That’s how I feel. Blergh. The last two weeks have finally caught up with me.

Busy work schedule makes for not enough sleep. Not enough sleep means more coffee than usual, always topped with caramel macchiato cream. We didn’t do a very good job of planning our meals, so we didn’t have enough leftovers to take to work for dinner. No leftovers means that we go out for every meal, usually Chinese, McDonald’s, or enormous Italian subs loaded with salami and homemade cheese and drenched in oil. My brother was in town visiting, (more on that later,) and we wanted to take him out to some of the wonderful local restaurants in town. Going out with my brother means an over-indulgence in Irish stews, sumptuous chocolate ice cream, and a pancake breakfast that was originally developed for a lumberjack, or at least someone with a larger stomach than me. And beer. Lots and lots of cold, bitter, delicious beer.

It was delicious and decadent and wonderful.

But after two weeks, my body has had enough of the abuse. It’s throw up it’s metaphorical hands and said, “Fuck you, you’re on you own, asshole.” I’m tired. I feel bloated. Every time I put on my pants I’m secretly afraid they won’t fit, and secretly relieved when they do. My face is breaking out in a way that it hasn’t since I was 13. I’ve recently started getting car sick, and a headache is always around the corner. And, well, let’s just say there’s some epic crop dusting going on in the Van Sandt house.

Blergh.

I’m thinking it’s time to maybe give my body a break for a while. Help it out a little. I feel like I need a detox. Not a literal detox; if I hated myself enough to only drink maple syrup and cayenne pepper for a week I would save myself the syrup and just throw myself into traffic. Just, you know, maybe lay off the fried shit for a while. Drink some water that hasn’t been mixed with barley and cold filtered. And I’m just saying, a salad is sounding really fucking good right about now.

This is not to say that I’m breaking up with beer and fried things forever. They may not treat me right, but damnit, our love is strong and true. Our love is forever. But we do need to take a break for a little while. I need to be myself for a while, and experiment a little. Have a torrent affair with vegetables. Maybe a three-way with water and exercise that ends with bad feelings. Don’t worry, beer and fried shit, I’ll come back to you. I always do.

As soon as I quit feeling so blergh.

This was a terrible idea. Seriously. There was no part of this that wasn’t a bad idea.

We decided to steam clean our carpets today.

Intrinsically, this was not a terrible idea at all. In fact, this was a fantastic idea.We’ve been in our apartment for two years now, and the carpets aren’t exactly looking their best. But if someone spilled garlic salt or knocked over  pencil sharpeners over your head and tracked endless dirty shoes across your face, you wouldn’t be looking so hot either. And with the weather warming up enough that we can open the windows without freezing to death, today seemed like a good day to do it.

No, what made this decision a fucking stupid one was all in the timing and lack of preparation.

You see, the last two days of work have been ridiculous. A full day on Thursday working a Celtic band that ended late. In between loading in the band and getting the lighting ready for the show, doing as much prep as I could for the Friday show. As soon as the band left the space, finishing prep for the Friday dance show. Leaving the space after midnight, not getting home until after 1am. Getting in bed with the potential for four hours of sleep. Despite my exhaustion, my brain doing that fucked up thing where it sits there and thinks, “Okay, I have to go to sleep right now. Now. Now. Now. Why can’t I go to sleep?!” and gets me so worked up that I can’t sleep when I need to most. Finally falling asleep around 4am, waking up at 5:30 to go to work. Loading in and running focus for the dance show. Programming, fixing, work notes, futzing. Professional, exciting  show, super nice, relaxed road LD with his shit together, great crew who helped me get shit done. Drinking enough caffeine over the course of the day to kill a monkey. Running the show, solving a couple minor catastrophes, getting through it with the audience none the wiser. And when the show was over, loading the company out and the full restoration of my plot and rig. Always moving, only stopping twice for meals, for 17 long-ass motherfucking hours. Don’t get me wrong, it was a successful day, and everyone I worked with was great. But by the time I finally stopped moving around midnight I was practically drunk from exhaustion, and when we walked in the door well after 1am I was truly about to pass out. According to Kyle, I was home about 3 1/2 minutes before I was in bed, and I was in bed approximately 15 seconds before I was asleep.

Today, we are both work-hungover in a serious way. This morning, I didn’t even become conscious until noon. Kyle slept until 1pm, and only woke then because I opened the curtains in the bedroom. Both of us felt our feet ached when they touched the floor, and despite the ten or so hours of sleep, I feel wiped out. We’re both pretty cranky; earlier, I threatened to cut off Kyle hands if he tried to touch my boobs again, and he responded by informing me that he would just beat me with his nubs instead. All I want to do right now is put my pajama pants back on, curl up in bed, and spend the rest of the day eating graham crackers and watching cartoons.

And that is why our decision was a fucking stupid one.

Because I certainly didn’t want to have to move three rooms worth of furniture and stuff them into two rooms. I didn’t want to have to vacuum six times. I didn’t want to have to mop up all the water after Kyle accidentally flooded the bathroom floor. I didn’t want my bedroom to look like this:

or my kitchen to look like this:

I didn’t want to spend the afternoon freezing to death because we had to open all the windows and doors to let the carpets dry, even though it’s 47 degrees outside. Nor did I want to spend  most of my afternoon hiding in a fort made of our two couches and a card table in the kitchen because the carpets were still wet and our kitchen is the only room without carpeting and it’s filled with furniture.

(That’s where the lack of planning became wildly apparent.)

There is no part of this that I felt like doing today, but we’d already arranged to rent the steam cleaner, so it had to be done. I will admit, the carpets look much better, and there’s the nice, just-cleaned fresh smell in the house. Plus the cats have gotten a fucking kick out of climbing on everything and exploring all the new hiding spots created by the jumble of furniture.

Besides, our poor decision was quickly followed by an awesome decision, mainly, going bowling with friends Ryan and Christina. Cheap beer, super crispy 25 cent wings, poor attempts at a sport, and two of our favorite people; there’s nothing about that that’s not a fucking awesome idea.

Unfortunately, that was quickly followed by more ramifications of our poor decision, mainly, coming home drunk at 11:30 and having to move the couches from our kitchen, the cat boxes from our bathroom, and the mountain of shit from atop our bed. And let me tell you, there’s nothing fun about moving furniture when you’re tired, drunk, and all you want to do is get in bed and eat chocolate ice cream.

But now, at nearly midnight, I can’t say I’m sorry about the way everything played out. Sure, I’ll have to move two bookcases and a lamp to get to my morning cereal. But our apartment smells nice, our carpets are the nicest looking they’ve ever been, I had a lovely evening out with friends, and now I’m in bed with chocolate ice cream.

Nothing to complain about there.

I want today to be epic.

I want it to be full of sunshine and bare feet in the grass. I want to stroll down the sidewalk hand-in-hand, pausing from time to time to admire something in the window. I want to drive to a new city I’ve never been to and explore. I want to go play miniature golf and feel silly. I want to have a picnic in the park with sandwiches and cookies and enjoy the peace for a moment. I want to climb things and admire spring budding around me. I want to rearrange our living room, just because. I want to share ice cream on a bench and watch the world move around us. I want to go out and do things, so when people ask me what we did on Monday I can say, “Well…”

Because, you see, today is it for us. Today is our only day off together. And after the ridiculous weekend we had at work that left us exhausted and craving Denny’s to sooth our aching souls and battered egos, today feels particularly precious. I want to make the most of it, savor every moment, and make it last. I want today to be so full of joy and happiness that it can be the balm that gets me through the rest of the week. When I’m scrambling through the catwalks during hour 13 of work, I haven’t eaten in forever and peed in even longer, and I can actually smell my own swamp ass, I want to be able to pause for a moment, close my eyes, remember the warmth that was today, and smile.

But I doubt today will be epic.

Let’s face it, it’s almost noon and the only thing I’ve managed to do so far today is eat a bowl of cereal and watch Looney Tunes. Kyle is still unconscious, and likely will be for several hours still. I can’t really blame him either, the boy’s just exhausted. By the time we manage to drag ourselves into the shower and get ourselves in a stage that’s presentable to society, it’ll be solidly afternoon.

And the rest of our day?

It will be full of laundry. It will be mountains of dishes, and trying to get all the coagulated bacon grease out of the pan we left sitting on the counter two days ago. It will be picking up all the cat toys that have been scattered across the living room. It’ll be swapping out the over-ripe litter in the cat boxes. It’ll be trying to get through all the ironing that’s been piling up. It’ll be catching up on paperwork for the show this weekend. It’ll be digging through the pile of mail and bills on the desk in our office. It’ll be making a dinner big enough to generate leftovers to get us through the week.

Which is totally not epic.

But when I think on it, I don’t think we could handle an epic day off anyway. Let’s face it, a crazy adventure would likely only leave us going into the week more exhausted and stretched even thinner than before. Maybe all we really need today is a quiet day at home, without any expectations or pressure, getting caught up on life and our ducks lined up in an orderly fashion. Maybe the balm for my empty stomach and tired feet will be knowing that our apartment is clean, our bills are caught up, and I have enough clean pants to get through the next couple of days of work.

Maybe, if I’m lucky, we’ll find a little time for a walk. Some ice cream. A little sunshine on our porch.

And that would be balm enough for me.