The Twilight Zone

I have done everything tonight except write. I went to dinner. I cleaned the living room. I scooped Steve two bowls of ice cream (after he nixed the first incredulously, insisting he dropped a hint at dinner he wanted vanilla for dessert… I know, I know, the things we do for love). I walked Hudson. I lit every candle in the house. I blew out every candle in the house. I drank two not great Nantucket Cran seemingly alcohol-less seltzer soda thingys, and only then finally faced the computer. Still too daunting, I remembered Ipsy had sent me a face mask of unknown type and substance last month and got up.

I’ve never done a face mask before. But, like I said, I was grasping at straws and we take what we can get during a global pandemic. Luckily, the face mask event occurred around midnight, the same time I learned Taylor Swift had released a new album. WHAT?? I prayed it would be long, I’m not great at writing and listening, and surely a surprise record from that queen was excuse enough to postpone my writing hour. So, with my face covered in brown goo and my ear buds in, I sat back down and smiled to the tune of Taylor’s latest poetry.

Minutes or hours later – who knows in 2020’s twilight zone time loop – I realized the face mask had plastinated to my face. Plastinated is an actual word, I promise (I originally thought it was plasticate when I initially wrote this and now I feel this tangent is irrelevant.. regardless it’s staying). I learned it when I went, hungover, to the Body Worlds exhibit in Boston some weekend so many years ago. Don’t know what that is? You’ve likely seen their banners around your nearest city, you know the ones showing seemingly plastic bodies with several layers of fascia removed in various states of paralyzed movement.

The skinless man playing tennis was my personal favorite. No? Ok well for those of you who haven’t been in a city since Y2K or haven’t seen Casino Royale, Body Worlds is that traveling show of corpses that parades actual bodies and organs of the deceased around the country in the name of science. Plastination is the process these scientists use to ensure their money-makers don’t rot while stacked lifelessly in trucks between shows, or smell up the venues that host these parades of human taxidermy.  Can you imagine stacking dead plastic people into a truck for transportation to the next city. Poor souls, stuck in traffic on 95 South even in death. I’d sue.  Anyways, I digress, really all I have to say is I hate face masks.

After an absurd amount of time I was clean-faced and ready to get these groundbreaking words out. I saluted my Nantucket Cran nestled on it’s coaster and sat down in front of a blank Word document. But wait! A memory of Hudson found its way into my view somehow. Alright, I may have paused to take a sip of the aforementioned beverage which lead to some innocent photo browsing. Fine, I never opened Word and was sitting feet up on my desk scrolling and scrolling. What really happened was a long story including a trip down that whole Body Worlds rabbit hole that ultimately led to perusing photos of Huds as a puppy (there were 993 in the particular folder I was browsing). I MUST #tbt this blonde photo of Hudson, I thought. I’m telling you, people, my brain doesn’t work linearly. It’s like a stormy sea sometimes and tonight there was no getting to shore.

The notes I made this morning for writing later on mocked me from my craft table as I jauntily hashtagged away on @theshephud’s latest photo, laughing in spite of myself at the caption I had crafted to accompany the post. I mean, it wasn’t laugh out loud funny – and certainly not my best work – but definitely worth the writing delay. Hudson’s 1800 followers have expectations, and we have to keep his fans entertained. As an aside, having a partner who has nothing to do all day is the magic variable in the algorithm that yields a perfect dog Instagram. Since I realized this person’s utter uselessness and disposed of his photography services (and him entirely), Hudson’s posts have been pretty flat. Something to work on another day, perhaps.

Alas, with Hudson’s #tbt live and Taylor Swift’s songs blending together in a symphony of sultry sounding moans, I knew it was time. Write. For an hour every day. It’s what every author, professor, and non-literary civilian says to start with. FINE. This is what comes of that mandate. 500 words on procrastination to the tune of a song called Cardigan. Truly, you’re welcome.