Kicking that thing awake

*  This post owes its existence to Christy Duke, who did not make it to GRL.  Her besty, Giselle Kay, brought her cardboard cutout (I WISH I had a picture– it was awesome– Giselle gave her superwoman boobs!) so that we could have pictures taken with her.  Christy pinged me on FB tonight, and got an odd and discombobulated rant– and greeted it with humor and sweetness, and for that alone I owe her. Thanks hon– I have the best fans in all of explored space.

Squish has said it three times today.

Mate gave me an extra long hug as we passed in the night– me on the way into the house with kids and him on the way to a soccer board meeting.

Zoomboy keeps bringing me chocolate kisses.

Even Big T tiptoes gingerly around me, trying really hard not to talk.

Chicken hasn’t noticed because she’s got cramps so bad she’s begging strangers for Advil and has opened the PMS channel on my phone texting service.

But still– I can tell.  I must look like dog crap that ran the marathon and dropped into a pile at the end, too tired to even steam.

I’m officially toasted to dark brown.  Stick a fork in me and I’d fall apart.  The Chiwhowhat keeps licking me for the salt gravy.

I’m done.

Or at least I thought I was done.

And then tonight, as I sat in front of my computer for what promises to be a big long whack of editing (Fuck. Me. Harder.) my FB screen popped up.

“Super quick.  What’re your favorite colors?”

*blink*  “Purple and gold– like the cover of Racing for the Sun.“

“Don’t ask what it’s for.”

And that’s when it occurred to me– it hadn’t occurred to me to ask what it was for.

Omigod– it had happened.  A week of GRL– two weeks beforehand of stressing about GRL– and two days at home trying to recover from GRL, and now, when I could least afford it–

My curiosity took a nap.

Or was bludgeoned to death–I’m hoping for the first one.

I should have known!  I mean… seriously.

See– I was taking Squish to dance lessons and she was talking.  She was talking all the way there and she was talking all the way back–but while she was talking all the way there I got stopped at a light and witnessed the following thing:

There were four ( count ’em!) cop-cars in front of a little house with a shitty view of a busy intersection.  There were at least three officers of our little podunk force with their weapons drawn, and in front of them, getting his hands ziptied together was…

Well, I was passing him from far away, and you know something?

He was still stoplight gay.  Skinnier than a Congressman’s conscience, black as a branch, tummy thrust forward, ass popping backwards, he was wearing red and white stripped shirt, white plastic beads, fuck-me hip-dropping black jeans, and I didn’t even have to see his eyes to know he was rolling them.

Holy crap.  What was that kid– that bright as the sun bit of trouble– doing in our dingy white-trash suburb?

Or that’s what I should have asked myself.

But I didn’t.

I fought my way through traffic (Squish talking nonstop) and then sat through dance lessons (the dog fighting for my attention like my chest without a Chiwhowhat was like a man without an ego) and then managed the Taco Bell queue in a sort of semi-detached trance.

It wasn’t until Christy pinged me on FaceBook that it hit me.

My curiosity was asleep.  I’m not sure when it happened– it might have been when I woke up from my nap too early.  It might have been when I went grocery shopping and realized that the only thing that looked good was cookies.  (Cookies have, to date, never made me throw up.  It’s a point in their favor–I’m saying!)  It might have been when I hauled my achy, tired ass to the gym to work out in aqua– but at some point in there, when I was up and moving, I left my curiosity face down on the bed, snoring into the gray matter, one pudgy finger extended in salute toward anything that should attempt to pique it until it was ready to stir.

And then I started to whine at her.  (You were very sweet, Christy, but it was true.  I was whining.  I’m not proud.)  I whined about my day and about how I passed the stoplight gay criminal and our white-trash guys with guns and how my curiosity wasn’t even batting an eyelash, and when I was in the middle of my rant–

My curiosity woke up.

And now I’m left with a burning question:

What was the stoplight gay criminal doing in the white-trash backyard, why did those cops have their guns drawn, and why did someone need to know my favorite color?

And will my curiosity go to bed with me tonight, or will it stay awake and produce something really interesting on word in the morning!