Sunday

It is Sunday. I am ridiculously bored. The only productive thing I have accomplished is ironing my laundry, and though I attempted to stretch out that activity for as long as possible, ironing even my t-shirts, I could only manage to allow it to occupy me for an hour and a half. Currently, I am lying flat on my back, staring at the mosquito net above me at the odd assortment of primarily dead creatures which have accumulated there- spider corpses, discarded wings, mosquito remains. I refer to them as primarily dead because there is one creature still going about his business- a small scorpion. This morning, when I first sighted him, I curled away in horror/disgust/annoyance. Those initial emotions have now been replaced with acceptance. He is a complacent creature and has been entertaining me as I listen to a mixture of Celine Dion/Kelly Clarkson/Traditional music emitted from my own/my brother’s/my neighbor’s radio. I get the feeling that the scorpion is stuck. Though he is definitely still alive, he hasn’t moved from his position since I noticed him. He is still active, reaching one claw forward, followed by the other, seductively shifting his tail as if it was a set of voluptuous hips. I know I should get rid of him before he manages to find a way to crawl onto me and deliver painful injury, but, for now, I’ll settle on him as my on mini television set.

I need to get out of my room, but once again it’s too hot. Last week, when I was in a hotel that had air conditioning, it was cold, as though winter had finally started after my almost eternal ten months of summer. It was cold enough that we took the thick, fleece comforters from our rooms and wore them as parkas to our workshops.

Yet, now I realize it was all a tease. I knew this yesterday as it took me three hours to complete washing my accumulated laundry by hand, leaving me so exhausted I napped for an equally long three hours, and my back so burnt that the multitude of my clothing choices aren’t currently possible.

I suppose the underlying problem of all this is I’ve forgotten how to entertain myself. I spent the last two and a half weeks with someone 24 hours a day, first Omar, and then the rest of the volunteers. So now, I’m attempting to reteach myself to be by myself, which is hard. Since Friday I’ve gone through three novels, a few Newsweeks, some knitting, written two short stories, done laundry and played soccer with the kids, but now, in mid-afternoon on Sunday, I’m at a loss for anything else. I figure I have at least six hours before I can go to bed and that seems like such an eternity, so for now, I’ll stare above me at a scorpion I’ve name Erwin, wishing for entertainment to appear in my life.