I've Wandered Much Further Today Than I Should

Okay, I give. I'm sick today. My fever's climbed another notch, I ache all over, I can't turn my head to the left. I holler uncle, I'm beat. I got up just long enough to help make dinner, and now I'm done.
I'm just lying here considering the shapes on the ceiling, actually. I've looked at them a lot since they moved HB and me down here to the second floor. There's this water stain over the head of the bed, it looks like a face in profile. Sad face. Eyes and mouth turned down. Then there's the hairline cracks in the old plaster, two of them that zigzag together to make an interlocking 'S' and 'M' by the light fixture. First initial of my last name, first initial of his. All the little bumps and brushstrokes laid down in the plaster by someone I didn't know more than by name and will never meet, as he's been dead for decades. It's my history that informs this room for me: this was my first bedroom, my nursery, when they brought me home to this house from the hospital. I remember being four years old and my bed being exactly where it is now, and how the shapes I imagined that I saw in my closet frightened me so. Or when I was a teenager and slept with my first lover in that room. With my first wife. With D. I also remember lying next to David in this room just a few years ago and looking at those cracks, wondering if I'd ever know someone whose name started with the 'M' wrapped around my 'S.' HB's last name starts with an 'M.' You know, I feel sorry for people who move around so much. My house is my skin.
Aaron had the day off school today, and HB got off work early. Aaron calls Columbus day the "Advent of Syphilis In Europe" day, which at least proves that he's been reading, right? HB asked me how to sign onto MSN messenger, so I'd guess he's found someone to talk to online. I think that's usually a good thing, and he'll tell me about it when he's ready. Or not. We'll see. Right now I can hear them both in the kitchen, the room directly below this one, rummaging in the fridge and the cupboards. Hungry again. Too bad; J was here and he cleaned me right out, I mean that kid eats like a lawnmower cuts grass. I hobbled down earlier and helped the girls get all that turkey in and out of the oven, and they had a giant spread for J before he and Jill left. They wanted me to eat but it all tasted like sand and kleenex to me, just tasteless textures in my mouth. Plus when I keep my mouth closed long enough to chew I could suffocate. At least it got me out of doing any of the dishes. Duff took home two of the finished turkeys, Katherine took one to school and J took one home. They all had the other two stuffed and baked for J's sendoff dinner, hurray for them. I am enjoying my hot water with lemon and phenylephrine just as much as I would have the turkey I'm sure.
I wish I had more energy. It's my only real complaint. I can take pills if it hurts and every head cold passes, but I don't get anything done when I stay in bed most of the day. Pretty soon I'll get up and do some laundry, wash the dishes from whatever mess HB and Aaron are making down there, pick up the family room. Probably. I won't make Aaron do it, because he should be reading something or doing math until he catches up in school. I don't want HB to do it because he worked today, half day, sure, but he worked and I didn't and that makes me responsible for the house part. Maybe a cup of coffee could light a fire under my ass, but I doubt it, and it's so rough on my stomach and... whatnot.
So maybe I'll get up sometime soon, or maybe not. Maybe I'll just read some blogs, watch recorded episodes of Sordid Lives, smoke a cigarette (that'll make me cough), stare at the ceiling and wait for HB to come back up. There's always tomorrow, right? A day is never wasted and all that. Still, the way I feel right now, today was definitely a waste. I've always been a big believer in better living through chemistry, but just now it's letting me down.
So maybe tomorrow will be better. I hope so.

Title lyric from "House At Pooh Corner" by Kenny Loggins.