Worst Bath Ever - Ode to ye ol Victorian.

Imagine, if you will....


I feel the itchy/scratchiness of a cold coming on.  The kind where it hurts on one side of your throat to swallow and you feel mostly otherwise fine and look mostly fine so you can't call in sick for work until your nose starts running down your face when you are nowhere near a tissue.  That kind of sick.


It's a quiet night in my new house and I think to myself, self, you should hop into that claw foot bathtub for a restful soak.  Brilliant idea, Mich.  (I like to give myself kudos.)

But first, I probably should scrub it out, because who knows really.


So I get the comet and a scrub brush and I go to work, totally proud of myself for my incentive amidst my looming illness.  I rinse out the now sparkling ceramic and light an aromatic candle (a flavor I like to call Christmas but it's probably just cinnamon or pine or something).  Then I think, well, I should probably shower first so any leftover soapsies will go down the drain.  A comet bath probably does not do wonders for the human skin.


Shower show, crap!, I need to find the plug for this bad boy.  So I climb out (it's a high tub) dripping wet fumbling around in an as yet un-traversed below-the-sink cupboard which per usual is full of bits and bobs that aren't mine making it difficult to carefully find something - and I locate the damn thing.  And I'm fucking freezing because let's be real, it's San Francisco.


Even prouder still, I get back in and start to run the bath and sit in the basin marveling at how I can lie down fully and, in theory, submerge, boobs and all!  The size of the tub begins to turn into a pitfall as I see the hot water is trickling-at-best out of the faucet and the .5 inch layer of water at the bottom is not serving to keep me warm.  And you know the water at the back is always cold.  So I'm shivering again trying to cup handfuls of warmth over my balled up body.  Flashback to that scene in What's Eating Gilbert Grape.  Poor Leo.  

Ponder ponder ponder.  I will make this work.  How can I make this work.  I get out, leaving the tap running (I know wasting water blah blah but the drought is over right?), and I rush to the kitchen to boil some water in our newfangled boiler pot thing!  All the while, not noticing I'm standing in front of the kitchen window in plain view to the buildings across the yard.  Oh well, I'm busy.


So now I'm shivering in the kitchen, and we all know what they say about waiting for water to boil.  Or a watched pot doesn't boil?  Maybe we don't all know and it's electric anyway so it finally did.  And I then toss that into the bath and hop in!  Victory!


Cold.  Everything cold.  Defeat.


Fine I'll shower.  But low and behold; the shower water is now cold, as I wasted the mid-temp on my shit-town bath that was destined for failure. 


Best part is, P. Kitty watching me run back and forth the whole time likely thinking, you idiot.  Whatever cat.  Whatever.

I want LOVE.

Revisiting an old friend, Rudy Francisco:

“I want that ‘my friends think I’m crazy’ kinda love.


That reckless kinda love.


That ‘wake up early, make you breakfast’ kinda love.


That ‘crack open my life and say look, you gotta see this’ kinda love.


Forget the shallow stuff, I want the deepest kinda love. That ‘I wanna stay up late and tell you all my secrets’ kinda love.


That ‘every time I see you, I fall in pieces’ kinda love.


I want that ‘stand next to me’ kinda love. That ‘you are my destiny’ kinda love.


That ‘no matter what happens, you’ll always get the best of me’ kinda love.


That ‘you get my heart and my mind; this world gets the rest of me’ kinda love. That ‘invest in me’ kinda love. That ‘you already know that I’ve invested in you’ kinda love.


That ‘you come home upset, you don’t even gotta say nothin’, I already know what to do’ kinda love.


I want…I want love.”

I LOVE today.

Even though I (allegedly) owe $640 to the government day after tomorrow, and don't know where I'll be living in 2 weeks (again), and will be officially over the mid-twenties-hill on the 17th (embracing my wisdom and astoundingly enviable life-stability) - today was a good day.

I'm helping to co-facilitate a life-coaching group in Oakland through the non-profit I work for. Everyone in the group is hoping to exit their career counseling sessions with the skills to achieve a job in the "Green" industry (installing solar panels etc). Most of the students have had children at a young age, or didn't graduate high school, and/or have had other familial and life hardships. Although they are motivated to get the most out of the experience, they also have a(n understandably) tough exterior - says the only white girl in the room today dubbed "college-girl".

One of the exercises we did this afternoon was to sit one at a time at the top of the group while each classmate told you what they liked about you. Everyone was respectful, everyone had something to say, and everyone was smiling. At the end, a particularly quiet student said this in reflection:

"Sometimes I am really shy in this group and I don't say much. But I appreciated the chance to tell everyone how I really feel. We see each other every week and soon we will go our own ways, and I realize without this activity I would have never said anything."

I swear I didn't cry. But I wanted to. That might have deteriorated my authority as "college-girl". Who seems like I could also be a "home-girl". So true. So true.