A sad day's journey into night

Occasionally I think Saturday mornings are getting easier and then there's one like this last Saturday. At one point, after two or three hours awake in bed hating the fact that I was the only one in the apartment, I told myself, "You can either lie here in pain or you can get up and accomplish something." Then I remember chuckling and thinking, "When you put it that way, lying here in pain doesn't sound so bad."

When I did get up shortly afterwards, I found that my pain, which I'd expected would be at least somewhat physical, was entirely psychological. Whatever malaise followed me to bed on Friday failed to develop into full-blown illness and that made me feel like something of a fraud for cancelling on lunch with princeofcairo.

That was my first little emotional journey of the day. I just couldn't visualise going out and dealing with people, so I was set to cancel, but then FB helpfully reminded me it was his birthday and it suddently seemed like a caddish thing to do: all the folks he could choose to spend that day with and he chose me? But I was so weighted with morose thoughts that I felt I could only bring the party down and I didn't want to do that to friends. I offered dessert as a compromise, but he suggested we simply reschedule. I felt a curious mix of relief and disappointment. I'll feel much better about bringing up the topic of my father dying when we're not celebrating the feat of surviving another year over fifty mostly intact.

My first stab at adulting didn't go so well. I managed to eat something and start watering the lawn but then I went back down for a nap. After that I at least had the energy for a big load of laundry. I even bagged up some old ragged clothing and took it to the dumpster before seeking out the comfy chair and FaceTiming a friend. I thought I'd be asking him for comfort and consolation but I ended up spending most of the time trying to cheer him up and listening to him vent. It took almost an hour to get even a chuckle out of him and by then I was getting hungry so I spent the next thirty minutes gently wrestling him off the phone so I could eat.

Part of my plans for the day had been to attend a bear party put together by a couple of acquaintances. It had mushroomed from a little get-together to a takeover of the upstairs room at Hamburger Mary's, complete with DJ and go-go dancers, and I suspected they were worried about it being a success. I told myself that if I didn't feel awful that night, I'd go ("Do the thing") and I didn't feel awful so I went.

It was a success. I kept comparing it to a high-school mixer (both because of some of the musical choices and the apparent age of some of the participants) but really it reminded me more of the heyday of Bear Pride when dozens of people in the room were people I knew and they played real songs you could dance to instead of an indistinguishable techno mix. There weren't many people shirtless or dancing (or shirtless and dancing) but it was enough that I got caught up in the spirit--for a while at least. (I crapped out shortly after midnight.)

So yeah, Saturday mornings are still hard and that'll probably be the case--at least intermittently--for some time to come. But sometimes Saturday nights make up for it.