So. Much. Nope.

Holy wow.  It's almost August?  How is it almost August?  I mean, I know how it's almost August, in theory, because time and dates and winged something and whatnot, but how the hell is it almost August???

Where have I been?  What have I been doing?  It was just June, just yesterday, really, just June, and now it's suddenly almost August?

My house is a mess.

How's that new?  It's not, really, I'm just thinking that it can't be almost August and my house is still the same mess it was in May.  At the very least, there should be a whole new mess, but this?  This is the same mess.  That candy cane was on the floor before I left for my father's memorial in June.  Why is it still there?  Why haven't I picked it up?

The glue on the dining table is the same glue, flecked with the same glitter, as it was in May.  Those sharp little Play-Dough shards are still scattered about the floor, months after they forgot what it is to be soft, yielding, pliable.

I've been here.  Haven't I been here?  I mean, I've been hither, thither, and yon, but also I have been here, in this house.  It's not like I've been held captive at some remote location, I have been here!  As much as I'm "here", anyway, because some days, a lot of days, I am not as here as I may seem to be because I can look really, really here but be far, far away behind my eyes.  But still, here, or "here", or whatever, how is it almost August and I'm still feeling the sweet, melancholy tug of June, the sense of "I'm not prepared for summer" still strong where "Hurrah, Autumn's coming" should be.

It is possible that I shattered a little in April, and the cracked, crazed pieces are still falling down, tinkling on the floor and crunching under foot and I'm not quite all the way caught up with myself, but I'm almost never quite all the way caught up with myself.  Hell, I'm usually so far behind me I can't see my ass in the distance, even with binoculars and wishful thinking!

I am filled with nope.  So.  Much.  Nope.  Acres, gallons, miles of nope.  It's everywhere, it gets all over everything, it's sticky and pernicious, like moon dust but less clean-up-able and way less precious and collectible and rare.  It's clogged up my thinking bits, so that music and writing and laundry and cleaning and people and everything are all lost and muddled up, and I'm lonely in a desperate kind of untouchable way, but that's so common, I'm used to it, like a cricket chirping quietly in the garage that sometimes I hear and sometimes I don't but it's always there, chirping, and it doesn't much matter any more.

That much nope.

I'd tell you I'll do better today, tomorrow, next week, but I don't know if that's true.  I kind of half-heartedly hope that I'll do better sometime sooner rather than later, but honestly, I'm in the middle of a massive nope storm, so I'm just going to keep ducking and covering and wondering how it got to be when it is when it was just when it was.