“I cannot do today.”
I yawned, blinked away the sleep and pushed my feet to the floor. Hal stared at me from the ottoman. He was thinking breakfast. I was thinking sick day. I’d woken up this morning on the couch, in the same awkward position I’d fallen asleep only two hours earlier, cranky and puffy eyed. Last night was one of those nights
I’d tossed and turned and worried and looked at the clock so many times that my retinas were burned with those tiny digital numbers – edging all the more near to the hour my alarm would go off. I finally abandoned my bed for the couch sometime after 4AM. A change of scenery seemed to do the trick.
When I was a kid, the cool side of the pillow or the other end of the bed was enough to shake things up, shut off the inside noise (fear of reciting the multiplication tables, new school nerves, etc.). And in college, there was upside-down land.
Yeah, you heard me. Upside-down land.
In those days, my roommate’s boyfriend and I used to lay face-up across the bed, heads hanging off, laughing and talking until our faces were beet red and pounding with blood pressure. We’d started it one day on the living room sofa when Mac, tired of my sour finals face, grabbed my feet and spun me around. Then he climbed onto the couch next to me and rested his feet on the wall.
“It’s so much better this way, I think.â€ù Mac said, and then sang some goofy song from our primary school days about turning frowns upside down.
“Only, you don’t actually have to smileâ€_â€ù
“Just go to upside-down land.â€ù
My roommate snapped a photo of the moment – Mac’s goofy smile making a frown and my frown, well, looking not so crabby.
I came across that picture a few weeks ago, and thought about it again this morning as I eyed the cat and he eyed me. He was still thinking breakfast. And I was thinking how there was no way in hell I could get away with a sick day. I realized that I could probably have used a bit of upside-down time today – a shift in my attitude, a change in perspective – but I was late as it was. So I got up and got ready for work
Besides, grown-ups do not have upside-down land. They have coffee.
My brother and I did that when we were little and shared a room! We actually had an ‘upside down news show’ we would do when we were goofing off instead of sleeping.
When I can’t sleep, I turn to the other end of the bed. For a few nights I sleep facing the other way. I don’t know why it works, but it seems to. Also: TYLENOL PM. Godsend.
My friend and I used to visit upside-down land on our way to getting self-inflicted head rushes!
I LOVE that concept! “I realized that I could probably have used a bit of upside-down time today — a shift in my attitude, a change in perspective”
Thats what can help get you out of a jam, solve a problem, gives fresh insight to anything. If you’ve never read Roger von Oech’s series of books on creativity, I could not recommend it more highly. I know that’s not what you’re going for here, but in a small way it’s related.
“Youuuuuu made me loveeee youuu…I didn’t wanna do it….I didn’t wanna do it…”
I’m a work with the worst hang-over EVER. I need upside down land, except maybe my tummy would object. Love the concept. What I wouldn’t give for the cool side of the pillow RIGHT NOW!
I’m at work…told you it was a bad hang-over.
Here’s my wondering: Is it harder to get away with sick days when you’re an Internet Superstar?
I used to get intermittent insomnia when I was in high school. (I never thought of it as insomnia then but it never lasted more than one night, so maybe it wasn’t.) I tried hanging my head off the bed, flipping my pillow, laying on the floor – nothing would work. It’s the worst when you want to sleep but can’t. I’m glad it never lasted.
See, now, I think that insomnia counts as “sick” on the most basic level. You don’t feel well enough to perform your job propery. That to me says “sick”.
Oh, well, next time I suppose.
“grown-ups do not have upside-down land. They have coffee”
I think coffee can sometimes do the trick of what an upside-down time can do… works for me on those days… most of the time anyways.
Oh my god. I was literally just thinking about how my attitude was “sour” and that I’m feeling so down that I felt like the sourness was actually coming out of my body in the form of bad breath. My sheets and blankets are all twisted from tossing and turning the past two nights. I think I need to be upside down. Maybe a headstand?
Yay for upside down land because of the chin-faces that are revealed. With the chin as the nose, and mouth upside down as a frowny overbite, and it makes me laugh every time.
Gravity boots?
We don’t just have coffee, we have Starbucks. And a white chocolate mocha with an iced lemon loaf can make any day better. Now that I’ve typed that, I have a craving that needs to be fed
A friend of mine wrote a book of poetry titled Sleeping Upside Down. This was something people used to do to stay cool before there was air conditioning. She uses it as a metaphor for something…well, completely different.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1878851241/002-6166732-0800041?v=glance&n=283155
Great story, Fish! Hope you feel better at work today
Maybe you can have some “upside down time” at work. Close your office door and lay upside down across your chair. Just feeling your hair sweep across the floor and your head fill with rushing blood is bound to make you smile, if only for a while. (I wasn’t trying to ryme.)
Must have been one hell of a roommate. When I went to “upside down land” with my roommate’s girlfriend, he got all pissed off.
I think we were living parallel mornings.
I’ve started every day this week with the same comment: “I cannot do today.” Must be something in the air….
I love these kinds of posts. I’m sorry you have to suffer to give them to us. To read the way you put feelings I have had into words is just amazing. Thank you for sharing.
Yay! for coffee. For some time I thought I was allergic to it and that made for some really really horrible mornings. Hope your day gets better.
Another one with feelings of “I can’t do today”….
Upside down land, here I come!
Didn’t you go to BYU? Does a cold rush of blood to the head constitute being high there?
Didn’t you go to BYU? Does a cold rush of blood to the head constitute being high there?
It’s this weather. Oy. I’ve been on the verge of a sick day three times this week.
“Primary school?” Interesting. When I first started reading your blog, I was certain you were a Brit, and your marabou-edged photo only added to that impression. But then you referenced your Texan childhood, and there went my assumption right out the window. So whazzup with “primary school”? Are you a Brit wannabe? Be careful. I was a Brit wannabe, so I married one. Big mistake. Interestingly, now the ex is a Texan. Well, he lives there. Maybe he’s an ex Tex wannabe.
Where I come from, primary school is pre-elementary school. Also, the first sunday school you take at church was called Primary. The Frowny Face song was a song we learned in Primary. Has nothing to do with wanting to be anything… even and especially british.
That is cute. Perhaps I will try “upside down land” sometime when I can’t sleep.
Fun story. I don’t have much to say today, but wanted to stop by. Hope you have a great weekend.
perspective is hard thing to change. sometimes i wish it was as easy as literally changing the vantage point.
Ahh, yes. But as a college student these days, I have to interject and add that I very much rely on coffee.
Finals week just SCREAMS for a bottle of No-Doz taken with a couple cans of Red Bull. And did I mention Starbucks?
Here in San Francisco, CA where I went to school we had 3 buildings. One was the Primary (kindergarten to 1st), Elementary (1st to 8th) and then High School. This is a parochial school so maybe the term Primary is not used for public schools.
I’m going to try this upside down solution since I’ve been in a funk for 2 days.
Usually hotboxing in my closet using the honeybear bong does the trick
I used to try sleeping upside down over the back of my couch, it worked great untill I fell off the back, but it got a lot of laughs from my room mates.