CLEANING…AND CLEANSING

LIBRA HOROSCOPE (from astrology.com): Someone has taken on a little too much power around the house -- and you need to find a way to rebalance it. If it's your problem, then it's easy, but if not, it takes some serious finesse.

Laura’s Log:
Oh, Tupper, look what you’ve done now! 2:30 a.m. I’m dreaming about something I vaguely recall as pleasant. I have found a boyfriend (husband?) and we’re staying in one of those ridiculous hotel suites big enough to house all of Vancouver’s homeless. We’re late for a dinner and I’m fretting because my clothes are a total mismatch, the accessories all wrong. And then I hear the heaving. Is it the housekeeper, upset that I’ve tossed clothes all over the floor? Things become explosive. I waken as Tupper is barfing all over the bed. My arm takes its fair share. I am Iams.

Screaming from the horror of being slimed, I lift Tupper off the bed and, tail tucked between his legs, he huddles in a corner. Then it’s round two. All that laminate, all that linoleum and he hits the area rug I paid too much for during a buying binge at Elte in Toronto two years ago. Some people aren’t meant to have nice things. I rinse my arm in the shower, soaping it down repeatedly. It’s gone, but I can still feel it. Perhaps Shakespeare had a sick dog when he wrote the part of Lady Macbeth. Out, damn’d vomit! Out, I say! Who would have thought the old dog to have had so much mini chunks in him?

More heaving. I frantically wrestle a sweatshirt over my head and throw on some jeans. Round three. Tupper leaves a small puddle of yellow mucus, half on laminate, half on rug. I grab the dazed pooch and we make a dash outdoors. Of course, the damage has been done. He dares to look up at me after five minutes of standing in one spot. Why in the world are we out here at this absurd hour?

Oh, Tupper. It’s a good thing you’re cute.


KEN’S JOURNAL (via BlackBerry):
BRUTAL SESSION W/BRAD. THOUGHT I WAS GETTING BETTER BUT I COMPLETELY BROKE DOWN. I WAS A SOBBING—NO, WEEPING—MESS. IT’S TRUE, MY WHOLE LIFE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE W/CLARA. ONCE I’D MATURED ENUF, WE’D GET MARRIED, KIDS, DOG, MAYBE A CAT IF SHE INSISTED. I KNEW I’D NEVER LEAVE HER. IT JUST DIDN’T DAWN ON ME THAT SHE’D BE THE ONE TO JUMP SHIP. DID I TAKE HER FOR GRANTED? HELL, YEAH.

HOW LONG DO I HAVE TO PAY FOR MY MISTAKES?

DURING MY BREAKDOWN, THERE WAS A MOMENT RIGHT AFTER I SLID OFF THE SOFA ONTO THE FLOOR WHEN I LOOKED UP & SAW HORROR IN BRAD’S FACE. IF YOU CAN’T COME UNDONE IN FRONT OF YOUR THERAPIST, THEN WHAT? A CENTURY AGO, HE’D HAVE CONTACTED THE INSANE ASYLUM & THEY’D BE GIVING ME A LOBOTOMY. CLARA WLD GO AWAY BUT SO WLD EVERYTHING ELSE. MAYBE HOCKEY WLDN’T EVEN MAKE SENSE.

AFTER THE SESSION, I AIMLESSLY WALKED ALONG KITS BEACH & SAT ON A LOG, TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF WHAT HAD JUST HAPPENED. I’D NEVER LOST IT LIKE THAT. BRAD HAD EVERY RIGHT TO BE SCARED. SO DID I.

PICKED UP MY MEAL FOR ONE AT URBAN FARE—CHICKEN POT PIE & ROASTED BANAN SQUASH (TOTAL COMFORT FOOD), NEW YORK CHEESECAKE—, TOOK THE STAIRWELL UP TO MY CONDO & STEPPED IN. CLARA WAS LONG GONE, I’D ELIMINATED EVERY POSSIBLE ITEM CONNECTED TO HER, BUT SHE WAS STILL EVERYWHERE. AND RIGHT THEN I DECIDED.

I’M SELLING THE CONDO.