what day is this?

I live a very solitary life. This is nothing new. With the exception of, perhaps, Chaya, Professor Klotz, and my therapist, Linda (whom I see bimonthly), I don’t interact with anybody on a regular basis.

I keep in touch with people online. I know most of my local Starbucks employees. I am even familiar with the baristas over at Sip & Kranz (my alternate coffee run. They serve Stumptown Coffee, which is really so much better).

I am social, but it is certainly the exception.

I finished Into the Forest by Jean Hegland last week. It deals with a post-apocalyptic world where technology has failed, oil is gone and the country has gone to hell. The characters weigh what is actually relevant when the modern world collapses – they realize how trivial the days of the week are. It made me think about how I measure time, how I measure my life.

I measure my days in empty coffee cups and empty cans of Red Bull. If the bagels are gone, a week has passed. If the pile of clothes on the floor by my closet is getting out of hand, that means it’s laundry day - a week-and-a-half. If my box of Emergen-C is empty, thirty-six days. If there’s a pile of books on my window sill that need to be shelved, the quarter is almost over. If there’s a packet of graduation info in my mailbox, all those years I thought I wouldn’t get through have, in fact, passed.

The day is only an interruption of my night. Maybe this is why people only seem to call me after 12:30am.

Somebody asked me today if anything exciting had happened in my week and I thought, yes. I ordered something online with the quickest (free) UPS ground delivery I have ever encountered. I arrived home this afternoon with a perfect square little box at my door and I was simply delighted. Even though I was sopping wet with rain.

As my graying, plump college writing professor used to say, it would behoove you to buy an umbrella.