Study Hall

     Blanche was drawing a complete and utter blank, in more ways than one.  Some of her writer acquaintances were getting together for a 'virtual study hall', and while she wanted to join them, she felt she had nothing to offer.  This ominous 'nothing to offer' was becoming an all too familiar theme in her advancing years - not that she was all that old - and as an idea, was one that could keep her laid flat out in bed for hours, staring at the ceiling, enumerating her shortcomings to herself.  Topping the list was the fact that she remained utterly and unhappily single, and saw no relief from her solitude anywhere even near the horizon, which led her spiraling through her harsh, personal, judgements conspiring to keep her prone on an otherwise beautiful day.  She decided to run through the litany out loud, in a pathetically whiny sing-song voice (there wasn't anyone to hear, anyway) to make it sound as awful as it felt to her.
     "I'm faaaaat," she whined.  "I'm uuuuuglyyyyyy, " she continued.  "I don't have any real friiieeeends," she moped.  "No one loooooves me, and I'm never going to have seeeeex again,"  she complained.  "I don't wriiiiiite, I don't draaaaaw, I don't creeeeaaaaate aaaanything anymooooore," she concluded.  Heaving the deep sigh such negativity elicits, Blanche rolled onto her side and looked at her computer across the room on her desk, which stared placidly back, waiting calmly for her to pull herself together.  "What are you looking at," she accused the machine's blank neutrality.  When it failed to respond, she let her arm fall to the side of the bed, feeling around on the floor, and came up with a slipper that she barely managed to toss in the direction of her desk, not even aiming at her perceived enemy.  Giving out another moan of self-loathing, she rolled onto the floor, then crawled over to her office chair, made a great show of hauling herself into the seat (there wasn't anyone to see, anyway), and huffed at the computer screen as it jumped awake to her touch on its keyboard.
     Checking her email, and finding one that needed responding to immediately, she began typing, and soon, another whine filled the empty space around her.  "I can't even tyyyyyype anymooooore!"  The tedium of having to backspace and correct misspelled words, or syntax errors, was enough to send her back to the bed like an over-tried five year old, but she merely shrank into her chair and rubbed her face while growling out her frustrations with sounds more animal in nature than most educated humans cared to produce.  She was a heathen.  A stark raving heathen so full of self-pity, she could barely stand her own company, and spent half her day trying to get away from herself, leaving her exhausted.  Managing to pound out the few lines required by way of reply, she sent the pixels off to do what they did in cyber-space, and resisted the urge to call that enough of an accomplishment to merit a long nap. 
     Blanche knew she had a long way to go to consider herself worthy of earning a lie-down, but she wasn't sure where to begin.  Checking and responding to email hardly counted, since she had used this activity to replace her morning yoga practice, more than a month ago.  She considered that, and stood up wearily, rolling the office chair aside to make enough room on the floor for her to perform a sun salutation.  Stretching her arms up to the sky, she then reached out as far as she could and bent forward, until her fingers brushed the tops of her toes.  She couldn't help but notice how tight the back of her legs felt, and noted how in the recent past, she could rest her palms flat on the floor with little effort.  Inhaling, she stretched her left leg out behind her, then exhaled as she reached her arms skyward again.  Another inhale as she set her hands on the ground, then an exhale as she moved her right leg back in line with her left, and pressed her hips upwards into 'downward dog'.  She took a moment to breathe in this position, savoring the sensation of feeling her back stretched flat, and noting the pull in the back of her stiff thigh and calf muscles.  Drawing a blank on the next move in the sequence, she crumpled to her knees and elbows, sighed another great sigh, and lay down.  "I quit," she mumbled into the carpet, which she couldn't help but notice needed a good shampooing.