Atypical Dissociative Disorder

Trancelike state. Yesterday I left my glasses at the museum (only wear them to drive, not necessary even then) and didn't realize I'd left them until I got home and tried to take them off. In the weird people of Portsmouth category: shopping at Kroger this morning and still some time to kill before work so decided to go below the floodwall, driving down 7th, west and there was this strange large man with a very small head walking down the sidewalk carrying a sickle. I reached over and locked the door. Was in a funny state this morning, kind of off the wall or over the edge , D was showing me something on his computer, and out of the blue I yelled -FISHSTICKS!- D spit coffee and asked what the hell I meant and I didn't know. I asked him when was the last time he had fishsticks and he said -dude, I've got kids, fishsticks are a staple-. I haven't had them in decades but may have to buy some, ate a lot of them in college, with stolen ketchup. Running on fumes, at this point, and when we're hanging the upstairs galleries I just zone out in the middle of a calculation and lose the entire numeric sequence, have to start over. I can do this perfectly if I don't think about it: one doesn't think about pounding nails, one just pounds. We get everything hung except the couple of pieces that can't hang until the vinyl signage is on hand, tomorrow, and then do the lighting, we finish, it's like four-thirty, and we're all in, done for the day, wasted, and this great thing happens, as has happened before, the four of us, Sara, the Deputy, D, and the janitor (myself), confer around the staff table (which same D and I conspire to replace, with something nice, 8/4 cherry top with a trestle base) and shoot the shit about what's going on. We're all laughing and carrying on, at five I go close up, and get a couple of beers out of the fridge, real tops, not screw caps, I use the opener on my key-chain and D uses the appropriate blade on his Swiss Army Knife, we deserve a beer, and this one is free. A great fifteen minutes after hours. We should do this more often. Here is the heart of the museum, the four of us, this is what we do. EVEN THEN I'm making a punch-list, what we need to do, I pass it to D, he makes a few additions. On the same page. We're good to go. This is very much like doing theater or opera or ballet, it will open when projected, that very day, that very time, the finger-food is, you know, ready, and everyone all dressed up, you can't miss the party. Never have so few done so much for so few. If it floats my boat, I'm all in. I always eventually decide. I won't tell you my tell, I'm so transparent you already know, but I like pretending to hold it secret. Allow me a place, and I'll, you know, expand. What I/he thought he meant. It's rough, being at the bottom of the pecking order, you spend most of your time avoiding blows, but no one expects much. Sara, I think, loves that we can produce the show that she imagines, something in that fifteen minutes tonight, she didn't say something, and D and I knew exactly what she meant, all of us laughed, because she knew that we knew what she was going to say.

Fuck me,
Tom