2008-12-27 - 11:56 p.m.

one part loss, one part no sleep, one part love, one part everything that comes after

my nailbeds and cuticles are cracked and bleeding from the dry heat in that room. my head hurts, and i am exhausted. it is exhausting, spending so much time in that heat, maintaining a perfect and undivided focus on another person. someone has to watch my grandmother every second. she's sneaky and fast.

we keep that room very warm while the rest of the house is cold. it keeps her from wandering. she thinks my dad has become a stingy bum, because he won't turn up the heat.

my dad hasn't been going to work these past few days. he must be a bum. she won't believe it's a holiday week. she doesn't believe the snow outside is real. she says, "be careful when you make up that bed, dear. i died in it last night."

she throws away everything and anything she can get her hands on. she's fast and sneaky. she says her father was so strict, but she was a treasured child all the same. we are her magnificent treasures who must stay with her always. she wishes she could shoot us all, we're so mean. someday, she'll read all those books again. some other day. another day, another dollar, my little chickadee. mae west - wasn't she wonderful?

she threw out all her orchids, because it is too cold for them to live through the winter. they were still green and blooming, but certainly they were dead. yes, they must have been. quite dead altogether.

in that room, there's a dry heat. my hands hurt because they're cracked and bleeding. every morning, she screams in the shower.

and it goes on and on and on.

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"o heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt, burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye! by heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight, till our scale turn the beam. o rose of may!" - hamlet.

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