Speaking for Sarah

In a recent New Yorker (October 22nd), music critic Andrew Ross writes, "Like many people, I started blogging out of an urgent need to procrastinate."

That made me laugh, ruefully.

So, here I am, urgently avoiding work I should be doing tonight.

I'm just too tired.

But it's been a pleasant evening so far: Leftovers and wine and last week's People magazine (George Clooney's new love is a 24-year-old cocktail waittress--how shocking. I was sure he was holding out for his destiny, i.e., me.)

Now I am reading blogs and listening to music and soon I will go to bed. I have discovered that if I go to bed before midnight I am less cranky and tired the next day. Also shocking.

My fingers are still not entirely better so I have been woefully deprived of both volleyball and yoga. But I know it's not forever.

I went out to play today although my fingers are still not quite healed after I hurt them two weeks ago. It's too hard not to play when it is a golden autumn day and I know there will not be that many warmish Sundays left this year. Plus it makes me so happy....

We didn't have many people out today--even after we made lots of phone calls to locate the missing players and try to cajole them out of their lazy Sunday afternoon mode, there were only six of us. So we played three on three. I had my sunglasses on because the sun was bright but the light also had that slantiness of autumn and with the sunglasses on everything seemed dark. I felt as if the games were moving in slow motion, or as if I was anyway (maybe because I have been feeling tired). I kept trying to get the same shot and missing it--the other team would serve, the guy in the back line would bump it to me, in the front, and I would try to get the ball back up in in the air so someone else could spike it over the net. (We don't always play textbook volleyball like that, but today we were for some reason.) I kept missing, either miscalculating where the ball would come down, or hitting it up but sending it off to the side where no one could get it. But everyone was very patient. I was also practicing running to where the ball was and getting under it before I put my arms up, or out. Sometimes I run with my arms out and then I never get there in time. But I kept practicing--there was a lot of room for running with only three people on a side--and I felt like I was getting a little better at it.

But I was also trying to protect my fingers. Not by taping them, which would have been the smart thing, but just by avoiding using them when I could. Well, actually I did try taping them, but that felt too clumsy. So I untaped them and tried to play gingerly, but then of course there was that one shot coming just over my head and I reached up and just caught the tips of my fingers on the ball, they bent back a little, and then, ouch! I had to run off the court again. It was like a repeat of two weeks ago. This time I did cry, though, because I was so frustrated and upset with myself for getting hurt again.

Presently (isn't that a great word?) I calmed down and, once again, did the ice thing, then rewrapped my fingers, made sure not to play again today. Now, several hours later, my fingers don't seem much worse than they were this morning. I have an appt. to see the doctor Tuesday morning. As I told my friends, I don't think the fingers are seriously hurt but I want to see if the doctor thinks there's anything I should be doing to take care of them. Like, perhaps, refraining from playing volleyball for the time being.

I hadn't planned on pizza but the
rain was coming down in sheets

so cold

as I left the church where my
group was meeting

so I went into the pizza place

so warm

but only right by the counter
so I stood there and ate
my two slices, as close to the
oven as I could be

A woman I had just met
came in and ordered
a slice

"With anchovies,"
she said, putting the accent on the
"an" because she
is British.

I moved to a table in the
front and sat with her, warmer now,
not so wet and chilled.

The rain crashed down, right in front of us.

All the windows and doors were
open and we were
inside and outside at the
same time.

"This is just great," she
said, adding, "well, except for
that," gesturing toward
the green dumpster, supersize,
in front of the open doors,
filled with construction
debris.

Then she changed her mind.

"No," she said, "actually the
dumpster is perfect too."

I went back to the counter
for something and another customer,
a wrily jovial man
who had been waiting
with his wife for a
fresh pie

said to me, all earnest,
"I hope the rain keeps up."

"Why?" I asked, puzzled,
walking into it.

"Because," he said,
"then it won't come down!"

I groaned but
felt
secretly

so happy

The other night I was out with four women friends, celebrating one of our birthdays. We were having a rollicking good time, enjoying the food and wine and sharing stories about recent events in our lives. One of the friends who couldn't be there had said she was sorry she wouldn't be there to share tales of work, dating, real estate, and motherhoood, and we did indeed talk about all of those things.

Eventually we got onto dreams: recent, nonrecent, recurring, some remarkable, some not, but mostly hysterically funny. I was very excited to share a dream I had had just the night before, because, as I told my friends, the plans to go out together had been woven into the dream.

The dream, unelaboratedly, was that I had gotten married to someone who was a lot older than me and whom I didn't really know (let alone love) but who seemed very distinguished or important in some way. Maybe it was an arranged marriage of some sort (the family of the man I married seemed to be Indian), or something I had done for some kind of extenuating or political reason. At any rate, I realized with dismay that I didn't want to be in this marriage, I didn't want to consummate it (I think we had just gotten married the night before), and I was hoping I could get out of it, get it annulled. In the middle of all those resolves, I got a call from my putative mother-in-law saying that there was a big family gathering that evening and I was expected to be there. I told her I couldn't come, and there was a disapproving, disbelieving silence on the other end of the phone. Then I said that I had plans to get together with some friends to celebrate one of the friends' birthdays, and I thought, "There, I'm off the hook."

It took me a lot longer to explain the dream to my friends in the restaurant because we were already all laughing hysterically about someone else's dream, plus it was the end of the evening, and I was tired and had had some wine. The thing that really took a long time was that I was trying to remember the name of the older movie actor that the man who was supposed to be my husband reminded me of.

I said, "I had just watched this trashy new TV show last night that he is the star of, he plays the patriarch, oh, I can't think of his name."

I said the name of the show, and my friends had heard of it, but nobody could think of who was in it.

I added, "You know, he's that older actor, and he looks like his son, who is also an actor."

They all stared at me helplessly. Then the friend sitting directly across from me, asked, tentatively, "Donald Sutherland?"

"Yes!" I yelled.

We were all kind of screaming and laughing. The friend who had guessed said, "You must have transmitted that to me, because I didn't watch any TV last night."

Another friend, sitting next to me, said, incredulously, "What kind of clue is that? The older actor who looks like his son?"

Then they all said they had seen ads for the show, and that it seemed like maybe it was supposed to be liked Dynasty. I said, "Yeah, and that actress is in it, the one who was in An Unmarried Woman." (Obviously I was having trouble with names that night.)

The friend whose birthday we were celebrating summed it all up. "Okay," she said, "so you're telling us we got you out of having dinner with your husband Donald Sutherland's Indian mother?"

"Yes," I said. "That's pretty much it."

until the cinnamon sofa arrives in the warehouse of Biggest Store in the World. I called today to check. I am impatient for it to arrive so that I will once again be able to lounge around in my apartment rather than sitting upright (!) all the time. But I am using the time to tidy up, bit by bit. Today I dealt with paper: filed and also threw away a lot.

In other news, I have once again injured my fingers playing volleyball, this time the third and fourth fingers on my right hand. I didn't hurt them as badly as I hurt my left pinky two years ago--nothing actually popped out of place but a day later the two knuckles are puffed up rather alarmingly, the skin fat and wrinkly like little balloons. As soon as it happened (the ball caught the tips of my fingers and bent them back) I ran off the court in pain. Someone yelled out "are you okay?" and I said "yes," because I could tell I was, basically, and then the same guy yelled out to everyone else, "Okay, play the point, she's okay!" But then when the point was over all the guys rushed over (it was just me and the guys playing, at that moment anyway) and made a fuss over me, which I have to admit was rather enjoyable. I was preoccupied with how much pain I was in, so I just have a confused memory of shapes moving over me, blocking out the sunlight, people saying, "Do you want ice?" "Yes, get her some ice." "Which fingers is it?" "Here, let me pull them out." Ouch! That part hurt. I started having that feeling of hyperventilating and wanting to cry, although I don't think I did. Cry, that is. Then they all went back to playing and I made my way back to our blanket and ravenously ate the rest of my half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which made me feel less sick and low blood-sugar-y. Bartender Guy asked me if I wanted a cold beer as he grabbed one for himself on his way back to the net. I didn't think that was a great idea so I politely refused and watched a couple of games while cradling a melting chunk of ice on my knuckles. When the guys all came back to the blanket for a break, New Age Guy offered me some essential oils to rub on my hand, something for pain and then peppermint oil on top, which, he said, was also for pain but has the property of making things sink into your skin. I rubbed them on my hand, which seemed to make it feel better. It also made it smell very nice.

After a while I got bored just watching the games. It was a beautiful day, and I hated to miss out on playing. So, even though I thought I probably shouldn't, I got up and played the last few games, rather cautiously, trying to avoid using my fingers, which is actually quite possible in volleyball. It was one of those sunny fall days when, again, some of us couldn't bear to leave until the last possible moment. We played the last couple of games four on four, hitting the ball back and forth until it was almost too dark to see it. One of the other people playing, a woman friend, kept saying, "Remember when we used to play until it got dark and the bats came out?" I sort of remembered. A guy who is new to the group, who had missed that experience, seemed disappointed that the bats hadn't shown up this time. "Where are the bats?" he kept saying, as we were pulling up the spikes that hold the net in place.

We left the park as it was truly becoming twilight, mostly everyone else gone, the trees turning into dark shapes. "Let's go," I said, "before the bad people come out." One of my friends laughed and said, "Yes, the werewolves," making that werewolf howling sound. Of course, I was not thinking of werewolves but of predatory humans, but his interpretation was nicer, less cynical.

So that is my report on volleyball this week and the sorry state of my knuckles. I am thinking I may go see the doctor tomorrow just to make sure right away that there is no fracture and nothing else I should be doing to make sure the fingers heal properly. I would rather not have two more crooked fingers if at all possible.

Will keep you all posted, of course.