I like Sunday but Sunday hates me. And so my cycle of failed relationships continues, even with the weekends. This morning I went to Polars practice and had successfully completed nearly 50 minutes of skating drills, even backwards crossovers, with no mishap. Then, during a rapid backwards/forwards change of direction drill, I caught an edge and went sailing onto my rear end, jamming my right thumb in the process, as I had apparently stuck it out to break my fall (probably a poorly developed reflex). After practice, some of the girls on the team went to a cafe in Redwood City, where Peanut, who has been playing hockey for all of three years and yet is somehow 100x better than me, discussed how she had played in two games the night before, subbing for the beginner league in the second game when they were short players. I, in fact, had done the same exact thing, and had subbed for the same team as her, on a different line. “It was so easy,” she said, “I didn’t even get tired, I just kept passing to the one beginner that was on our line. I wasn’t even trying.” Geez, I was trying as hard as I could, I thought, and I was exhausted and still didn’t score a goal. I left lunch depressed. That afternoon I drove to OSH, or at least to where I thought OSH was, and ended up getting stuck in the Costco parking lot wedged in the middle of an entourage of BMWs out on their Sunday drive. After two laps around the parking lot, I finally realized OSH was on the other block. I spent twenty minutes at the hardware store looking for a wooden clothes drying rack that a friend claimed he had purchased there. I finally broke down and asked a salesperson, who said dryly, “We’re out of stock of those. They’ll be in next week.” I banished all fantasies of unpacking the rest of my condo, went home, threw a bunch of clothes and sunblock in my car, and drove to the barn. An hour later I was galloping across a green field, the little chestnut quarter horse beneath me behaving politely, the sun shining, birds chirping, the wind in my hair, and then, a bug flew into my eye. I hauled Stormy to a disheveling halt, cursing and rubbing my eye with the back of my glove. Why do you hate me? I thought, looking up at the sky. I returned home and promptly sat down at my computer, overheated and irritated. An acquaintance messaged me, somehow insinuating that people were tired of hearing me pine away for some person they never met. I typed something rude, and logged off. Ten minutes later I thought I’d open up my desktop machine to fix the problem with the unrecognized CD-ROM drive, and when I pushed the power button to turn it back on, it emitted a long series of beeps and refused to boot. I gave up. Sunday hates me and I can’t make it love me. And that, evidently, is the theme of the year.
