Diagonal Bread

Today I sat under some blankets with a giant penguin and looked skeptical.
I was told to do this.
It was a pretty great day. I awoke at 6:24AM to the following: "Well, her name is Theresa too! I didn't have any idea where she got that fabric softener! Cross now! Cross now! Ha ha ha- yeah. Good morning!"
You see- my bedroom window faces Mulberry Street. Which is a great street and almost always features available parking spaces. Mulberry Street also, I learned today, is part of the Richmond Marathon Training Team route. I stayed in bed wide awake for the next half  hour just to catch up on the gossip. I now know everyone's business.
I finally just get out of bed because I am unable to go back to sleep now that I've found out where Theresa gets her fabric softener. I weave sleepily into the parlor. Outside my main windows I can now see the runners as well as hear them. They are all wearing rectangular pieces of paper pinned to their chests. Must be a race of some sort. I text my brother. He'll know.*
I get myself mostly together and drive to Chester. I don't get myself completely together because there are people for that. Just kidding. There aren't. Not today. I climb the stairs to Sara and Ashlee's apartment with my blue faux-crocodile makeup suitcase in tow. I note with pleasure the trash bag of bagels. I note with displeasure the trio of ceramic frogs staring at me from beside Ashlee's sink. I send Ashlee a Snapchat announcing that I am in her bathroom. She Snaps back- "Don't mess it up."**
I am in Sara's apartment because John Moon so much enjoyed recording my emotional reaction to having my car washed that he decided to see what would happen if I secretly went over to Sara and Storm's apartment while they are away overseas participating in "Finland's Got Talent."
Apropos of nothing- Pokemon are fascinating.
Anyway. I "do my hair." I am not immediately fired and asked to go home, so I suppose the result is acceptable. It's that Brazilian Blowout.
I spend the next few hours acting like I've never seen a printer before and sneezing. Interspersed with moments where I cut a loaf of banana bread with slanted cuts as opposed to straight across cuts because why not.
Meg Price is also there sneezing. And working out. She didn't mean to be working out but people kept asking her to bang pieces of plastic together in front of the camera and be certain she is not stepping on any pieces of paper while she does so. So she is pretty much doing elevated splits and holding them for longer than seems advisable (if you want your quadriceps to resemble anything other than boiled Spam).
Hallie is there as well. Hallie has long princessy red hair. She has been placed in charge of tape we don't actually need. Soon everyone realizes that this job assignment is a waste of her considerable talents, so, because we don't have any power ballads for her to sing, she is re-assigned to sit in a corner of the floor with Meg and me and talk about pimples.
Suddenly Meg and Hallie leave and I am left alone in bed with my penguin.
This penguin- he's great. He doesn't stand up unattended, which I feel to be a shortcoming in any stuffed animal, but I'll overlook it. He is tall and very soft. His bright orange fur photographs very well under the Clarendon filter on Instagram. I am to sit up tall in this bed and clutch my penguin (I don't know his name- inexcusable- will remedy tomorrow) and look suspiciously at a printer. I do all this while a man with a long blonde ponytail who reminds me of Nick Aliff records me from a corner where he is pinned behind a large black trunk.
After this, I stand in the bedroom and make noises that I would make if I were really frustrated into a grey woolly microphone.
I am then excused. I snag a honey bun. I go home.

*My brother decided one afternoon about six years ago on a lark to go for a run. He returned an hour later having run thirty seven miles and having sweated not a drop. Took to it, I'd say. I tried, and took to it like a hippo takes to the trapeze. Scott now routinely runs marathons. Which is impressive and admirable and has many benefits. Like free bananas at race's end, a large collection of obliterated sneakers, and one of my most prized possessions- a framed 8x10 of he and I snapped by the official Richmond Marathon photographer when I jumped in with Scott for a block in my formal blue velvet winter coat and Red Sox cap on my way to "Fiddler on the Roof" rehearsal at Virginia Rep. I look like an overtaxed dumpling. Scott looks like The Lord.

**I didn't. The 8-inch bobby pin on the floor at the base of the toilet is none of my doing. But I very much want to know where it came from and how I can get some for myself. Girls, I think we're going back to Beeyooteefull.***

***Yellow warehouse on Brook Road wherein you may try on five wigs for one dollar. Birthday party invites forthcoming.