Thursday at the End of Days

I take off for a big adventure in two short weeks. There is so much to do before then and now. I see the endless appointments and dinner dates roll on for miles of my paper planner. I have a real makeshift artist schedule these days. It's not my favorite way to live, but it beats a lot of ways to live.

Typical Thursday began yesterday with a 7 AM alarm. I rowed, ran, and stretched at the gym and hustled back home to shower in under one song. I sprinted to the bus. The driver couldn't help but stop in the middle of the street for me. I was flailing. I read the news on the short train ride north to meet a fellow teaching artist. We drove to a high school at the edge of the city. We couldn't find the main entrance and snuck in a side. It was a passing period. We were half an hour early. We wanted around getting backpack checked looking for the library.

We discussed local theatre politics and ate from the tubs of tiny Trader Joe's cookies I brought for the meeting. The two drama teachers arrived. We discussed the residency about to take place and felt a shallow kinship of People Who Care About Teenagers Learning Monologues. We took a tour of the auditorium (with a balcony!). This is the school the play Grease was based on. We were spit out into the winter sun and rambled home.

On the couch I answered work emails and ate a spinach bowl. Bisque edited spreadsheets and Portlandia played. Later SNL. I felt restless and walked to the library where for no reason my late fine from the book about tennis I kept a week too long was waved. I sat on the second floor in a study carrel and felt very much like it was my first year of grad school again. I updated files and wrote documents for my soon to be non-job. I took twenty minutes to brainstorm a new sketch idea I had. A woman barked fifteen minutes until close, and I scampered home in the dark.

My mom called me from her train. We discussed the weekend. I combed my hair. Bisque and I walked around the corner to the vegan place we've never tried. It was small and smokey, but played Bright Eyes over a loud speaker. My aunt and uncle met us, and we ordered too much delicious cheese-less pizza. I took home a big cardboard box.

KK invited me and Nep to her studio in Old Town for face masks and gossip. I took a six dollar Lyft and we squealed and gabbed in the kitchen. My mom texted she was on a bus headed back to my place, so Nep and I split a cab back north. I jumped out at the bus stop at midnight and waited for a lady who I knew would be carrying too many bags to emerge from transit. We chatted and tottered down Belmont. Made it up the three flights. I put on gym shorts. I cozied into bed. I checked Instagram. I fell asleep.