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2000-01-23 | 23:58:16

Rained all day and all night. I stayed up late, watching Golden Globe Awards on television (imagined winning a writing award; daydreamed all the stars were my friends) then decided to put the last laundry load in the dryer before I went to bed. In the basement, the floor was wet. Clothes on the floor were sopping wet. Cracks in the foundation were leaking. We've had flooding in the basement before when it rained a lot. At the time, I swore I'd find some pallets and put all my boxes of books and papers and clothes on top of the pallets to keep dry. This never happened because I'm a lazy useless pig.

I started carrying loads of dirty laundry, half-sorted into piles on the basement floor, upstairs to dump in the hallway, knowing that even more disheartening than enormous piles of dirty laundry is enormous piles of mildewed dirty laundry. I took an extra-large laundry basket and packed it three or four times. We have so many dirty clothes; much of which is things we don't even wear or they're too small for the kids but I never get around to sorting them, packing them, and getting them out the door.

Back in the basement, I turn to throw a cardboard box into the storage room where all my books and papers are and I see a fat stream running through the room. Damn it! We didn't have flooding in that room last time. I'm getting tired and my back hurts a little and I have to start lugging book boxes around. I go upstairs to find Duff, who fell asleep at 9:30 reading the girls to sleep, and I wake him and explain what's going on and ask him to help me. "Could you just help me move some boxes upstairs, so they don't get wet?" First he shouts "What? WHAT?" like a maniac. His usual response to anything that catches him off-guard. He gets out of bed and comes downstairs, barking orders at me to show him the water. He surveys the area, walks upstairs. I wait a few minutes. I think he must be using the toilet. I move some more boxes, pack up more clothes. I go upstairs and look for him in each room. He is back in bed. When I stand in the doorway, he says, "Huh?" and pretends he is too sleepy to understand what I say, what I said, what I will say. I say, "Forget it." This is a life lesson, if I will only pay attention to it.

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