get a ride, dogsit for me, someone send me a text, someone reply to me, I've sent all these things out. I hate feeling like this and wish I could be okay with the way things are. I finished the book about the fake ghosts - I suppose it's ultimately ambiguous about whether they were real or not but clearly, linguistically, they were fake ghosts. Without that to put my head into, what should I do? I got out Born To Run because I don't think I ever finished it. I didn't open it, though, just carried it to bed with me. My car's at the body shop all week to get its bumper and rear quarter panel fixed, and now that I don't have a car I have a long list of very important things to buy once I get it back - hair gel out at Target, vinegar and maple syrup at Costco, a rear cassette for my bike and applicable tools at REI. An air purifier. Clothes - didn't I decide to buy myself some new fucking clothes? I don't know where to get clothes from and I don't have the mental wherewithal to think about this anymore. ('wherewithal' is maybe not as figurative as I'd always imagined it to be. Darn.) And tomorrow's fucking August.
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