echoes

my eyes are scratchy and dull. im yawning every few seconds, but i still cant sleep. andrew gives me a link to a picture hes doodling on the web and the colors hes used are varying shades of blue, soothing like waves of water. it looks like picasso's swimming pool with an abstractly shaped dolphin swimming in it's depths. i am staring at it now, hoping to will myself to sleep.

its not working.

i yawn again.

this weekend andrew will be here along with debbie and cameron. i have cleaned up the house to make it respectable and even dusted (thats for camerons sake, hes allergic to dust. then again, arent we all?) i will probably vacuum tomorrow and clean off the table i inherited from my parents. i love this table that sits in my dining room, darkly polished and gleaming and well-used. its the same table i sat at when i was five, the same one that we joked around when i was 13, the same one that caught that famous upside down pizza and heard the argument that ensued, the same one that i lit (and emily) a candle on and left unattended when i was 21. the table bears a shallow slope still from the burn; i called it character, my mother didnt. it is simple to look at, made of mahogany and from el salvador. its length easily held the bodies of the seven of us, seated around it every night at 5. i look closely and i see the small indents from pencils pressed too hard against homework - dad showing me how to figure out math - and the wear in the finish from too many clean ups after dinner. i look even closer and i see myself as i was.

perhaps its time to add a new mark.