Venomous Pandemic Rants, Part 1

The Porch Light Sniper

Photo by Jarrod Reed on Unsplash

The days run together, but the weeks are short. My neighbors down the hill leave their back porch light on all night and it shines directly into my eyes when I wake up in the middle of the night. I’ve thought about shooting it out with a BB gun, but my husband deterred me, saying that it would be instantly obvious that we had done it. I’m not so sure, but I’m also not keen on starting a suburban turf war over a porch light. 

Curtailing our human contact has impacted me in ways that I wouldn’t have thought, but kept me undisturbed in others. I’m struck by how little we socialize, and how little I miss it. I do however, miss being waited on. I don’t care about the food at restaurants. I cook as well as many mediocre chefs, and am adventurous in the kitchen. I miss people bringing me the food, keeping the wine topped off, cleaning up the spent cutlery and spent dishes. I miss seeing what other patrons are ordering, and wishing that I’d ordered that instead. I miss being the customer. I miss being always right. 

What’s added insult to injury is the horrid weather. It’s become cold, snowy, often hailing. Yesterday evening we had an earthquake, which was the last straw, and drove me to taking two shots of homemade vanilla infused vodka. I usually loathe vodka, but it’s what we had. I’m grateful for Xanax. I’m grateful for melatonin. I wake up with odd dreams, note the infuriating illumination coming in through my bedroom window, decide not to close the blinds. My fury fuels me, keeps me awake when I should be sleeping. 

The morning is a time for leveling, a reorientation, a righting of the ship. Me, I’m the ship in this scenario. My meditations have been messy and unfocused. Lame songs from the 80’s drift in, scenarios from dozens of years ago that I can finally look at and admit that I was the asshole, a sense of dread rolling over me like a thick fog that I must orchestrate four lives today, all day long. I am the maestro, but I’ve lost the desire to read music, but the show must go on, but. 

I can’t concentrate on anything, so reading, something I love to do, is lost to me. Today, day, I don’t know, eighteen? I picked up a book I’ve read thrice before. It’s comforting, even though it’s a dystopian nightmare. It’s not our dystopia, so I take comfort in it like an old blanket. I could read today, and that’s enough. Today I’m also writing, which is clunky and aimless, but I’m doing it. And writers write. I have the time and resources to be what I want to be, and now I just need to be it. Why is that so intimidating? Is it because I’m afraid that I suck? Maybe I do suck. So what. These words exist now. I am the creator, I am the maestro. I am a wannabe BB sniper, killer of light bulbs, annihilator of cohesive narrative.