The long, sleep-deprived drive home.
Tonight Logan did an uncanny impersonation of me arriving home at 6:45 this morning.
He grabbed my purse, went out on the porch and pounded on the door several times. (I don't have a house key and the doors were all locked when I drove up. I don't need a key because we don't lock our doors. Rob us blind! We deserve it!)
When I opened the door he came in, threw the purse on the sofa and said, dramatically, "I am so fucking tired, I need bed."
Then he hurled himself through the house to the bed. It was like walking only with more forward leaning. He mimed pulling off a bra and necklace and laid down on the bed like a corpse and said, pretending someone was trying to kiss him hello, "I need sleep please don't touch me."
And, though I hate to admit it, it was true. Our happy reunion involved my sleep psychosis.
I left San Francisco at 10pm Sunday night, after walking with a group of people (a few of them exceedingly adorable) around the city all day.
My flight was full and full of children. Full of very tired, very cranky and very loud children. I'm glad I'm done having kids because the remaining eggs in my ovaries gave up somewhere over Montana and hitch hiked into Canada away from me and Northwest Airlines.
My flight was also lacking a travel pillow (I forgot mine at home) and a blanket which meant sleep was a sort of yogic event. My favorite position was 'Pretzel Neck' and it was extraordinarily unpleasant. It involved drool running down my face and the weight of my head jerking me awake every three minutes, so I decided to read a book instead of sleep.
By the time I arrived at the shuttle to take me back to my car at 5 o'clock in the morning I had the look of a wild animal. When the shuttle driver asked me where I parked I said "3" which was neither the lot I parked in, nor the row I parked in. I pulled that number out of my crackling brain and left it on the dashboard.
When the driver told me how hot it's been here, and how it was slated to be 108 with the heat index all week, I flashed to the breezy air conditioned goodness of San Francisco and then I started to cry. I survived almost all the weekend without tears, Alice tried but the closest she got to tears was saying two words to me: "Good" and "Bye". Detroit finally did me in with it's rain forest impression.
We found my car and I realized I had left it unlocked since Wednesday. If you want to rob someone, you should probably find me, I'm practically traveling through life leaving a bread crumb-like trail of ways to rip me off.
I've been to and from Detroit Metro 6 times in the last 6 months. I drove away from the Airport and when faced with my first exit choice I honestly didn't know if I should head for Detroit or Chicago on 94. I thought maybe we'd moved to Chicago while I'd been away?
I drove past the first exit I needed to take and had to turn around. After that I took the most bizarre wrong turn of my journey which took me almost one hour out of my way and the delay caused me to be tossed into the indignities of rush hour traffic..
I've lived here my entire life and suddenly I couldn't understand why Lahser road was spelled that way, why not Lasher? Why am I even on Lahser, I don't live anywhere near here. Why are the exits on the right and not on the left? What is the speed limit? Why am I still listening to Drew and Mike? Who's driving this car?
My sleep deprivation took over with each passing minute and even when I pulled into my driveway I didn't entirely recognize my house. Had it always been this way? Why was it locked? Why don't I have a key to the house I've lived in for the last 8 years?
And so I went to the front porch, knocked on the master bedroom window off the porch and when Logan opened the door I threw my purse on the door, flung myself through the house and hurled my body onto the bed. Exactly like Logan showed me tonight.
Because I am, unfortunately, not a robot.
(The kids heard my flinging and woke up precisely upon my arrival at 6:50 am. If I were a better, less sleep deprived parent I would have been thrilled to see them. Instead I felt happy to see them but also sorrowful for the sleep I would be giving up in the name of love.)
