Reckless weekend

I’m on a comedown and I look like shit. But this was no drug induced high; rather the lack of sleep and overwrought emotions of a weekend where I opened my soul and let the world, or at least the readers of a certain section of  highbrow Sunday paper, come to judge. I holed up at Sam’s and drank through it like a coward. I don’t normally do whiskey for breakfast, but there was nothing else to drink, except tea: no sympathy to be had except from the mournful eyes of my ever serious pug.  Sam had been against it from the start, except that he would never deny me my chance, which I took, selfishly, regardless.

As the tolls came to troll and the supporters tweeted and retweeted, it seemed like a good idea, so we did shots over omelette; as did my strong reaction to the editor’s cut, which now, in retrospect, just seems a bit trite and ungracious in the face of the opportunity it presented.

In any case, Sam and I were on tenterhooks, and Tom had spent Friday on a date. All in all it was a messy weekend. I rolled home at 11, and Tom told me I stank – despite my morning shower, I’d rolled around in emotion soaked sheets for much of the day, only venturing out to let the dog have a crap.  I laughed at him, waving my humming pits, insulated by blood alcohol and began poking fun at the trolls late into the night. It was beautifully nihilistic and I was revelling in it. Tom went to bed.

It took a sleeping pill, swallowed at 1 am with a camomile tea, now hungover and wired, to calm my synapses to sleep, and when I  woke to Tom, on his way out the door, stroking my arm awake, I was heavy with dream. I had to get my arse in gear, make it up to the kids, and look professional, though three nights not removing my make up made my sins harder to conceal, and now, worn away at the end of the day, it’s laughable  that one let alone two people would lay down their lives for me, or even just a cloak over a puddle, but then again, who does that any more?

I returned to work where everyone now knew the rumours were true, but the cache of being published in a broadsheet was hard to ignore. But it was harder to apply myself to the task in hand and get back to business as usual. I grumbled through spreadsheets, and dilly dallied over copy and thought about my career, what it was, and what it should be.

I will cycle home soon with broken headlights to the normality of Monday night, with a bedtime story I know I should read, and the remains of dinner to scrape into the bin. Tom will fetch me tea, and  if I pout enough, give me a footrub, and all will be fine and normal and nice, except that my pouts are less and less effective when my tired face has been crumpled by a reckless weekend.