I am weird.
On Saturday while I was making taylor ham fried rice I started thinking about the wooden spatula that I was using in my non-stick frying pan. For years it was just used to stir tomato sauce in a pot. After I've started cooking with it, one side of the edge is dark and burnt. Is the spatula happy now that the spatula is being used as a proper spatula? Is this akin to the skin horse feeling joy at its worn patches and the velveteen rabbit's loose eyes and busted seams?
After a bit I smiled and felt happy because I figured the little wooden spatula which came 1700+ miles cross-country with me more than five years ago finally is being used by its human.
I'm doing laundry and Spot likes to run upstairs and explore behind the machines. I was able to shoo her back into the apartment. I went back to doing my dumb internet shit.
All of a sudden I realize that Spot hasn't pestered me in an hour. She's not napping on the lovesac. Her food is untouched in the kitchen. I waddled into the bedroom, hit the light and lifted up raddidge's side of the futon to see if she hunkered down there.
Spot's nowhere to be found.
I open the cabinets. I check Spot's room (one of the bedroom closets) and investigate the furnace room. Fucking maglite is nowhere to be found. I open up the locked closet because Spot is strange and might've gone in there. The bathroom is empty.
I grab my keys and head outside calling out for Spot. Fortunately it's not bitterly cold like the last couple of nights which dipped into single digits or lower. Halfway down the driveway I'm calling out for Spot and squinting to see if I can see her in the dark. One step later I'm flat on my back with a bump on my head and my left palm got scraped up.
Seems that I woke up Olympics Guy. Fuck, I'm muttering curses under my breath and crawling around trying to find my keys that went flying as I fell down. Fortunately Olympics Guy is nice, he hits the panic button on his truck to turn on the lights and I find my keys. He lends me a flashlight and I walk around the block looking for Spot.
Olympics Guy is checking the driveway between the house and the meth clinic. I decide to head back indoors and check one more time. So I start shaking a bag of food and call out for Spot. When I go back in my room I spot her sitting on top of my bookcase staring at me like I'm fucking insane.
I go back upstairs and return the flashlight thanking Olympics Guy for his help and apologizing for being a bad neighbor. I hugged and held Spot so much because I don't want to lose her.
Now I wasn't the owner of the place but I wasn't renting the joint. Kinda like living at home with one's folks. Inside was completely suburban, pastel blues and pinks with a few white walls. Windows with wooden blinds or nondescript curtains which were on sale at Bed Bath and Beyond.
raddidge was at the door and we went for a stroll around the house. After our walk we went back inside. Now this was the first time I ever used the back door. Apparently going through different doors gives different residences in the same house. The floors were tiled with tiny black painted flowers, nearly every exposed surface was made of unfinished wood. A steep stairwell led to the basement. Hanging above the stairwell was a stuffed giraffe in a noose. Biting the poor, stuffed giraffe's tail was a stuffed, orange alligator who was being bitten by yet another creature and so forth towards the basement floor.
This was one of the few times where I felt actual surprise in my dream. I was home. My home. I turned to raddidge but she wasn't behind me anymore.