Tuesday, March 3, 2009

State Street Was Pleasing, or, Cabin Fever Turns to Full-Blown Hallucination: Inmate Set Free For the Afternoon

I had a doctor's appointment at 12:15 today, and wore a short-sleeved shirt and sunglasses out to my car. I was so happy to feel the warm breeze and even happier to realize that it was maybe even TOO warm for the gray patent-leather boots I was wearing. The fist-pumping elation continued as I ran back inside to snatch a little bottle of juice and a ziploc bag of crackers so I wouldn't get sick in the thrift store again, and as I grabbed the happy Sinatra mix I've listened to on the first really warm day of every year since ninth grade.

I was going to put the year there, 2004, instead of "ninth grade", but I realized that in a lot of the blogs I read, when people put the year they started doing something, they just sound musty and dry and habit-forming. Not that progressive habits are a bad thing, more like, "I've crocheted a yarn-wool cardigan in a different shade of green every March since 1974" or something. So, I'm going to put the detail and subsequent grade in school until I'm thirty. Assuming nothing will happen after I graduate from college. Or, assuming I won't graduate from college before I'm thirty.
Anyways.

Good luck carried out through the doctor's office--I only had to wait a totally bearable fifteen minutes--where I was informed by the tiny-woman-doctor-who-usually-terrifies-me-but-was-nearly-pleasant-today that my WBC is back down to normal (YES!) and that my ALT and ASTs are still slowly creeping downward. And that after nine visits this two-week stretch, I get a four week break. And that I can begin to do tiny amounts of activity this week, which means I can go to All Shook Up on Thursday, and the airport to meet Mr. Missionary on Friday. These are great news.

After this great news, I took an extremely pleasant drive down state street to Provo. This is usually the longest, most aesthetically unpleasant, grossest drive ever, covered in snow rolled in refuse and sad looking people waiting for buses and spiky naked trees. The drive today, on the contrary, was beautiful; my windows were down, pictures/papers in my car were flying all over the place, Frank was singing, I was wearing my favorite sunglasses that I found after six months of not finding them, and it was toasty enough that the sun was making the tops of my thighs uncomfortably hot in their dark jeans! Bliss. I didn't even mind hitting every red light (about six hundred) between 8th North in Orem and the DI. Everyone in the cars around me was smiling too (this is very, very rare on state street in Orem). And when I did pull up next to your standard _______ (insert race, today is not a day to be insensitive) driving a low-riding bright blue truck, and my SINATRAAAA mixed with his NIGGAWHATWHATTAKEALLYOURCLOTHESOFF, we just grinned at each other with our hands draped casually out our windows, touching the warm air, and ignored the mixing music. Tell me how often that happens.

At the DI, sheer bliss was granted me by the thrifting gods. I think I'll jinx my luck by even talking about the fact I've discovered this potentially addictive but extremely calming hobby, so, I won't. That never happened. And I didn't get violently sick in the disgusting bathroom after abandoning my cart and running haphazardly to the back of the store, like I did at Savers yesterday, so there was one MORE reason to celebrate.

I drove joyfully home and popped the screen out of my window and clambered out onto my warm brown roof to nap in the golden sunlight.

It's going to snow now, isn't it?

3 comments:

DT said...

i'd like to think i'm your inserted race because i definitely listen to NIGGAWHATWHATTAKEALLYOURCLOTHESOFF.

you got out. you were blissful. happy. joy! yay! love you!

Liesl said...

And that, my friend, is a perfect day. Of course it's going to snow. It's a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life is going okay, another falls spectacularly to pieces.

Liesl said...

Oh, I also do the exact same thing with my roof. I pop out the screen and climb onto it. One of my favorite pastimes.