deep in the ocean, there lies a wave for you

I tried to put together this “mobile laptop desk” my mom and dad got me for Christmas and failed miserably. It said on the box that it should take 15 minutes to assemble it. I went through 3/4 of the instructions before I had a cigarette “break,” which means I stopped trying.

The pieces.

The boxes.

Then I gave up.

Then I discovered I could still use the table even though it’s not entirely assembled.

Yesterday, I did not want to come back to D.C. I wanted to stay in Boston with my sister. It is so comforting to be with someone who knows me so well and who wants to do all of the same things that I do. Usually those things are just eating, drinking, and watching sweet stuff on TV, but whatever. The times we did leave her apartment, we did some in-public eating and drinking and made my “Good Will Hunting” pilgrimage to Harvard Square. We also laugh so hard and so inappropriately all of the time, people must think we are crazy. She brought me to tears in the company of strangers at least once each day I was there.

I had some crying fits throughout yesterday, dreading the flight, landing in D.C., taking the bus and the metro to the reality of unemployment and a city that no longer contains Clark’s welcome home. In Boston, with a sister to tend to me and occupy me, I could pretend for a few days that things were relatively ordinary. Or that I was on a permanent vacation where finding a job and dealing with these stages doesn’t have to happen because I have my sister to feed me and crack me up.

So I was the weird, defeated-looking girl crying in spurts at the gate and on the plane. The thought of taking the bus from BWI to Greenbelt and then the Metro from Greenbelt to Columbia Heights made me even more upset! So I called Cella, who borrowed the Moonwagon to come and pick me up. She said she had a treat for me. I thought being able to smoke in the privacy of my own car was enough.

She had to pee, so we pulled over at a McDonald’s and made bad food decisions, which turned out to be perfect, because the surprise she had was this song, wherein Justin Timberlake equates eating with sex:

So we ate our gross fast food in the car while listening to this song. Then, when we came home, we obviously watched both this and this. Justin Timberlake, James Franco, Justin Theroux, Will Arnett + Amy Poehler? Apparently my sister is not the only one who knows how to distract me.

I cleaned the yoga studio today on my first day of work in exchange for free unlimited yoga. After I was done – and I realize that telling this story forces me to admit where I spent three hours of my time this evening – I went to Tryst to meet Lauren. I sat at the bar and was on my computer while I waited for her, and as soon as she got there I put it in its bag and hung it on one of the hidden purse hooks. Then I totally left it there. It took me an hour or two to realize it was gone, and once I did, I prayed it was somehow in my car and ran there to check. I discovered it was completely and totally missing and called Tryst. The lady told me they hadn’t seen anything, and then she checked the hooks and still no luck.  I called my mom in an absolute panic. I couldn’t let myself think about everything on this machine — every picture from yeeeeears back, and all of his music. I realize some of the music stuff is on one of his external hard drives, but still, EVERYTHING of Clark’s is here. An inbox full of old emails, everything. We bought this computer about a week or two after he was diagnosed, figuring he needed something nice to create music with and watch movies on during hospital stays. I was having an absolute shame/panic attack. Could I still really be this out of it at times? I guess so.

I hung up with my mom, who convinced me that I needed to drive to Tryst to see physically for myself that they didn’t have it. Before doing that, I called them back on a whim, and the woman told me excitedly that immediately after hanging up with me, someone handed it to her. They turned it on and saw the prompt to log in, which says “Clark Sabine” and has a little thumbnail picture of his giddy face right after we got home from the Apple store. One of the workers looked him up on Facebook, found him and sent him a message, “”Did you happen to leave your MacPro at Tryst Coffeehouse?”

All I could say was, “I’ll be right there.”

He was a week away from losing his hair and still looks so happy to just be kissing me.