Anna Roth
The Laziest Day Ever
I did nothing yesterday. Well, almost nothing: I read all day long, first in bed until the sun started going down, then on the couch because it seemed too shameful to stay in bed. I also made coffee, and walked down to the corner store to buy some beer. And that was my Saturday.
A shame, because I had such a lofty To Do list that included:
- Go to yoga
- Clean my appallingly messy apartment
- Write for at least an hour
- Do laundry
- Etc.
I did none of those things, even the ones that would have been easy to do (laundry and reading go together quite well; I even have enough quarters, which never happens). The absolute best and worst thing about living alone is that no one’s there to keep you honest.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. What happened was, the day before yesterday I had a tremendous headache. Probably sinusus but maybe a migraine (who knows, I looked it up online and WebMD told me that a “sudden severe headache” could be the sign of a brain tumor, and I remembered why I don’t look symptoms up online). I left work early and lay on my couch and moaned. Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore so at 8pm I took a combination of Advil Sinus and NyQuil and was dead to the world until 11am yesterday. I woke up sort of confused and happy the world still existed, but I was hungover from the medicine and disinclined to get out of bed, except to make coffee, until about 2. By then I’d missed the yoga class I was planning to attend and was so enjoying the book I was reading (Skippy Dies, I was nearing the end, and when that was getting too harsh I switched to Sherlock Holmes stories) that I just kept on doing it.
Today might have gone down a very similar path had I not made a plan with my friend Raquel to go hiking. Raquel is a very valuable friend to have because, unlike me, she generally considers plans set in stone once you make them, whereas I am the queen of flaking out and therefore hardly ever do anything. She wanted to meet me at my place but I couldn’t let her because of the aforementioned appalling mess, so I felt bad about myself for a while over that, and then set out to meet her far too late. Luckily she was even later. We hiked Runyon Canyon and parted ways, but I was propelled with enough forward momentum to at least write a blog post and take my trash out. Also, I am considering doing my laundry.
I think the reason yesterday disturbs me so much—because god knows I have had my share of slothful days—is because I spent so much of it in my bed. It reminds me of being a teenager, when my domain was a tiny room and my bed was staging ground for homework, reading, diary writing, mix tape making, IMing (junior year on, when I got internet in my room; Wi-Fi didn’t exist yet because I am old), music listening, and staring at the ceiling despairing of my life. Now I have a whole apartment to myself and a whole city to explore. Am I regressing?
But I’m probably reading too much into it. As another friend reminds me regularly, there’s a big difference between rest and laziness. Sometimes you don’t finish your To Do list. And that’s okay. I’m learning that’s how life works.
