Reversal of Fortunes

I woke up at 4 AM unable to sleep, riddled with hangover guilt, and turned to pondering a most diversified portfolio of self-loathing investment ideas. A civilized person should keep a two drink maximum for work functions and I didn't do that. Further, having failed to come home on time or sober, I had made it so my son would now have to miss school today and spend a day with Sleeping Ugly (aka his father, my ex).

This soon spiraled, given the darkness of my empty shithole apartment, into a full on crying spree. Perplexed though I was, it got worse, when the little voice inside my head that sounds like a drunken fifty year old washed up whore starting to monologue, or rather, slur:

"I have to stop drinking if I can't stop before being drunk. Drunk is so unclassy. It's one of the most unclassy looks on a woman period, let alone at a fancy job function. What is wrong with me? I'm going to stop drinking today. Yes, before the holidays. Saying I'll do it after the holidays is not even serious. Ok, maybe not stop but stick to a two-glasses-of-red wine-and-no-mixing-of-liquor rule. My poor son. I disrupted his week. What is wrong with me. This is so pathetic. I am so pathetic..."

[At this point my mind turns to a sped up slide show of drunk me at the office party; I see faces of the various dignitaries who I have drunk conversations with; cut to close up of my mother's face looking at me with victorious disdain; cut to scene of my son watching TV at 4 AM sitting 3 inches from the screen, while his father snores next to him.]

"...Like I was saying, I'm so pathetic, loser is a compliment. Look at me, all alone, can't sleep, hungover and feeling sorry for myself. Did someone say all alone? Shit, I'm all alone. My son is not even here. Nobody is here. I'm all by myself, now and forever. Washed up and drunk and divorcee to be. Me: I never had a ring, I never had a wedding ceremony, but hey, guess what? I get to have a real divorce in the end. There really are not even enough tears for this shit."

This goes on for a couple of hours and before the snot starts coming out and I start to look like Forrest Whitaker in all of his movies, I say let me take a hot shower. Hot showers help wake me up, they cleanse the body while metaphorically suggesting a cleansing of the soul. They also are a cinematic cliché, and I tend to favor those as good life skills. Whatever scrap of dignity I do have left prevents me from crouching under the shower in the most classic of cinematic clichés, and opt instead to just stand there. Yes, hot water, wash my sins away. Maybe I should pray? What is this strange feeling inside? Am I really feeling that devastated? Or is this... me needing to take a shit? Fuck. I have to urgently go take a shit. So much for cleansing. Sitting on the toilet, no fully dry, it's fucking cold and I have to take a shit. The drunk lady in my head goes for a drunk french accent:

"My life is sheet, oui? Ma vie, c’est la merde.”

I exit the bathroom and my mind is in such a soiled state at that point, I just crawl back into bed. At this point I just assume I will be the tackiest drunk employee ever and actually NOT show up to work after a drunk stunt at the office party. I am sheet, indeed.

AND THEN, the wondrous sound is heard faintly through the rambling of the drunken voice inside my head. Keys in the door! This means my son is coming! My Son is Coming! And just like that, I stand at attention, no tears, no hangover, no problem (well no, actually there was a major problem because when I jumped up that fast to stand by the door, I got really dizzy and fell slightly back and to avoid falling all the way, snapped my back, but anyway): he is here!!! He comes in and not only is he in one piece, he is happy and awake and en route to school. He is in fact coming through so I can wash him, dress him freshly and say hello before school. He had not taken a change of clothes to his father’s since I was supposed to pick him up!!! Really, it takes a lot for me not to bow down to Baby Father in appreciation of this blessing. "I was so miserable without him this morning, thank you so much for bringing him by!!!" "Yeah" says he, dry and mighty, "I know the feeling." Ouch, merde alors, alright already—no need to be mean…

Off they go to school, my son washed, dressed, bundled up, fed, with his freshly made lunch that I made and includes a treat, and life is good again. I can even make it to work on time. Off I go to get dressed to the sound of Steve Harvey’s Radio Show, my morning ritual resumed.

Steve Harvey Interlude 1:

Strawberry Letter Dear Steve, "I am sick of having to go to my relative's house for the holidays because she can't cook. Her food tastes like wood..."

Steve's Advice:

"Well, you should come in there already drunk, ripped outta yo mind where you can't taste anything! If not that, then you should just sit there and --spray the food with Pledge spray. They'll go Are you crazy, what are you doin? You go, well spraying Pledge on this food: it taste like wood. Or you can --take a chain saw and start cutting the roast beef with it. They'll go what are you doin?

Cuttin' this food: it taste like wood.

--bring some woodpeckers to the table. What is wrong with you, what are these birds doing here? They pecking... cause yo food taste like wood.

--bring a bag of termites, see how quick that food is gone..."

I'm cracking up. I'm dancing. My morning is good. Reversal Of Fortune is the title I am envisioning for the diary entry I am going to write today, I think. And just like that, a thought turns into a jinx, and it happens again, another reversal of fortune. If you missed count this is how it happened so far:

1. Me: Pit of Hell, Self-Hate and Self-Pity (reversal to)

2. My Son Comes: All is Well That Ends Well (reversal to)

3. Second reversal: from well to Well!

And what do I mean "Well!"? I mean that I notice that my fat pants fit me perfectly. I recently had lofty goals of throwing out these fat pants because "having them just allows you to fat your way back into them", I said, tough-lovin’ myself. But I didn't throw them out: I said, continuing to tough love myself, “Hell, I am too broke, I may need them.” This very well may be a chicken and egg kind of situation: did I get fat cause I knew the Fat Pants would be there for me? Doesn't matter now. What matters is my ass is nicely tucked into the fat pants. And that is lucky since it means by extension that my ass don't fit into the not so fat pants. Since the human mind suffers from morbid curiosity, I now am standing in the mirror pondering my fitting into the fat pants. Assessing the whole situation if you know what I mean—giving myself the old 360 degrees. Of course it gets worse when you do that, because you discover new things. Things like…My bra is not fitting right. My bra is not fitting right? What the? Fuck that shit. I am not buying a D cup. I'm just not. I don't care if boobies are coming off my bra on either side like an armpit muffin top, I'm not buying a D cup. I already wish I was a B. Fuck that. That would be like not learning the Fat Pants lesson and going to get a Fat Bra. I’m not doing that shit. It's inevitable that I look at the face now, but I already know what I shall find:

"Facial Breaking News-we report the disappearance of The Cheekbones. Police Name Number One Suspect: Repeat Offender Fat Pants, also known as Chub Nasty."

Steve Harvey Interlude 2 (Jacque Reid, the cute lady who does BET News is Steve's co-anchor on the radio):

-Jacque, this is a new thing?

-Yeah, wheat tins and low fat tuna, for a snack.

-Girl you already small, what are you doing?! Why do you think you gotta lose twenty lbs?

-I need to be a size 4

-But you're great the way you are, you're only a size 6.

-Well all my clothes are tight and in my work, you know red carpets-they give you sample dresses and -I need to be able to fit in them. I mean people can be whatever size they want but I want to be a little -smaller, I want to be a 4.

“Jacque Reid needs to lose twenty lbs. Ponder that inside your Fat Pants”, I say, tough-lovin’ myself for real this time. “Now go to work cause really, the only thing that will kill this hangover is a cab ride to work that you can't afford, followed by a bacon-egg-and-cheddar on a toasted roll from the deli.”