Malaise!

Malaise
Don't mean to get all touchy-feely, sorry-for-myself here, but I am having one of those days. I go from real highs to kind-of-lows. Last week, I knew I had six or eight people coming in for a medicine weekend and I cleaned the house wildly. I rented the rug shampooers, put clorox on the cement front porch, killed bugs, cleaned windows, toilets, floors. They came and it was fantastic. But on Sunday, the first couple left. Then on Monday two more left. Tuesday, two more, Wednesday one and Sunday past, the last. I was teaching, I was learning. I was focused. I made good food, I watched myself to be cool, I took care of people and they took care of me.
Yesterday, Madeleina and her boyfriend Adrian left. That left me alone. I cleaned and worked my ass off to get a 1500 word story ready for the Fort Worth Weekly, the fantastic alternative press here that pays my salary. I finished it this morning, getting up at 5 AM after going to bed, without dinner, at 10 PM.
My son Marco came by at 7 AM to say hello. He has been the only human contact I have had today, other than saying hello to the check-out person at HEB where I bought groceries and wine. I called my friend Larry and we spoke for a while--he's my brother so speaking with him is really easy--and then I spoke to one of my wife's new kids, Sierra, who said she thought I should be happy they were not here making a mess. I told her I would rather she and Alexa and Taylor Rain, my grandbaby, were making a mess than than I was alone with a clean house.
I've used my time well. I have several people to call on a list I made in the last few hours for another story. I made another list of things to do tomorrow. But I grew up in a house with a brother and four sisters. So I am used to having people around. And when there is sudden silence--well, in Manhattan that was okay because of the white noise on the street--here in Texas, it is really silence. So while I bought several prime rib steaks in hopes Chepa, Madeleina, Italo, Sarah, Taylor Rain, Sierra, and Alexa were coming over, the prospect of cooking one or one half of one for me, with garlic, onions and mushrooms, with sides of spinach, cucumber with lime and sliced tomatoes cooked in steak grease with parmesan just does not sound as good when I am alone as it did when I imagined all, or some, coming over.
So I don't mean to be maudlin, but I hate this. I will probably go to sleep in an hour, without food for the 4th time this week. Darnit!