One Day: A Solo View

So, I won't lie. I forgot that Weds was 1DASV til I was already in the middle of it, and a friend tweeted about it. Whoops.

Sept 21, 0:00
I am on the loveseat with my boyfriend, watching a David Attenborough documentary about birds, eating edamame that he made for me, drinking wine, playing Tiny Tower on his iPad. He is, at various points, working/watching/sleeping. We've been shaky, lately, but I am, for the moment, content.

0:30
Boyfriend is breathing deeply, asleep. I wake him up and tell him to go to bed. He is doing this new thing where he wakes up at 6am, no matter what time he goes to bed. I think it's looney tunes, but then, I'm the insomniac, not him. He goes upstairs. I continue playing Tiny Tower.

1:00 - 2:00
Tiny Tower. Its repetitive actions, plodding pace, and minute increments of progress compels me. One more update. One more update. Oh, only 5 more minutes til the Optometrist is stocked? I can wait that long. 3 more minutes til the Game Store is stocked? I can wait that long. Hey look, if I wait 10 more minutes, I can place this new bitizen in their dream job! I can wait that long!

Meanwhile, my boyfriend is upstairs, asleep, and my body, exhausted from 2 hours of roller derby practice, doesn't know what the fuck I'm doing.

2:00 - 6:00
I head upstairs and crawl under the sheet, still clothed. I have a new pillow at his place (procured by me), and I wonder if being able to sleep on a pillow of my very own will make things more comfortable for me.

Nope.

The pillow is great, but I toss and turn for an hour. Big spoon is uncomfortable. Little spoon is uncomfortable. Him touching me at all is uncomfortable. Him not touching me at all is uncomfortable. I feel bad, like my constant struggle with the covers must be keeping him awake. He has to be up in 4 hours. I should just go home.

6:00
I only know because I feel him stir, and it seems to be light out. I guess I didn't leave. I guess I must've slept? It doesn't feel like it.

6:30?
I hear the shower running. Still feel uncomfortable. Oh. I slept in my clothes. Again. Is it my boyfriend or his roommate in the shower? Is it really this bright out? What time is it? Oh. There's no clock. Maybe I'll try sleeping again. I drooled all over my pillow.

Boyfriend emerges from bathroom, damp. "Are you waking up, or just getting back?" I ask. He went to his crossfit class at 6.30, howeverlong ago that was. Or maybe he's just getting up. I don't know.

"Just got back."

Oh.

So really,

8:00
He goes downstairs to make breakfast. I stay in bed, uncomfortable, somewhere between awake and asleep. Did I sleep? I must've, Did I sleep well? No. I'm sore -everywhere-. Is it from the futon, or - oh. I had practice last night. Maybe it's that. Maybe I shouldn't've slept in my clothes. Maybe I should've gone home like I'd planned. Maybe this stinks. Ugh. Why is it so bright. Why can't I just be asleep.

9:00
I toddle downstairs. Getting dressed is easy, when you sleep in all your clothes. Back to Tiny Tower while boyfriend finishes up some worky things from last night. His roommate comes home, and I tune out while they talk about their plan for the day - to head up to Vail and sign the lease for their ski cottage. Did I mention that it's bright out?

10:00
The boys have left, I've cleaned up the dishes from last night, plugged in the iPad, and need to move my car before it gets a ticket. They invited me to Vail with them before they left, but I'm exhausted, no idea if I'm going to go.

I drive the 3 blocks home (I drove over after practice. No walking places further than my couch happens after derby practice.), and my version of breakfast is everyone else's version of snack. Leftover pasta and tomato sauce, which I may or may not have accidentally left on the counter last night.

11:30
Twitters are twittered, nap is no where in sight, I'm eating cookies. They are also a part of breakfast. Boyfriend and roommate swing by, I've decided sure, why the hell not, let's go to Vail.

12:00

En route to Vail. It's my first time up there since living in Colorado - the last time I was there was right before I moved out here, for my uncle's wedding at his house in Avon. Sitting in the backseat, I'm able to do a thing that was impossible for me to do when I drove my family out there - namely, relax. I continue to check the twitterverse, continuing to not care about any Facebook changes, distressed at the futility of the #TroyDavis case, and sad when I learn about R.E.M. breaking up. I make a few poorly received Orange Crush jokes. Then we drive through the Eisenhower tunnel, and I put on a PowerPuff Girls birthday party hat that I find under one of the roommate's seats.

Happy birthday, Christophe.

I still have no idea what this video is about. Were videos in the 90's ever "about" anything? Or just there as visual background noise? I'm looking at you, 120 Minutes.

The boys spend the drive up brainstorming their newest business venture. I'm flattered that they ask for my input, but they're talking techy things, and the best I can contribute is "bacon". For the record, at some point, one of them mentioned Klout. So it seemed obvious.

14:00
Vail! It looks exactly the same as I remember - pretty, but vaguely EPCOT-esque. Roommate's favourite bar/grill doesn't open til dinner, so we're left with a crapshoot for our lunch options. I dither for longer than I think either of them appreciate, but we end up, accidentally, at a fairly decent Italian place. Overlooking the only alley in Vail (as we learn from a passing tour group), we chow down, then head out. Coffee is necessary before heading to East Vail to sign the lease.

15:00
We arrive at their ski condo, a basement level with a hot tub and a small yard, overlooking a creek. The leasing agent, who told us to meet her there at 3, isn't there. We mill.

15:30
Leasing agent arrives. Doesn't have the key. Luckily the door is unlocked? She is confused to learn that people are currently living in the space. We do a walkthrough, and despite several line items in the lease still being incorrect, they sign. I'm not as cranky as I may appear to be at this point, though I have very, very little patience for their leasing agent. Business taken care of, we get back on the road, headed towards Boulder.

16:00
It appears to be fall in Colorado. I've been here for 4 years, and I'm not convinced that the in-between seasons actually happen here. Mostly, I think I'm spoiled by Philadelphia's lush springs and technicolor falls. The leaves are changing in bits and pieces in the scenery, and I need to remember to google for an apple farm.

I need at least 3 more colors to register this as "fall".

16:30

Back at the Eisenhower tunnel, we encounter mysterious construction traffic, and I learn what coming up in the winter will feel like.

Slow. Waiting. Forever.

17:00
Frisco. Bathroom break. I don't think I've been in a highway-side bathroom since my roadtrip to Idaho with the boyfriend, and it brings back an odd sense of deja vu. There is no baby changing table in the women's bathroom, which I learn when I exit my stall to find a woman changing her son on the bathroom floor. In other news, nothing says birth control like a baby on the bathroom floor of a gas station.

19:00
Home. I passed out somewhere between Silverthorne and Golden. Boyfriend offers to stay and nap with me, but I feel... edgy. Overwhelmed. ("Can you ever just be... whelmed?") I stumble eagerly into my own bed, and promptly pass out again. The wind is chilly, blowing through my bedroom window, and the sky is clouded over, either having just rained, or threatening to do so in the near future.

21:00
I dream, but nothing I want to remember. The dream unfolds in the style of Law & Order, and I wake, concerned that someone may have been investigating the death of my relationship. There's got to be something in the air, as texts received during naptime reveal that boyfriend is not feeling particularly awesome, either.

I settle into my evening routine of faux-domesticity, pretending that I am capable of feeding myself (dinner: Goldfish crackers, more chocolate chip cookies, some chicken/cilantro dumplings I find in the freezer), or of watching things on the internet that do not resemble giallo films, either in parts or in full. Hell's Kitchen, The Basketball Diaries, Modern Family... I suppose one out of 3 is better than usual.

By the time I'm exhausted enough to pretend to be able to fall asleep again, it's well into the next day. The boyfriend is inevitably waking up as I'm going to sleep. Again. I listen to the world waking up as I fall asleep.