Made It!

I drove down to Roi's in beautiful sunshine. We visited and wrote and ate and talked and laughed. So far, so fun. I even (accidentally) trapped one of her cats in the bedroom with me, so for the first time in my life I slept with a cat. I'm going to try not to do that again, not that she was a bad bed partner, she hid under it, the whole idea of it just royally creeps me out. No offense meant, Roi and Mocha/Maya.

February 12--Prasline, Seychelles. Jake lay on his bed in the small light that shone from the little bulb in his closet. He tried squinting and that was better. Squeezing his eyelids shrank the world down to something more manageable, or maybe squinting made him smaller so that he'd fit into his imagination. Today he projected himself onto the little island his turtle, Macro's bowl. He knew it was just molded resin with some plastic palms stuck on here and there, and the turtle water tended to be algae green rather than the rich blue of the Indian Ocean, but after the debacle that had been his day he needed to get out of his real life into an imaginary one--stat. (His gran watched doctor shows and someone was always yelling "stat," it meant fast.) Failing his Social Studies test and having to bring home a note was bad enough but coming home to find Mom and Dad sloshed and fighting put the cap on a perfectly terrible day. He didn't mind eating a bowl of fake Froot Loops for supper but he hated the boozy words and slurred anger that bounced off his parents and ricocheted through the house.

Highly colored by the Sherman Alexie novel I started reading last night, but there you are, I am what I read, or what I'm reading at the time. You can call me Sponge.
--Barbara