Single, jobless, and not in good proportion

Last year I was on top of the world. I owned my own magazine, I was in a perfect relationship, and my bodyfat was under 10%. Ok the relationship was suffocating but at least I was still a “we.” And even a suffocating we is better than a single I. And it’s definitely better than a single eye. I don’t have a single eye, but if I did, that would just make things worse. Although given how many dates I’ve been on in the last year, I may as well have a single eye. And when I say 10%, I mean 25%, but when you’re in a relationship, even a suffocating relationship, who cares how fat you are? And yes that was technically the attitude that killed the relationship, but at least I owned a magazine. That’s my point. I think.

Anyway, the relationship death spread like gangrene to the magazine and suddenly I found myself single, jobless, and well… not in good proportion.

And that California King bed sounds like a swell idea when you’re married, but when you’re not, it’s a daily reminder of just how alone you are. My dog Romeo sleeps on the far corner of the bed, and when I get lonely sitting in the dark, I call him over. And after a few minutes, I begin to hear him running and panting towards me. In the distance I can see the reflection in his eyes -- tiny dots of light moving quickly up and down, following his gait. And finally, he reaches the pillow and collapses in a heap, heart heaving and open mouth gasping for several minutes more. And I think, just maybe, I could do with a smaller bed.

But is that defeatist? Isn’t that just giving up? Like going from a Medium to a Large shirt size was a quite, unnoticeable change. No one really made a fuss about it. Now I pick up an XL shirt, hold it up, and say “my god, this is a TENT! Who could wear this?” And it fits me like a glove. And my justification is something like “Well I guess DKNY just runs really small.” But now I just grab an XL and save myself the soul-searching monologue in the dressing room mirror. It’s a private defeat.

And I do need a new bed. I have a water tube bed – it was built before running water. The instructions for filling it start off with “take a pail to the river.” I was laying in bed last year, totally asleep, and God knows how but one of the tubes directly under my head burst. And suddenly, in the dead of night in the pitch black, my head was pressed against a whooshing, splashing sheet. Totally dry on the surface, but inside whooshing and splashing and I was thinking “so this is what an aneurism sounds like.” And whooshing and splashing are not the words you want to associate with your mattress, either. At least not after the age of 7. OK 14, but it was just that one time and I had stayed up late to watch a scary movie and I was all hopped up on Fresca.

I replaced the tube and patched up the bed, but the point is it’s a relic. And its enormous size has meaning. It’s a statement to me. It says “Hey world, I’m going to die alone.” Oops, I mean it says “Hey world, look how much space I have for a relationship in my life!” I could probably have 8 or 9 boyfriends sleeping on that bed at the same time and they’d never even meet. Maybe the Universe isn’t listening to me, because I’m saying “hey world” instead of “hey universe.” “Hey world” is really more to get the attention of the people of earth, and it’s best used by the likes of Barbra Streisand when she yells “Hey look at me world, here I am!” Although I tried that when I walked into the Abbey last week and just got a lot of hostile stares. But if you need to summon the whole karmic power of the Universe thing, like my big bed vacancy, I have to say “hey universe,” or it won’t even listen. If I say “hey world” about my bed, the world is saying “ummm… we see your situation, but we really have no jurisdiction here… You should speak with our supervisor.”

I’ve also developed this bizarre pillow routine. And this is supposed to be about being jobless, single, and out of proportion, but let me just finish the whole bed experience. I can’t sleep now unless I have a pillow under my head that’s folded in half, a pillow between my legs, and a pillow in front of my chest so I can drape my arm over it (calling it spooning would be too pathetic). I also have one pushed against my back for some kind of emotional support, and then this new requirement is one that’s above my head but off to the right, so if my arm strays up it has a landing strip. That’s a total of 5 pillows, propping up my body which apparently has just gotten too unwieldy in its 30s to even lie down without help. But what makes it 10 pounds of stupid in a 5-pound bag is that I have to switch sides about 15 times before I fall asleep now. And every time I turn over, it’s turn pull, push, trade, slide, fluff, up, back, this goes HERE, these two over, pull this down, and we’re done. Oops – can’t have the fluffy pillow under the head—switch the flat for the fluffy put this one here, and there. OK this flat one has too much dog hair, so put that one behind, but the back one here, put THIS flat one under my face, and done. OK whether this drool is mine or Romeo’s it’s disgusting, so throw that one over onto the empty boyfriend space, reach out into the abyss and pull in a fresh but overly fluffy one by mistake, switch it out with another flat one from out there, and we’re done. It’s a 5-minute transition, after which I immediately begin feeling that I wasn’t physically ready for this side, and I should switch back. I’m just going to say about this that my bed sees a lot of “action.”

More on being single, jobless, and not in good proportion in a later edition. I have to go lay down.