As the Mercury Rises, So Does the Malaise

Well to be fair - although I'm not sure who we're being fair to in this instance...perhaps to the malaise itself - it may not be real malaise. It could be just regular it's-so-fargin'-hot-that-I-can't-be-arsed-to-do-a-thing. Heat induced can't-be-arsed-ness looks an awful lot like malaise when your vision is blurred by the river of sweat running into your eyes.

The bulk of my weekend has been spend in pursuit of three activities - reading, napping and drinking water. One would think that the four-to-five liters of water I'm downing daily would be resulting in my bladder demanding a pay raise if it's going to be giving all those overtime hours but instead I sweat it out nearly as fast as I can drink.

And while those have been the three activities I wanted to pursue, I ended up doing more. Saturday morning found me up early (if there's anything I've learned as a child of the South it's to get your butt up early and get everything done before it gets any hotter) and off to the gardening center of a home improvement store to buy some flowering plants for Kirsten and to get that delicious looking raspberry jam colored bruise on the inside of my arm with it's matching twins on my knees that I treated you to yesterday. It pissed me off to much to fall like while buying these dopey plants that I wanted to shove my arm in front of Kirsten and say "Look! Look at how I suffer for you! I got this while buying your plants!" but I didn't think that would help her fragile mental state any.

Did I mention that excessive heat and can't-be-arsed-ness makes me exceedingly cranky and unreasonable?

Saturday afternoon found me wincing in pain for maximum sympathy from B while I got him all spiffed up to go out. Friends of ours, Ingo and Tina, were coming by to help me get B in his wheelchair and then we'd go down the street to our favorite restaurant to sit outside and drink overpriced but very cold and very tasty water. I also found out that somehow, without my knowing it, two weeks ago when we were at the city festival with Ingo and Tina I had somehow agreed to Tina buying hair dye for me and applying it to my hair. I remember complimenting her hair color and her saying that she didn't remember the name of it off the top of her head but she'd write it down for me so I could get the same if I wanted and me saying "Oh great!". I don't remember the part where she said she'd actually go buy the dye but B says I agreed to it. Moral of the story? Too much of this:



will have you agreeing to a dye job you don't want or need and you won't remember doing it. Folks, I get my hair professionally colored ever six weeks like clockwork. While I like the color of Tina's hair and wouldn't even necessarily mind having it that color I didn't actually intend to have her do it but she's already bought the dye - two boxes actually since I have long hair - and I couldn't very well say "Oh no! I'm sorry you've gone to all this trouble due to the fact that I've agreed to something I don't remember agreeing to but witnesses say I did but you can't dye my hair and you'll need to eat those two boxes of hair color! I have some lovely peach white tea with which you can wash them down if you'd like!". So come Thursday morning Tina's coming over and coloring my hair. I just had it done two weeks ago and of course it's a different color and brand being applied so I'm not sure how it'll all turn out. It's still a red color but redder than when I get. I can only hope I don't look like a jackass afterwards. And then I'll have the fun of going back to my hairdresser to the appointment I already have and explaining to her that my hair was colored again by a friend of mine four weeks ago and can she maybe color it again and get me straightened out for good?

I feel like I'm on the tracks staring down a freight trains that's bound to hit me and I'm not going to be able to move because it's my own fault I'm standing on the tracks to begin with. It's my punishment! Must take punishment. Must not whine like cry-baby heiress and take my punishment like a coward who doesn't want to admit to a friend that in her drunken state she didn't understand the whole conversation an adult.

Sunday found me in my MIL's gentleman friend's car heading out to Kirsten's for her birthday. Gentleman friend insisted on driving us and he's got air conditioning in his car so I wasn't going to refuse. Kirsten, I'm sorry to say, looks dreadful. Very thin and weak as a kitten. Her hands shake constantly and picking up a coffee cup is an effort for her. She told me she's going back to the doctor at the end of the week for him to re-evaluate her and if she's not better, which she probably won't be, she'll have to be hospitalized because she's losing muscle mass and I imagine the doctor is worried she's going to start having organs fail. I tried to tell her again that she's to call us for anything at any time and I hope she takes it to heart. We'll call her tomorrow and check in with her again. Kirsten wasn't in the right frame of mind to really talk to me yesterday - too many people around and her husband was breaking all records with the utter indifference he was showing about the whole situation.

And all the inbetween time? When I'm not contemplating what sort of tutti-frutti color my hair could end up being I read, nap and drink lots and lots of water and that's what's making me believe all my can't-be-arsed-ness is really malaise. No housework except for the absolute musts, no cooking that requires my stove to be on for more than ten minutes, little TV watching, no knitting and with the exception of talking to Darling Mollie on Saturday night, no phone conversations. Some may think I'm just conserving energy but I know better. It's the can't-be-arsed-ness wearing the cloak of malaise.

Of course the more I lay low the less chance I have of not following a conversation correctly while consuming too much beer and ending up with Lord-knows-what being done to me next. Malaise occasionally has its benefits.