not sure if i am sick or jetlagged or how much of either combines to "both". my brain is like oatmeal when all we can stomach are leafy greens and tonic water.
(moreover, thanks to europe, i am down to one cup of coffee a day. maybe that's it. please hold your applause; shit like this aint gonna last more than four days into the fall semester.)
back stateside, my father sets his fork down with a soft ting. it is 8am at this table, 5pm in switzerland, 5pm my heart. he's in his rough brown robe. meagre chest hairs lean out to read the wall street journal with him, which fans out around a bowl of cereal like an open wing. he is eating the cereal with a fork. "i just realized i have lived in this house longer than the one i grew up in, and at the time, that felt like forever." a page of the newspaper is lightly delegated to its other side. "and i like that." fork into cereal bowl.
i am thinking about going back to bed. my coffee mug is red, just red, nothing else, and i like that.
and then -- suddenly -- the fern that has kept placidly to itself in the corner of the living room for the same length of time that my father has lived in this house has been eviscerated with a fantastic and enviable gusto, its bowels spread for our inspection along a long stretch of (new) carpet.
my parents recently bought a puppy -- golden retriever no. 8 in the sequence of dogs that have lived in this house. my family could measure time in dogs.
meet: rosie. or, colloquially, rosie-goddamn. she is a machine.
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