The good, the bad, and the ugly (not necessarily in that order)

On Thursday, I woke up to my landlord calling me to tell me the water would be turned off RIGHT NOW. He said if I ran out right now, I could catch the water guy to ask him to delay the shut off so I could get washed up first. I ran out. No guy. I looked around. Nope. I waited outside on main street in my morning best - bedheaded in a hole riddled t-shirt over a pair of large men's sweatshorts with a stain on the ass. No water guy.

The landlord called back while I was outside to say "oops". Turns out the guy wasn't coming for an hour. I tried to look on the bright side and took an extra long shower.

Despite my rude awakening, I managed to do all my errands in a very timely manner. I was on my way home to pack so I could leave for Boston as soon as A got back from teaching when I stopped to get some lunch. At the cafe, I used the bathroom, where, in my haste to get going, I caught my pants on my sleeve. I didn't even think about my phone as I pulled my arm free, but that simple action caused my cell phone to jerk free from the clip and straight into the toilet.

I stared at it down there for what seemed like forever. I recently re-enacted it for my friend A and I decided it was probably more like 6 seconds. 6 very long seconds. Then I rolled up my sleeve and went dunking for the phone, threw it in the sink, realized that was stupid, took it out and wrapped it in paper towels, then scrubbed my hands and arms up to the elbow. In the car, I wiped the phone down with some of that hand sanitizer goop and marveled that the phone still looked like it was ok. It had been on when I dropped it. I turned it off and took out the battery. I rode with it hanging out the window to try to dry it off. At home, I tried turning it on. BIG MISTAKE. It made some noises and looked like it was starting up, then went to a negative image of the display. I tried turning it off and it turned purple. Then it began ringing randomly, vibrating all the while. I took out the battery and stuck it in my purse. I left for Boston assuming it was dead.

Once we were in Boston, we found the hospital with only a few delays. We still managed to make it in before visiting hours ended. My parents were there, subdued and pissy but reasonably well behaved. My brother was responding well to the IV antibiotic. We brought up his Buffy season 4 DVD set and got him all hooked up to A's laptop to watch. It was nice to see him laughing.

A and I stayed at a nasty Days Inn in Brighton Thursday night, which was next to a nastier International House of Pancakes. The IHOP just wasn't as good as I remembered it being when I was at Brandeis and used to go there for late night hash browns, coffee, and cigarette fests. Of course, I was usually rather high back then and I was entirely straight and sober this time so possibly that would account for the change in perception.

We spent most of today visiting my brother. Watched Buffy, ate pizza, called my sister, put her on speaker phone. She even sang us a song. She told me about her amazingly dense animal print blue kerchief on a stick. Our brother agreed that his baggage would be a pacer full of cardboard boxes, hangers, sticky CDs, and random mismatched shoes and socks. A and I stayed until my brother was looking sleepy. He should be discharged tomorrow or Sunday. If he stays longer than that, I might go back up again with a DVD player for his room.

Then A and I left and made our way home through the traffic of disappointed and drunk redsox fans. It sprinkled on and off down the Mass pike. In CT, it was raining hard and foggy. Of course it was. CT sucks. But it was good to be home. Home with my cat. Home in my cozy apartment. Home to my left over fried rice. And home to the leaking ceiling in the living room which almost exactly one hour after I got here just gave up. A piece of ceiling about as big as two of my fists came crashing and splattering down. It was the entire thickness of the ceiling, all the way through. A and I inspected it cautiously with a flashlight. It seems I may now have a sky light. I'll find out tomorrow. The worst part was the slimey moldy drywall stuff that splattered all over the place when it caved in. Ah.....just what I wanted to do at 11:30 at night - clean mold and plaster off my walls and out of my carpet.

I decided to move the cat's stuff into the bedroom so we can both sleep in here with the door shut. The hole is really ugly. I kept thinking about it and wondering: What if something comes in through the hole? A bat, a squirrel, a bird, bugs, whatever. I don't want to wake up to it in here with me or out there with the cat. While I was moving the cat's food and gianormous litter box into my bedroom, I ran across my cell phone. On a whim and to show my friend A what had happened to it, I put the battery back in and turned it on. I fully expected that it would be completely dead by now.

It started up fine. It had a full charge and found a signal. I called my house phone on it. A picked it up and said "I can hear you. Can you hear me?" and I could.

I am just amazed.

When I started this blog it was because life was fucking with me and I needed a place to get it out (among other things). I think I mentioned that when things went bad in my life lately they transcended bad and went straight into absurd. This week has been a testament to that characterization. The cell phone actually working after spending any amount of time completely submerged in water is, I believe, the result of the absurdity. Of course it worked. I shouldn't have been surprised, because if it hadn't worked, that would have made sense and sense is not in high supply in my life these days.

Someday, I'll look back on all this and laugh. Right? What I hope is that I won't look back on this and think "ah the good old days, when life was comparatively carefree". Seriously, that is one of my deepest fears.