I think it's just today

Today is one of those days where all I really, REALLY want to do is sit in bed and zone out in front of the TV. I’d like to lose myself in bad re-run sitcoms and fall in and out of sleep as my cat cuddles up against my feet. My head hurts; I’m not feeling social; and I think that my brain has shut itself off indeterminately.

I’m supposed to be working. To be coming up with ideas on follow-up marketing materials for our fall membership recruitment campaign. Or sending out more spam emails about our hair show in February. But instead I’m watching the beta fish that I’ll be “fish-sitting” for the next week. He doesn’t do much; not that most fish do for that matter. But he seems perfectly content in milling about in one place, unceasingly flapping his mini side fins. And he almost looks dead – and I keep thinking I should be shaking his bowl just to make sure he’s moving. And I wonder if I ever appear that way to people? if my face is so blank or my eyes so tired that maybe I don’t look like I’m living. And sometimes I almost wish there were a way to REALLY shut off your brain, you know? So you don’t THINK about how unproductive you’re being, or how much fun you’re not having, how much money you aren’t making…how many elderly and sick people you aren’t visiting.

It’s warm. My desk is in the corner of the marketing office, and my two walls are floor-to-ceiling windows. And that might sound like a desirable place to be if you’re stuck at a desk for 8 hours a day. And really, it is. But not today. Because its one of those days where everything seems out of place, misplaced, mechanical, blasé. And the 100+ degree heat beats down on my all afternoon. The sun shines and shines and shines until you just want it to go away for a very long time, like when you spend too much time with your family – it’s nice for a little while, and then pretty soon it wears on you. Most days I take a great deal of pleasure from watching the critters scurry across the courtyard below: birds, bunnies, lizards, rats. They say there used to be coyotes around our building, but all the recent development (over-priced condos, Hummer dealerships and golf courses) has scared them off. There’s always a crane visible from my window, too, lest I forget that where I’m working used to be the desert.

But really…really, I think that I’m just having one of those days.