I can unsee whatever I want. It’s a super-power.

Once upon a time I moved into a friend’s home and looked after her kids while she went to rehab somewhere along the Appalachian trail.

“Oh boy,” I said when I saw the kitchen. “This place needs a clean-up!”

So I got all Molly about it and cleaned her kitchen at night while the pile of kids sat in the living room watching movies. I did this with rubber gloves and a superior attitude. I used Tupperware. I was thorough in a way that surprised me and alarmed my children. I organized her cupboards and the day it rained, I got the kids to arrange her spices in alphabetical order, and I threw the faded ones straight into the garbage without hesitation.

The kitchen clock hadn’t worked in who-knows-how-long and when I took it down to replace the battery, it was gummy and gross and although it didn’t tell me the time, it told me plenty of other things.

I cleaned the goldfish bowl with perhaps too much gusto, because although old Splash appeared delighted and very swimmy at first, it was, in retrospect, panic. He didn’t make it through the night and I had to sneak to the pet store in town the following morning – I got there before it opened – where I found and purchased his doppelganger, and got a few survival tips.

When my friend came back home, hopeful and strong, so did I.

The first thing I saw was my kitchen clock that hadn’t worked in who-knows-how-long and when I took it down to replace the battery, it was gummy and gross and although it didn’t tell me the time, it told me plenty of other things.

And then I started noticing things I had unseen. My kids looked like Oliver Twist. There were cobwebs. We ate too much pizza. My closet.

That’s when I first knew about my super-power.

And although I wasn’t exactly driven to action, I became acutely aware of the unseen.

And now I unsee things like these on a daily basis:

My stoned cat has feelings for Daisy, who is an honorary cat herself
The truth about Daisy and my stoned cat’s pee and poo, as illustrated below
Everything needs a fresh coat of paint, including my summer clothes
The kitchen tiles, cool and diner-esque only a decade or two ago, are now jarring
The dining room table is on its last legs, literally it’s a tripod
My foyer is the colour of an operating room
I have trust issues regarding each of my umbrellas
There are still cobwebs (still as in duration only)
My kids look like Oliver Twist
I look like Fagan

Well I don’t know how all that happened. This post was supposed to be about Shakespeare.

I was going to talk specifically about Macbeth which I am reading again because I need something pithy and dense and beautiful since I fall asleep within a sentence or two these days.

Thanks for reading, and unsee ya later.