Yes I Can

My instincts at the moment are pretty minimal. Maybe instincts isn’t the word I’m looking for. I’m not sure what word I’m looking for, to be perfectly honest with you. Appetite? My appetite at the moment is pretty minimal? While that’s certainly true, it’s hardly what I meant to say in the first place.

It’s no good now. I’ve completely forgotten what I meant to say. I’m not to be trusted (that, more or less, is perhaps what I meant to say).

I can’t be trusted, speaking on a purely personal level. I don’t expect any sort of interaction that would involve the giving or receiving of trust, not today, at any rate. I can’t trust myself is what I suppose I am trying to say.

For instance: I don’t recall where I placed an open can of soda, and neither can I say with any certainty that I actually opened a can of soda, although I have a dim memory of having done so. I have no recollection whatsoever of having consumed a can of soda, however, and am unclear whether in fact one even consumes soda. I think one does. I’m almost sure drinking of any sort is an act of consumption. Regardless of these finer points, I have now gone room to room looking for the can of soda I feel certain I opened and did not consume, and it has not turned up anywhere. Despite my virtual certainty that I have at no time today –at no time in the last several months, in fact– ventured downstairs for any purpose, I have searched there as well. I have looked in the laundry room, in the storage closet, along the shelves where cans of paint and mysterious solvents are kept (I’ve never in my life purchased any such items, so my assumption is that these things belonged to the bankrupt chiropractor who lived here previous to my arrival).

There has been absolutely no sign of an opened can of soda, and while I realize that there is really no point in continuing to obsess about this issue –if you could go so far as to call it an issue, and I believe I can– I don’t care for lingering mysteries, of which I already have far too many. I also don’t know what else I might do with myself, feeling as I do so untrustworthy and disinclined to leave the house for a sandwich.

Most days I rather enjoy going up the street to the sandwich shop, not so much because I take any great pleasure in eating sandwiches (I do not), but rather because I am fascinated by the interactive nature of the experience. The people who work at this shop wear plastic gloves and make incredibly orderly sandwiches with uncanny speed. I almost wish they would work more slowly sometimes so that the satisfaction of watching their hands move so quickly beneath the plastic shield could be prolonged. This satisfaction is both fascinating and oddly comforting to me. It is almost as if these people are performing veterinary surgery and playing beautiful music on a piano, virtually at the same time. They are in such a hurry, I imagine, because they perceive me to be a nuisance.

I hate to be perceived as a nuisance, and also, as I have mentioned, my appetite at the moment is pretty minimal. Something else of mine, it occurred to me earlier, is pretty minimal, but I can’t for the life of me think what it might be. It could, I’ll acknowledge, be a great many things.

Addendum: I should also say that I don’t enjoy being called a strumpet, even by an eight-year-old girl who perhaps doesn’t understand what she is saying.