Oregon: Day 5

Finally, a day of unadulterated sloth! I think I was out of pyjamas for a whole three-hour stretch. The only trip was about a two-minute car ride down the hill for supper at the local cafe, which turns out to having amazingly good food. monshu pointed out that he recently paid half again as much for salmon in Chicago in order to wind up with a filet that wasn't as good. The only real disappointment was discovering that the pig-fuckers at the next table over had bogarted the last of the blueberry pie.

What did we do today? We slept. We sat around. He smoked. Mid-morning, we put on enough clothes to make the hike across the meadow to his sister's in order to make use of their hot-tub while we waited for them to return from the Coast. While we were there, they called and said they wouldn't be back for hours, so instead we dragged our putty-like selves back here and slept. At one point, I was ready to get up, but monshu told me, "Why don't you see if you can sleep some more?" And so I did.

I'm trying not to think about how much the trip home tomorrow is going to suck. We weren't able to get on the same flight going back; worse, monshu is coming back through SFO, which is almost a guaranteed delay and ensures he won't reach Chicago until midnight at the earliest. At least he's got a whole day at home before he needs to face work again; I may, too, if this cold doesn't show signs of clearing up tout-de-suite.

He looked different today. It's like he's completed Level 1--he's said his goodbyes to the place, he's figured out those few things he wants to keep, and so forth. Now comes the slow process of readjustment and reacclimation, when it's not so much the predictable reminders that get you as the incidental ones, those that blindside you because they seem too trivial to trigger a memory. But--as all great writers have realised--nothing is.