10 Laws of Nature

There are six separate points of physical pain on my body right now.

1. The itch in the back of my throat, like there is a huge chunk of debris stuck in there, like a mucus barnacle has attached itself to my esophagus. I tried to attack it with a toothbrush the other day, and it didn't work, but I did find out if I ever wanted to become bulimic, I would probably be pretty good at it.

2. My temples, from coughing so much. It's giving me brain shakes, literally. My whole brain is about to detach from whatever fine webbing of veins holds it in place, and start leaking out my nose. It will probably, I'm assuming, take a very long time.

3. My lips, which are really dry. This is my fault. I've been ignoring them all day. They don't need to be pretty right now, they don't need to be soft, and sometimes I let them get chapped just to see how red they can get on their own, just to let them exfoliate a little, and then be all bee sting swollen so I can imagine a life where I get injections in them. Tiny little pointless lips. Nonexistent lips.

4. My eyes, which are red and tired and itchy from being inside with the heater all day.

5. My teeth. Specifically my back left molar. I swear, if my wisdom teeth are picking this winter to come in, I am going to be so pissed. I can feel the pain with my tongue, running it along the inside of my gum back there, like a bulging line of fuck you you're sick you're bleeding just take it girl. It may just be irritated because I've been drinking vinegar and living off clementines.

6. The bridge of my left foot, from tango last night. Which is odd, since the boleros we were practicing last night meant all my weight was on my right foot, and the left one was the free swinging one, but maybe the left one is pissed that it had to work so hard at looking pretty? My feet are pretty happy being ugly and useful most of the time.

My seventh point of pain is not on my body but in my house. I moved Eddy's litterbox upstairs, where she spends all day anyway, in an attempt to end the Great Pissing War of 2010. This means she won't have to share a box with the enemy, Nina, who stupidly doesn't understand litter box boundaries and was using them both. Oh no. Not good enough. I woke up today to find that "somebody" had pissed on the floor in the spot where the litter box used to be, and hadn't used the box upstairs at all. Fuck you cat. So I had to shut my bedroom door, since it has becomes Eddy's favorite thing to piss on any clothes left on my floor, and if you've ever been in my house, you know that means all of my clothes. Now poor Nina, banned from the upstairs with the comfy couches and chairs, can't even sleep on the bed during the day, and she's been cowering around my office, sleeping on styrofoam and a blanket I set up on the desk for her. She only has three rooms she lives in anyway, and now it's two. Eddy is making both of our lives intolerable. But she was here first, so I'm supposed to like her best right? And get rid of Nina? Even though Nina is the nice cuddly sweet playful one who doesn't act like a goddamn bitch anytime she doesn't get what she wants. You know, the normal cat? Why do I have to get rid of the normal cat? I like the normal cat.

My eighth point of pain is in my pineal gland, the seat of my soul, where I have to bang out some submissions by tomorrow, was supposed to be yesterday, and all I can come up with is an ode to ex boyfriends called The Midwest Boy, which frankly smacks of blogginess, and I wish I could write about something besides relationships just once please.

My ninth point of pain is living in my closet, in the form of boots that would very much like to be taken out in the snow and played with, maybe walked along some frozen water rocks, maybe trudged through some wide open ruins in Galahad Ohio, which is a place I made up right now in my head, my perfect Ohio place, where the stone furnaces spewed out glassy slag like fossils, and there is a warm bar in the middle of town which only serves beer, and everyone listens to NPR on the ride to school because they want their kids to go to college.

My tenth point of pain is more like divine longing, for that perfect pitch of balance, on one heel, on my axis, being swung around by hands that know what they're doing, somewhere lost in South America.

So you know, these are my thoughts, stuck inside a snowbound house all day, spitting phlegm into an empty glass and trying keep all the creatures around me and in me from killing each other. Wish I was funnier today, but this isn't really a funny week is it? Instead its a week of letting the pains swing you back and forth, between studiously focused and studiously not giving a shit.