New Sheets And Not Hopeful Extra Pillows

So, I finally changed my sheets a couple of nights ago, the brown flannel ones that are the definition of comfy  and my go to’s. I didn’t want to let them go. Ok, I realize that “didn’t want to let them go” sounds almost tragic like “let them go” with music and words and tears and dropped flowers from some in veils underneath umbrella’s, but it was just that I had to “let them go” for the moment, nothing overly dramatic, to the time suck that is laundry. But this letting go opened me up, again, to a forgotten world of sheets, almost all mismatched but still whole if you’re ok with flowers marrying stripes and pillowcases seemingly from someone else’s closet in someone else’s hallway.

My hallway closet is a dresser slash mini wardrobe with neat doors that click closed above it’s dresser’s drawers in a living room that I never use other than a walking through it to the bathroom or to belly rubs for Bella on her little circle of carpet that I bought at Ocean State Job Lot for 2 bucks, her circle spot, or her bed that was re-discovered as cats will. I put the mismatched in this mini wardrobe now or whatever has had drawers in the past (though nothing as cool as this current dresser mini wardrobe) and forget them until the cool brown flannel sheets finally cry uncle.

But with the changing I actually did find a new bed lay that do match in this dresser mini wardrobe with the neat doors that click when ya close them above the drawers. I said “oh, cool” almost surprised as I always am whenever I change the bed. Then someone, somefur puked on a pillow the next day, the other one, the one I don’t use for any company I’ll never have or keep. Yeah, funny one universe. You’re a card. It’s sitting on the futon now, drying, along with the “new” pillowcase.

I was mad, for like five seconds at the puking, yelling to the air at whichever of my furry charges might be the pukey culprit, but then I just laughed. You are adorably pathetic Frankenberry in that cat guy kind of way. Hold that pillow and case for the dry on the futon for the moment and then put it back in its spot eventually next to your head for the maybe … or not.

But there was the anticipation, pre-puke, for at least one night and that something about new sheets, especially when you’ve found some that actually match as a bonus, that led to one of the better nights of sleep I’ve had in quite some time and, for how poorly I sleep never really relaxing the action that is my head? That was most welcome.

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The world has been fucked up. Not that that is any real news I know, but just fucked up and, sadly, we’ve been forced to adapt to it. Did I ever imagine years ago, as I so cavalierly went about my daily, smoking too much, drinking too much, changing sheets not often enough and not paying as much attention as I should that we would be where we got? No, of course not. Not even the best of by rote angst filled drama as happiness defeatests I knew in those days, and I knew many, myself included, could have imagined where these last four years would have brought us. But, the smoking has stopped, years now, though a vape pen still fills the void, the drinking has subsided but not without still measuring the cost of a 30 pack at the distributor vs a twelve pack at the convenience store, adding them in my head as I measure what’s necessary to deal with the fucked up and the still denialists and apologists and the make shit uppers out there. I’m not even sure anymore what is more to be concerned with, figuring the relative cost of beers on a limited paycheck too many times or wondering if I should just ignore the number and the cost completely if I’m going to be able to figure out what to do in the hell’s handbasket that some still want this world to sit in.

But this time around I HAVE payed attention, as evidenced here in the Attic with plain words or words in song with no cavalier, just a need to be informed and speak them such and maybe finally take heart after all of them there words were spoke or sung that there might just be a little light now, finally,  might just be a little bit of hope. A breath.

Yah never know, when I’m even older than I am now I could possibly get a chance to talk to the kids of my nephews or the JG, if they will allow the crazy old guy with an overgrown unkempt face his future seconds (as I’m sure that’s all that may be allowed), about the when we fell into disarray … fell hard. Talk to them about the “when” like some campfire fright story.

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I’m still listening to the Alan Parsons Project, exclusively, ten months later as I noted at the start of all this shit. Even found a way to get the Ladyhawke soundtrack again and hear Time Machine for the first time, filling things out, that/those always elusive or too costly one or two final records in your almost complete collection of whatever band is your fond obsession. Comforts are important.

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Had another Zoom call earlier with three of my bestests from the college days, or any days, who for some reason still find me interesting enough to include on such things. Probably just a phase, an almost 40 year one, yes, but still probably just a phase. If for nothing else a pandemic has allowed the eureka moment of “You mean I can actually talk to my friends and look at them like on my cartooned future Dick Tracy wrist? Holy crap, now there’s a future is now concept huh?” Three hours of our ugly mugs (minus Lori’s of course) laughing and joking and opining and just being us like that dorm room years ago or that spot at Buhl Hall with a couch and chairs people stood around if you weren’t there first or a shared house with tiny bedrooms packed close where you heard everything or that bar where you could raise an arm for another pitcher without seeming a dick, he or her serving knowing that recognition would be handsomely rewarded. No dickishness involved.

We talked. We laughed. We confirmed an almost lifetime.

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It’s cold, winter months will do that of course, kinda their gig, but not as cold as it used to be though the wind I hear rushing around my windows, even shaking them, seems to be trying to hold it’s place in history, remembering old days.

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Mom sounded good on the phone yesterday. I had called her with the need for a brain break and a step away from my little studio to outside the back of the station here, only so much five aspirin were going to do. A touch of air and a call. Sometimes ya just need a Ma no matter how much she knows of or might remember of your call these days. She had a Razzy growling lightly in dog dreams at her feet and a Ricki meowing that need another cigarette sounding meow of hers at the end of her bed. Mom mistakenly calls her Sixpence, the years ago cat that is always the reminder of cats our family all share and have taken with us. But she sounded good and was so much better than any number of aspirin.

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This past week was long, relatively speaking of course, but a long one for me and it kind of beat me down a bit, I guess maybe a subconscious reasoning behind finally changing the sheets,  even with them now not actually being the “oh, cool” find of a matching set as there is a new post puke pillowcase on that one unused extra pillow, but it’s alright. Mismatched kind of suits me anyway. Matching always seemed something of a luxury.

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Mimi the Quirky has her spot, after her halting straight legged stick legs walk to under my feet, like struck out of a kid’s bad art project they might discard for another bad arty attempt with her non-committal but please committal pick me up onto a bar towel just above my keyboard. “There ya go Memes, that’s your spot”.

Bella has her little 2 dollar circle of carpet or that newly found always there cat bed and Cricket the Blind is just being annoying, but in an I still love her kind of way, meowling into nothing non-stop while she walks her blind chasing a tail circles with a sound worthy of a grandma wailing at a funeral while she waits to curl up on the edge of my pillow and make sure she is near her Steve on an always too short a night, especially in the comfort of new sheets.

Sometimes she even grabs that never used extra pillow. Well at least it occasionally gets occupied I guess.