February 29, 2016
Calories don't count on #LeapDay, so this #cruller is about to GET IN MAH BELLY!
86 8
February 29, 2016
Calories don't count on #LeapDay, so this #cruller is about to GET IN MAH BELLY!
86 8
February 28, 2016
Good Morning from Brooklyn.
86 8
February 26, 2016
#nostalgiaporn #fullerhouse #HAVEMERCY
133 13
February 26, 2016
THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW WHAT #TheContainerStore IS?! HOW DO THEY LIVE WO #AmacBoxes ?!?!?!
133 13
February 25, 2016
Slow Thursday means starting new books. #SpellmanFiles #FUWinterDieAlready
133 13
February 24, 2016
I remembered my umbrella and my hair is not a disaster. +4 #Adulting points.
133 13
February 23, 2016
p sure I'm heading down a very dangerous podcast rabbit hole that ends with me never sleeping again #LastPodcastOnTheLeft
133 13
February 21, 2016
#PSA #WheatonsLaw
133 13
February 20, 2016
#TIL that #Rule34 is super real. ew. but #rugrats for lyfe.
133 13
February 19, 2016
#BigBeer #HoppyHour #TGIF
133 13
February 12, 2016
The best way to start a long weekend is with a slow Friday. Morning meetings I can get behind. #breakfastOfChampions
133 13
February 9, 2016
#FeelingTheBern because I vote my conscience, not my gender identity.
36 4
February 2, 2016
#PunxsatawneyPhil says Spring is a'coming. I say can this work day be over so I can watch an endless loop of Bill Murray until I fall asleep?
36 4
February 2, 2016
#FeelTheBern
36 4
February 1, 2016
Happy #CaucusDay #FeelTheBern
36 4
© 2015 instagram
|
The handwriting on the hand decorated label was as familiar as Dahlia's own. The swirls and sharp edges of Mandi's hand. As distinctive and appropriate as any handwriting Dahlia had ever laid eyes on. The unpacking process was careful, Mandi prone towards well-intentioned and entirely accidental glitter bombs and similar mishaps. The relief when she found this package to be craft-herpes-free was palpable.
Tissue paper, a small card, and a hand-blown glass conch shell. A glass conch shell with a carb and a bowl. Dahlia smiled at it, rolling it over in her hands. Her stoner days weren't entirely over, but she had abandoned most of her glass collection. Long broken or lost in the shuffle of her constant moves over the past four-and-a-half years. Papers were easier. This, though, was well-crafted. A work of art.
The card came next. A finger hooked in the corner of the flap so she could rip a clean line across the top with her index finger. Close to one, at least, grunting a bit when her knuckle caught on the paper.
Dahllywood -Nate blew this for you. (I almost wrote 'blew you' hahaha.). Will you be my Maid of Honor?
XOXO,
Mandi
She stared at it for a long moment, and then back to what she would most likely use as a paperweight until someone at work caught on. The question wasn't surprising. It was the ambivalence it turned up in her gut. What should have been a pure elation on her best friend's behalf tainted by an emotion she wasn't even sure she could identify. Self-pity? Jealousy? She sighed, careful when she settled the glass shell and the card on her desk. She could get away with not responding until tomorrow, right?
He's asleep and I'm awake. I watch the digits on the clock blink past. The phosphorescent blue of a night beach scene that used to be the background on my desktop. I study them, the way a set of seven bars can form everything from zero through nine. Four sets makes for twenty-eight bars; 720 possible combinations when set on a twelve-hour cycle; 1,440 if I reset it to the twenty-four hour version. The mental multiplication takes a few tries. A distraction that spans the period from 02:10 to 02:18.
He's nestled himself against my back. His snoring is the scratch of his beard against my shoulder as much as it is a buzz in my ears. His stomach draws away from me, and for a span of milliseconds I'm relieved of some of the weight of his presence. It never lasts any longer, his inhale robbing me of the splinter of peace to which I've been trying to anchor myself. He sleeps hot and close, relegating me to the very edge of the mattress, the field of all my pillows underneath his head and then beyond the border created by his body. An open plain, entirely unoccupied, allowed to waste because of the chase I unintentionally led when I tried to create space. I'm stuck here, a victim of his siege with my elbow tucked beneath my ear, his arm looped over me, pulling me tight against him. It suits him; justifying the selfish and the thoughtless even while unconscious.
He's asleep and I'm awake and his rhythm is wrong. When 02:59 becomes 03:00, I close my eyes and try to match his breaths. There was that 'wellness' professor junior year, with an accent that could only be diagnosed as European NOS. The only useful thing she ever said was that you can't panic if you're breathing calmly. That, and the time she agreed to give me the C-minus I needed to get credit when I gave her a perfunctory explanation as to why I hadn't been in her classroom in six weeks. She promised to keep what little I had told her in confidence, then proceeded to start the class with an uncomfortably on point lecture my confessions had apparently inspired. I could only assume as much with the amount of eye contact it involved. Confirmed by the fact it became more persistent when I pulled up my hood and sunk deep in my seat because my classmates had drawn the same conclusion and couldn't resist the urge to follow the path of her gaze.
The memory stirs the anxious energy in my gut. I redouble my efforts only to find that focus on the in-and-out shines a spotlight on the other patterns. The twitch of his fingers against my bare abdomen. The tick in his calf muscle where it's hooked over my shin. The breeze of his breath against my back. The irritation starts to fold in on itself, my frustration more than the sum of its parts.
He's asleep and I'm awake and the room starts to feel impossibly bright. 04:00. I shift, my head bouncing on the mattress, my forearm lifting to press against my eyes and create blackness. He groans, tightening the grip that's had me on the verge of tears for the past twenty-three minutes. Why are you still here? screams through my head but crosses my lips as a hoarse whisper. I want to slip away and curl up under the fleece throw on the overstuffed couch in the living room, but I know that's a concession I can't afford to make as surely as I know that sunrise is coming and its arrival marks the end of hope. Translucent neon fractals explode on the insides of my eyelids when I squeeze them more tightly shut. He presses closer and the thick ridge that marks the mattress' edge digs into my side.
06:14. But it's not the first thing I notice. The world is the flat monochrome of predawn and he's in the corner by the foot of the bed struggling into his clothing. I don't remember him getting up and I wonder when sleep finally closed in around me. I close my eyes, but not quickly enough to fool him. "Sorry, I gotta get home, working a shift. I'll text you."
"Mmhmm" Acknowledgment, not encouragement. I don't know if he knows the difference. He doesn't try to clarify and I'm not disappointed in the failure. I roll over and away from the edge, giving the room the beads of my spine. My sheets and my pillows smell of him and it's all I can do to wait for the bedroom door to open and close before I lift my fist and slam it where he once lay. A thoughtless exertion that renders me fully awake.
The satisfying clack of keys under her fingertips, the rise and fall of Brooklyn Rider swelling next to her jawline. There were two types of Mondays: the slow re-entry into the work week and the productive ones. 9:38 AM and she was already entirely immersed. Eyes on one monitor, the other filled by a spreadsheet that shifted in time with Dahlia's fingerstrokes. Transferring data line by line, already on rows in the high double-digits. Blind to the fringe of neon Post-Its tacked around the edges of her monitor; oblivious to the co-workers who drifted around her in lazy patterns, stopping off at one another's cubes as they eased back into the weekday grind.
She had arrived early--a rarity. Her coffee sat still half-full, occasionally rattling when the ice melted far enough to shift in her bright purple plastic tumbler. The lines at the corners of her eyes actually visible thanks to the way she squinted. The reading glasses on top of her head forgotten along with the rest of the wider world.
"Dahlia!" Her boss' voice louder than it should have been, closer, paired with a tap on her shoulder. A combination that made her heart stop in her chest and restart at a gallop, the catch in her breath audible. All paired with a swing around in her chair, open hands raised defensively. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."
There was an uneasy laughter in the apology. A tone that was familiar, but never failed to bring heat into Dahlia's cheeks. Her lower lip automatically curled over the corresponding teeth so she could chew, quickly finding a dry patch ripe for picking. Her hands fell into her lap, her left thumb folding so she could reach the corner of her cuticle with the nail of her index finger.
"It's almost 9:40." Dahlia's brain scrambled for context, drawing out a crease at the center of her forehead.
"9:30 on Mondays?" A Socratic clue that pulled Dahlia's lips into a pensive scowl.
". . . Department meeting?" It struck her then. The irritating buzzing she had silenced with a reflexive swipe of her hand, no attention paid to what she had been temporarily dismissing. One of the reminders in the careful architecture she had built, designed with the specific purpose of avoiding conversations like this. Her blush deepened, head ducking so she could smooth some hair behind her ear.
"I, uh, sorry, I lost track of time." No further explanation or excuse given, because Dahlia didn't have one that didn't sound at least half-insane. The apology itself mostly a mumble. A hand raised to scratch at the crown of her head, eyes on the glittery lavender notebook and her cup of pens. Readying herself to join the group of 3 who had been waiting for her for the better part of ten minutes. "I'll be right in."
< Messages | Dad | Details |
Fri, Feb 5, 11:15 AM
I have a question for you.
What's up?
So I opened the Google to look at some Youtubes that my PT sent me for exercises and then I closed the Google and when I reopened the Google it still had the youtubes up. They're supposed to go away when I close the Google.
Do you mean chrome or Google?
Same thing.
Do you mean you opened the browser by hitting the beach ball or do you mean that you went to Google.com and typed in a search?
The beach ball.
Did you hit the 'X' or the little line when you closed it?
I hit the X. I closed it. I know what closing it is. I did it four times.
I don't know, Dad. It's hard to figure out without seeing what you're talking about. Are you logged into Chrome?
You mean my email?
When you hit the beach ball and look at the top right, does it have your name in a little box?
I'm not by the computer now, but I should be able to exit and it should all go away, right?
Yeah, sorry I can't be more helpful. The only thing I can think of is you're logged in and went back to youtube and it showed you recently viewed stuff on your homescreen.
So I should just clear the history and it will stop?
No, it's your youtube account, not your browser history.
What about getting pop ups on my phone? For those razor people. I'm sure it's the Google doing it.
I really want to help but I'm not sure what you're saying without looking at it. Ask Kyle or Andy! I'm sure they can help.
You should tell your bosses that it's giving me pop ups.
I don't think she'll know what to do either.
No, the head honcho.
If I see them, I'll let them know.
|
||