Strange mood, this. Skitzy and neurotic, I've finished my taxes, owe like every other middle-class, middle-income, middle-aged (er...) American, and the ordeal has me in...leftbrain manic overdrive. Not standard operational procedure at Gage R Us. After having scrubbed the bathrooms, vacuumed the den, reorganised our filing cabinet, and made a list of everything I really ought to get at Costco tomorrow...I'm currently fighting urges to take a scrub brush to my fingernails and flick at imaginary lint bits on the legs of my black pants. I jump up to grab a pen and paper so I might begin yet another List of Very Important Things Gage Ought to Do, and I flop back down again, unable to remember just what was so important.

I'm bothered by something. I know that's what it is. I remember, when I was a kid, and I'd be up in my room waiting for Dad to finish ranting at Mom and come up to beat me, I'd start cleaning. It was like, somehow I figured if everything were spotless, he'd let me off for good behaviour. I feel like that frightened 11 year-old kid today. These last few days.

Maybe it's that I contacted those kids from The School. Could I be in denial? Maybe I'm stuffing how I really feel about having spoken with them. I like to bluster around, puffed up peacock that I am, on my toes and leaning forward a bit so I'm big and scary. I pose and posture that nothing in the damn world could stand between me and my desires. But I'm not really like that. I'm just a stupid little girl, afraid of the dark, the Boogeyman (nee Closetmonster), and people who invade my personal space while in line at the bank. Afraid of owning up to what happened to the real little girl so long ago that no-one really remembers or cares anyway. Afraid of facing them...myself.

Lucien told me he was entertaining a trip to the Bay Area. My area. Doesn't he know I'm not ready for him to be here? Is he so inconsiderate to not respect that this is my safe haven, and he can't just come up because the mood strikes him? I mean really. The nerve. Of course, he had to go and tell me that a bunch of the kids and staff relocated to San Francisco in the Great Exodus. Worse still, half of them a moved to town 12 miles from me, shit you not. Although, that particular town in mind, I wouldn't be surprised if they've shacked up and started some cult compound.

Nah. Too easy.

How am I ever going to get all those things on my Costco List if all I can think about is looking over my shoulder to see if they're there? Dread dread dread paranoid dread.

Archives