December 7, 2012

Put Messiah on the CD player and decorated the Christmas tree. I was in a strange spirit while doing it, not the one I meant to be in.  For an hour or so I was the darkest Scrooge who was ever under this roof.

That memory and all others are filtered through the memory of last night’s sickness, a violent stomach issue, like flu, but without the body aches. My stomach is still curdled, my bowels are iffy and my head aches at this waking hour. There must have been some fever, for I was hallucinating a little, and interpreted the illness as one some kids in the group I was dreaming about were having. I was trying to quiz them about exactly what was wrong (they couldn’t tell me) a while before I realized the illness was my own. I ate bread yesterday– could all that possibly have come from that? Vomited red, hoping it was the red of the cranberry juice from the cosmopolitans.

Turned in senior grades, with the inevitable last-hour phone calls to and inevitable excuse-making from those who had not completed the work.

A rose on the back terrace, frozen twice, still offers a battered bloom, and a bud behind it.