Serotonin Reuptake

I have such fun sometimes with my friend Val. She’s a very life affirming person – and, as she’s eight months pregnant, I mean so literally as well as figuratively.

The other day we were driving to her house across the bay, where I was going to spend the weekend. I was complaining about having no ideas to contribute to TWM. On the freeway, at 70 plus mph, she asked, “What’s that bee doin’?” I looked over from my passenger’s seat to her driver’s side rear view mirror, where a bee was clumsily banging itself against the bottom right hand corner of the mirror, right where the glass was connected to the molding that encased it. I had misinterpreted her question as “how is that bee…?”, and I said something about the mirror holder blocking the oncoming wind and creating a pocket of calm in which the bee could hang out as it rode along. “No; what’s it doing? It’s humping the mirror,” she said. “It’s trying to mate with itself in the mirror,” she explained with a smile in her voice. I looked at it closely as it threw itself upon its image. I took into account how a leg or two were right where the plastic molding crimped against the glass, considering how it might be stuck and simply beating against this structure in order to free itself from the thing that was trapping it. But, no…it looked for all the world like it was trying to fuck itself. Hilarious, I thought. Bees flying along the freeway, jumping on their own reflections in the mirrors that drove by, athletic little narcissists. Tiny sex highwaymen, so silly and harmless. “That’s great!” I said, laughing. “That’s a blog entry, right there.” I was delighted; I thought my day was made.

On the other side of the bay, we stopped for lunch – Thai food, perhaps my favorite, and Val mentioned that lunch would be her treat. Before eating, we parked a half block away at the lot of a baby-stuff store, both for the free parking while we ate and because Val wanted to get some kid's things (for someone else’s baby shower, actually, rather than for the child she was carrying herself) before lunch. She went to look for t-shirts and jumpers and onesies or whatever, and I gravitated toward the kids’ furniture section (the store had lots of furniture, most of it child-scaled, some of it sized for adults). I went to a small wooden table, sat on one of the matching chairs that it came with, and it was fairly comfortable. Being a relatively small person, I could imagine eating an entire meal at this miniature table before tiring of the novelty. I noticed the price tag and how cheap the set was considering the quality of the wood and the build. I moved over to a child-sized easy chair, and when I sat in it I was surprised by how comfortable it was. I imagined whether I’d still be comfortable after sitting through, say, a two-hour movie, and I decided that I would be. I saw that the easy chair, like the table/chairs set, was both of good quality and very reasonably priced. It dawned on me that someone of my size, modest budget, and eccentric taste in interior decorations could outfit an entire apartment in children’s furniture. It would be inexpensive, whimsical, and somewhat practical (though I could already picture my guests complaining). This notion gave me quite a kick; it felt like an epiphany. I wasn’t planning to get any new furniture, but it was nice to know that this option was out there.

Val walked by holding a pile of tiny garments on tiny hangers. “Did you check out the gliders?”, she asked. “You mean, like model planes?” I asked, making a mock launching motion with my right hand, thinking of balsa flyers. “No,” she said, indicating with a nod over toward some chairs behind me, “rockers, rocking chairs.”

I went over to where the “gliders” were, noting from their tags that they were, in fact, called “gliders”. They were essentially rocking chairs but, instead of rocking on rocking-chair style runners or legs, the seats moved back and forth on bases that held moving parts but did not themselves move against the ground. I sat in one, discovering that these gliders, too, were quite comfortable. I tried out another glider, and it also felt great. I felt like Goldilocks but so much easier to please.

I sat gliding, enjoying my perfectly content mood, when it occurred to me that I had not brought my meds with me when I'd left the house that morning. Oh, shit, I thought, trying to remember myself packing my bag earlier, hoping to distinctly recall putting my pills in my bag. No…I had forgotten to pack them. I realized that insisting on going back was too much to ask, that I was going to have to go a couple of days without my Luvox. Damn, I thought, I am so fucking stupid. I rationalized that one’s medication levels build up and that they might remain stable even if one skipped a few days. I knew that I was thinking wishfully, but, still, this sounded like it might well be true. But, then again, not missing a day was certainly better than missing. And it would have been so easy to have just remembered to bring the pills. I felt my contentment, which had been building all morning, dissipate instantly, and I sighed with angry resignation at my sense of fun’s fragility.