It could certainly be worse -- a little.

Yesterday...

was a comically bad day.

Of course, I should have known it would be when I woke up an hour late. I never do that.

But I didn't realize how everything was aligned to go wrong as I swung my legs out of bed to stand, which is why I was suprised by this funny feeling that the ground had fallen out from under me, or I was falling to it. The suprise was followed by the unmistakeable THUD of my body hitting the carpet next to my bed. So it turns out I WAS falling, and my legs had fallen asleep overnight, unbeknownst to me.

Of course I was still optimistic at that point, thinking of it as a hilarious freak accident, and spent a good 3 or 4 minutes laughing hysterically while laying on my carpet in a tank top and undies clutching my now-tingling legs, until I was distracted from them by a telltale headache from hell. That was when I started to get suspicious that the day would be a little different then every other day this year.

It was like my brain was old growth and was suddenly the hotspot for a new strip mall. I was all buzzing and sawing and thumping to the forest floor up there, and let me tell you - the spotted owls had flown the proverbial coop.

I also lost the ability to put subjects, verbs, and objects into phrases, sentences... really anything of meaning, much less eloquent groupings.

Anyway once I arrived at the office, I proceeded to fall UP the stairs and bruise my knee. Then I threw away a file I needed later, lost $1 to an evil Pepsi vending machine, spent two hours trying to find a parking spot near the bank and missed lunch (which wasn't healthy, considering I'm stressed out anyway and have been spending way too much time at the gym). And I was further stressed by my worry for my grandmother, who last weekend broke her neck, (can you believe that?) and I hate to bother anyone by talking about it (and once one breaks up with the boyfriend, there goes the built-in support system -- but you'd think I'd be used to it after 3 months, wouldn't you?) and so I spent the day a tightly-wound, hungry, anxiety ball.

Oh, and then someone used my least favorite word in the universe, and our computer system was being fixed so I was unproductive at work, and when I got home, my cat was sleeping on my PILLOW (which is not allowed, FYI) and the house was as empty as a tomb -- an emptiness surpassed only by that of my fridge. Which was bad, because I just wanted to cook and dance around in my slippers and not go to the grocery store to face humanity and the very small balance in my checking account.

And I can still hear those damn loggers in my head, even though all that was yesterday.

But it's OK, because I've come to a realization: I just need to tip over my T.V. tray life, spilling out all the stupid trivial crap that sits in it, packaged in little plastic cubes in a soggy cardboard box. It'll fall right on the carpet in the middle of the family room, and I'm just gonna leave the mess sitting there for someone else, for once.

The T.V. guide and all it's little black and white blocks of wasted time will lay there, pages spread all caddy-wompus like broken wings of a magpie (don't feel bad, magpies are annoying). The little cardboard spoon that came with the sick-sweet dixie cup will be broken under the weight of the main course -- a frozen block of gray brown ice -- which will fall on top of it - dead weight - something that used to be animal.

I think I'll hang on to the tray, though. The tray I like, because on it I've painted an ocean scene which I like because I like the ocean.

Also, T.V. trays are handy if you ever need a table for a spur of the moment picnic or a place to play Scrabble (which I love) or somewhere to let the leaves you picked up in the fall dry out and crinkle that rusty red brown that looks like it has to smell like every fall since the beginning of time...

And after that's done, I'll smile and sleep on a plane headed somewhere far away -- maybe the East Cost, maybe the Far East -- and let the maid clean up the mess that isn't mine anymore in my family room hundreds of miles away.

Really, a vacation COULD probably fix almost anything, minus world hunger and whatever's wrong with that guy who invented the bologna with the pimentos in it, right?

Thanks for being my hostage. You may go now.

I wish you everything on the list of good things the rest of the week (you know... that one on the right?) :)

I feel much better, now.