Work in Progress - December 3

December 3

8 a.m.

Beast Sightings - Y

Conversations with Waterpark Mom - N

Marianne wakes me up from a strange dream about Beast to eat stale toast with her for breakfast.  (This is payback for what I said to her yesterday about trying too hard to stay young, but maybe she is just lonely).  I want to keep dreaming about how beautiful Marianne's place is - her porch and the way it looks out over the beach and opens to the ocean as if the entire landscape is the sea.  It is like we live on one of those islands in the Caribbean instead of a tiny screened in patio with a pair of potted ferns she barely keeps alive.  Beast says our house is a condo where everything - the room, the food, the sports and entertainment are free.  He wants to know if I want a tuna fish sandwich for lunch.

I try to remember the rest of the dream, like whether Beast and I ever eat a real meal, steak and potato dinners or at least thick hamburgers with fat fries, oven roasted in olive oil.  Or does Beast opt for a fried chicken sandwich for lunch?

"Sorry about the toast," Marianne says.  "I've had a busy week."

She's been on the phone the whole time.  (She lounged on the porch with the ferns and soaked up the sun).  But she asks me nothing about what I've been doing like what I'm reading - and my reader is with me most of the time, it has toast crumbs all over it.  I don't pay attention when she goes on about her job and only hear the part about real food and when she asks, "Do you want to go out for breakfast?"  Even this isn't enough to tempt me to contribute any suggestions for our meal.  I'm lost in thoughts about a ceremony, and a ball celebrating the eye on Olympus, and buying sunglasses the same color as Aphrodite's dress… hot pink.