Tuesdays

Tuesdays are my reading/ research days. These are the days set aside for grad school hunting and grant pining. I chose to do this on a Tuesday because I hate Tuesdays. Other days of the week have been famously hated by a variety of interesting people. Garfield hated Monday as did Wilson Phillips, Arthur Dent 'never got the hang of Thursdays', Jews hate Sundays, Christians hate Saturdays, and for some reason someone somewhere deemed poor Wensday 'hump day'...and unless it was Bob Crane I cannot imagine ol' Wensdy got her name from anything fun.

Tuesdays I hate. They are the color purple, so much potential but I still just don't give a shit.

This morning I realized that Reading/ Research Tuesday kicks regular Tuesday in the ass and in doing so totally redeems it. The following is a complete record of how my day started and how it will finish.

Each day my alarm will sound at 6:30 am, this typically means nothing to me. I've often worried about my addiction to the snooze button and its potential for driving a future-fellow-bed-warmer absolutely (I almost said 'bonkers'...saying it anyway) bonkers. This morning my fears became realized when Kenobi had had (damn had had) it with my alarm clock slap fest. As I reached for the snooze, Kenobi unwound from her little stripped circle at the foot of my bed and pranced up to my face (where she usually sleeps). She then pawed the blankets that were pulled up to my chin, and I stupid and tired unearthed the blankets so that she could burrow. She didn't, rather she just stared at me. We looked at each other for a long time. While I was considering the logistics of marketing of her cuteness or better yet biting off her adorable little face and spitting it down the throat of a hideous cat...she, with her huge Disney eyes was thinking, "get the hell up you massive beast and let me out or I will shit on your pillow case."

My dad and I passed each other as I came down the steps. He may have offered some sort of good tiding and I cannot remember if I grumbled 'good luck' or 'suck it' as a response. I guess I'll find out later today. I let the cat out then spooned with my mother for a while. I took a bath. A huge ridiculous bubble bath. It is always at this point of my Tuesdays, the point where I am in my mom's big ass bathtub, reading Victor Hernandez Cruz, drinking foamy coffee, and feeding on strawberries and homemade soda bread from a big blue bowl that I think to myself, "why the hell did I go away to college?"

One of the perks of growing up a fat dumb kid is that when you get older and acquire things like cheek bones and a thirst for knowledge your guilty parents cannot wait to feed you anything other then a sitcom sitter and bagel bites. Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't a fat dumb kid because of my folks, I was a fat dumb kid because I was lazy...and had astigmatism...and pretty much a useless metabolism. All that to say, the perks come when I need money to buy a new book or someone to pay for Karate lessons. This Tuesday my mom gave be $10 to spend on a book and I am freaking ecstatic.

From book buying I will most likely end up and a coffee shop reading. Then I'll get distracted and make a few phone calls, perhaps write a letter or two. I'll return home and start looking for a place to go to school and then tell everyone I know about my latest vision into my scholastic future. Valerie will most likely take the brunt of it as we meet for beers at the Crown to practice our Dojo Kun. Lastly I'll come home, stalk a variety of people via internet, feel out my fathers reactions to the mornings sentiments, eat, and most likely take another bath regardless a water shortage. I will attempt to organize myself, while laying in a sea of pillows that smell like my mother, I will stop trying to organize anything and feel relaxed for the first time sense infancy.

Tuesdays are no longer days harbored by hate. They are mornings greeted by fat cats and strawberries. They are days of many words, few of which are spoken. They are long walks with an old dog. They are days of looking. Days spent in sweatpants, and once the folks leave, days spent in underwear. Salmon days. Big color-filled salad days. Four dollar cup of coffee days. Warm days. Days where my writing begins to sound like a tampon commercial.