I love prednisone, yes, I really really do, because my leg, it very nearly looks like a leg, today. It doesn’t even itch. See? Here I am, not scratching! Hurray!

But, oh how I hate the prednisone. Hate hate HATE. The prednisone? It is opposed to sleeping. The prednisone says, let’s stay awake a really long time so we can fully enjoy the mess we’ve made of your already precariously balanced emotions. Why waste this time sleeping, says the prednisone! There are things to regret! Things to worry about! Countless opportunities for feeling inadequate! Sleep is for people who like themselves! And while the prednisone is coaching me through this misery, I don’t even feel tired. So, sure, I stay up, until I look at the clock and think, Damn, I need to get up in about… um… 5 hours, sleep might be a good idea. And then I turn out the light and lay there. And lay there. And turn over. And lay there some more. And finally doze off! And wake up again. Etc.

So I dragged my sorry self out of bed this morning and made breakfast and packed lunches and got one kid to the bus and the other one dropped off at school and came home and crawled back into bed. And lay there. And turned over. And lay there some more. And got up again.

And drank an entire pot of tea. And determined that exhaustion was not going to be an obstacle to my day! For I am brave, and strong! Sleep is for the weak!

What better way to invigorate myself and lift my spirits than to have a nice long shower and shave my legs? I’ll let you in on a little secret. Come closer. This will just be between me and you (the entire internet). I hadn’t shaved my legs since the incident with the mowing and the wasps. That was two and a half weeks ago. But my afflicted leg was so lumpy, and painful; I couldn’t bear the thought of trying to shave it, and shaving just one leg seemed even weirder. So today, buoyed up on more than my usual helping of self-hatred and about two hours of sleep, I dared to survey my legs.

Have I mentioned that I am a very dark brunette with very pale skin? And that I am descended from hairy stock? (Sorry, Dad. I won’t tell anyone about the hair on your ears.) (Whoops.) As I gulped my caffeine and worked to focus my eyes, I realized I had two options: shave my legs, or go buy some little colored beads and start braiding. Never in my life have I been so grateful to be single. Yeesh. I put a fresh blade on my razor and hopped in the shower.

When I got out? The prednisone said, You suck! You’re a loser! But Oh my your legs are so nice and smooth! And then I was happy for a minute. See? The prednisone loves me, really. It doesn’t mean to be mean.

Then I took my smooth, loser legs down to Target and filled out a job application. Because back when I was a highly paid engineer I’d thought to myself, Self, this is quite nice, but wouldn’t it be more fun to someday be divorced and broke and unable to find a job befitting a person of our education and intelligence simply because we prioritized the raising of children over the climbing of the corporate ladder? And perhaps I didn’t fully imagine the part where having clean-shaven legs would, in fact, be the pinnacle of my existence; but all in all, the experience today did serve to make me feel that at some point I inadvertently slipped through a rift in the space/time continuum and am no longer living a life I recognize as my own.

On the bright side, there is no hair growing in my ears. Yet.