The Folded Clock: A Diary

Chapter 5: August 2

Today I was stung by a wasp. A wasp nest hangs over the door to my studio. The wasps fly in and out. I walk in and out. Thus far, our patterns of cohabitation have meshed peaceably. I’d been accepted as one of them. Once I found a wasp crawling on my shoulder and I didn’t kill it. I tricked it onto a piece of paper and freed it on the grass.

But today our nonaggression pact was proven to be a bit of sham faith on my part, generated to protect my cowardice (I do not want to deal with that nest). I was sitting at my desk. My phone rang. It was a painter inviting me to her gallery opening. I exited my studio. I climbed up the porch and back down it. I always pace when I talk on the phone. One night I paced my parents’ unlit living room for an hour, not knowing that I had a bleeding gash on the bottom of my foot. I turned on the lights when my call ended to discover thousands of stains on the rug, like a hiking trail dashed across a map. After my parents yelled at me, we marveled at the shape of my talking travels, the places in the living room I visited time and again, and the outlier areas to which I made only one or two forays, because the topography was more challenging, or the view less spectacular. We understood our living room differently after that.

Suddenly, I felt a sharp burn behind my knee. A wasp dropped from the bottom of my shorts. I continued to walk and talk to the artist about her opening. “I’ll be there!” I said. “What time?” I limped into the house. I waved to get my husband’s attention and mouthed the word “alcohol.” Meaning rubbing. I mimed what had happened. I said, “And where is it?” My husband returned with rubbing alcohol, but then understood why I needed it. “You need bleach, not alcohol,” he corrected. “On Main Street,” I said, “got it.” My husband returned with the bleach. The artist gave me the sort of micro-directions that are confusing in their micro-ness. I finally cut her off. I said, “Don’t worry, I’ll find you!” and hung up the phone.

“Why didn’t you just tell her you were stung by a wasp and had to get off?” my husband asked me.

I don’t know why. Or I kind of know. This woman is inundated by motherhood. Her career has been interrupted by people who need her. I didn’t want to interrupt her with my need. My behavior makes perfect sense to me. Just as my behavior on an airplane this past spring made sense to me. I was traveling on a red-eye from L.A. to New York. I always ask for an aisle seat because I am claustrophobic. Also, when a task becomes difficult, my body develops an urgent need to regularly do it. It needs to regularly pee, especially when I’m in a window seat.

On this flight, I had a window seat.

I drank no liquids for hours before the flight. I peed just before boarding. My neighbor in the middle seat spoke Russian and wore a white tracksuit. He fell asleep before takeoff, his head whiplashing up and down. He’d clearly taken a sleeping pill in the waiting area. Nothing would wake him. In the aisle seat was a woman about my age, wearing chic black workout clothes and neon sneakers. She was unrumpled, with a pre-moisturized sleep face and neatly stored long hair. She arranged her space as though she were an organized temp secretary, placing on her desk a few personal items she’d brought to work in her purse.

I tried to make eye-friends with the woman in the aisle seat. I wanted her to acknowledge me, and for us both to recognize, and express surprise over, the man sleeping so soundly between us. Should I, in a few hours, need to use the lavatory, I’d be able to ask her with a glance. But she was not making eye-friends on this plane. We took off. I listened to music and counted the number of songs it took for the lights of L.A. to completely disappear behind us.

The woman in the aisle seat put on her eye mask.

Less than an hour into the flight, I needed to pee. I shifted positions; I took a Xanax. The urge grew worse. I started to panic; I took another Xanax.

I became more awake than ever.

I tried to override my body with meditation. I failed. I thought I’d distract myself with a movie, but the backseat monitor was broken. Reading was too interior an activity; it only brought me closer to the irritation site.

I tried to outsmart the situation. How could I pee without leaving my seat? My options were limited. Really there was but one option: to pee in the airsickness bag. This seemed a very sound plan. It was so sound I was surprised it wasn’t usual practice. Airsickness bags are water resistant. An airsickness bag could be folded neatly and stored under the seat until I could get to the lavatory to dispose of it (I would never hand it to an air steward).

I was not wearing the ideal clothing for this maneuver, the ideal being no clothing. I was wearing jeans. Fortunately, I had a big sweater — I draped this over me, performed a shimmy, and then rested, naked to the knees under my sweater, while I planned the next move. I needed to crouch between my seat and the seat in front of me, but there was not enough room for this. I turned sideways, which meant my face was basically pressed into the lap of the white tracksuit guy. But he was so totally asleep! This incipient blow-job position would embarrass no one but me.

I hunched between the seats. I put my face inches from the Russian guy’s crotch. I opened the airsickness bag. I waited for relief. None came. I sat back in my seat. I rested, I refocused on the task, I tried again to practice my version of meditation, also known as self-bullying. Who cares about all of these people? They are asleep! No one is looking at you! You can do this! The situation was quickly becoming less about peeing into a bag to avoid disturbing strangers; now I wanted bragging rights. I wanted the accomplishment high.

I tried again. Again I failed. Everything I know about my body I learned from a book written by a home-birth midwife. I channeled her wisdom. Of particular use is her Sphincter Law, which is applicable to all muscles, even those belonging to nonpregnant people.

Sphincter muscles open more easily in an atmosphere where the woman feels safe.

The muscles are more likely to open if the woman feels positive about herself.

The muscles may close if the woman feels threatened.

But I didn’t feel threatened! And I did feel positive about myself! I was actually feeling incredibly positive about myself that I’d (a) come up with this solution and (b) dared to implement it. I tried a third time, and a fourth. I failed. I failed to pee into an airsickness bag while eight strangers slept within a two-foot radius of me.

Whenever I’ve told this story to friends, I lose the sympathies of certain reasonable people. “I would have just woken them up,” these people will say. “Fuck them, you had to pee.” I’ve defended myself as I define myself: I am a person who never wants to put another person out. I did not know these people, but I did know how terrible it is to be woken from a hard-won sleep, especially one that permits you to endure an awkward experience without experiencing it, like flying with total strangers through the night.