Why I like Monday

In the silence of Monday morning I move through an abandoned world accompanied by just a few other hard-working ghost people. The lake shore is open and empty while the sand itself seems to heave sighs of relief. Evidence of two hot days of abuse - piles of broken bottles, soda cups, napkins and food wrappings, bags of junk left from cookouts - make mountains at her edges. The cyan light of morning opens its eye over Chicago to illuminate an exhausted relief. Thank god, the people are gone!

In the empty locker room I open a makeup case and my chosen weapons make clattering plastic sounds across the counter. In this antiseptic and air-conditioned world I erase the evidence of a weekend. Cover-up liquid will conceal dark circles under the eyes and some zits which grew from sweating out in the hot sun while working in the dirt. The little pot labeled "paint" will do the trick to hide the tiny purple dots which appeared all around my face when, disgusted with my own eating, I decided to purge up Saturday's dinner. The blood vessels that burst in my right eye during that process still leak brilliant red. It can't be fixed, so I change the part in my hair, snap the hairdryer out of the wall holster and re-style the coif. Now long bangs fall in front of the right side of my face and conceal the bloody evidence. I tell people I threw up because of heat exhaustion. I hide any traces leading to a different truth. I don't really care if there's anything wrong - any thing wrong with me or any injury. I only care that there be no appearance of my having slipped.

I open my blush compact carefully. The cake inside is shattered and sits in jagged, cracked piles that threaten to dump out of the container and make a mess at any second. It looks as broken up as I feel. I gently poke some color out with my brush and snap the little compact shut to hide the evidence within a smooth, black case.

I slip on the dress I toted along. It's a light, linen thing bought during a trip to Finland. That's the place to shop, for sure. For me, I have to go where all the women are built like linebackers to find clothing that won't yell "her shoulders are too big! Her legs are too stocky!" The more I bike to work the lighter the clothes I wear are becoming. Linen dress makes a neat line and as there's less on my hips to hold it up, it floats down below the knees. I review the evidence of yesterday's fast in the mirror. It made a good start in fighting back this disgusting mass of self. I step back to review the results of my efforts.

The weekend, with its terrifying stretches of unstructured time, is over. Back to Monday, I wake up extra early to the comfort of a schedule, times to work and times to eat, clear times to exercise and times to rest. Wrapped in paint and cloth, I'm ready.