I can't tell whether I'm sunburned. Normally you'd say something snappy back, like 'Then you're probably not!' or quasi-medical, like 'Yes that's because the nerve endings are...' or 'Then you probably are!' (Amazing how content becomes intent.) But don't bother saying those things. There isn't a mirror down here that's usable at night, one of the oddities of our apartment. There's only the entryway mirror, and the overhead light near it is deeply-set in this ridiculous painted-black emplacement, which maybe focuses the light, and maybe someone at some point thought that was a whiz-bang idea (like the long stretch of living room outer wall with no window), but it very definitely is not/was not a whiz-bang idea. Point being the mirror shows you fuck all unless you've got the door open to let in daylight from the hallway, but - surprise - the door opens across the mirror. There's no answer so you learn to deal with whatever you look like.
Here's what I've been thinking about just now, then I'll tell you what I've been reading that's made me write this way all of a sudden. You can skip this paragraph if you're literary-minded, you asshole. I've been thinking that the little battery icon in the upper-right corner of my laptop screen, which never seems to stay full for long anymore, isn't about time as such. It indicates very roughly the percentage of battery power you've got left. But that percentage is only relevant if you have a sense of how long the thing normally lasts, and (or maybe or) how long you've been using the thing. So I've got "1:47 remaining" according to my computer, but I had to dig for that information. What it wants to give me, up front, is a number that's meaningful to it, to the machine, but as far as I'm concerned signifies only that I'm not the smart one here and I wouldn't know what to do with these percentages if one of them grew fangs, leapt up onto my pant leg, and bit me in the knowledge ass.
I've been reading The Wasp Factory. Go back and read the previous paragraph, it's about my laptop and it's got a twist ending, you won't see it coming!
I got to this maybe-sunburned state by playing outside all day in our gorgeous mid-spring weather, where by 'playing' I mean:
1) first literally playing starting around noon a/k/a Sunburn O'Clock, kicking a soccer ball and throwing a frisbee like it's 1986 again, though I don't think I really played with frisbees back then, preferring de-furred tennis balls and a miniature plastic football that maybe said 'Rice University' on it;
2) drinking a good (bad) amount of (bad) bourbon at a picnic-party, while being hustled by a little three-year-old kid who said we were playing War but was in reality making the game up as he went along, and he knew it, and I knew it, we knew we knew, if you know what I mean;
3) riding up to Porter Square to what I initially called a 'massage parlor' before I got the lingo down;
4) riding back to the picnic party where everyone had migrated indoors and while intoxicants were dispensed and stories swapped I leafed through some urbane fortunate's copy of the Real Book and goggled yet again at the economy of construction of 'Giant Steps,' you know what I'm talking about;
5) riding home but it was dark then so scrap it.
At home the GF and I conked out on the downstairs bed/couch after proto-conking out on the pile of brightly-coloured beanbag chairs, which were comfortable enough to lull into sleep but not so comfortable that you could really give in to it, hence 'proto-.' Did we have dinner at Christopher's while it was still light outside? Yes we did. Was the chicken burger fantastic? Yes it was (that artichoke aioli!). Was the Godiva chocolate liqueur drink perhaps a little...? Yes it was, a little. But she drank all but a sip of it and you'd be surprised, or maybe not, how much pleasure I take in watching her eat and drink, so I didn't mind mostly staying out of things where the chocolate was concerned.
I think I must have eaten a bunch of milk chocolate today because I'm just not tired. Or...is it the sunburn? Am I sunburned? I never stopped to find out. Well it kind of hurts the skin on my neck when I roll my head around, and I didn't put on a collared shirt until I came home to gussy myself up a little for the party. So the working hypothesis is: minor sunburn. What really (hahahaha) burns me is that I made a manful effort to put on sunblock before going out, even called the GF's attention to it like it was Baby's First Poo-Poo or something. Which, no, I don't suppose I would have been rubbing that on my bald spot now that I think about it. But in the heat of the moment, rushing out the door to go play in a field, how can you be sure? I don't even know what colour my skin is, how could I possibly know how I'd react to Baby's First Poo-Poo?
