Monday, March 31, 2003
Wearing a Nightshirt in Public
I've used most of this morning to clean house, which includes: changing the catboxes, sweeping the floor, washing dishes and laundry. When I clean the catboxes and haven't showered, I feel covered with grit, and an indefinable film of badness, which may only exist in my mind, but which is still unpleasant. So I wear my nightshirt, which is still soft and aromatic from the night before and won't notice the difference.
But then I'm confronted with the very real need to drag my ass down the three flights of steps into the public laundry room in the basement of my building. And on this journey, made with bare feet that pick up every crumb of dust and scum they step on, I have to pass a glass door which opens onto the street. It is a well traveled street and at any moment I see people there; and more to the point, they see me... in my night shirt, hair unwashed, grit covered hobbit feet.
The feeling is one step below that dream where you show up to school in your underwear. Still, I shrug it off and gather my clean laundry. Because maybe I just don't care.
