New.

Sometimes Carol didn't even understand herself or why she did certain things. It was almost ten am, and despite the fact that she knew she had a pile of work waiting on the desk in the spare room, she pulled a pillow over her face to shade her from the sunlight streaming through the bedroom window. Although she wanted to, she couldn't justify sleeping any later to herself. She threw the pillow onto the floor, and it knocked over the half empty glass of water that formerly stood next to the side of the bed. She rolled her eyes emphatically as if someone else was in the room. She didn't remember getting up to get the water, and she was getting sick and tired of sleeping with her mouth wide open for reasons she didn't know. It was annoying. Getting up to get a drink at 3am. Getting up to pee at two. Getting up at 5:30 am to give her cat a steam bath because her asthma was acting up again and she didn't know what else she could do for her. It was becoming her overnight routine, and it wasn't even a comfortable one.

She looked at the sunlight coming in through the window and she could see the dust particles fluttering around within the beam. Dusting. Just one more thing to add to the daily repertoire. Carol avoided dusting at all costs. Maybe it was her one pathetic attempt at living dangerously; an attempt at not following all of the rules to a T. Her work was in on time every day, her clothes were folded perfectly in every drawer, and Jesse's lunch was bagged and ready to go, but goddam, not dusting - or even owning a swiffer duster - made Carol feel a little reckless. She rolled her eyes again for the benefit of the imaginary person in the room. Reckless at age 33 was amusingly different than reckless had been ten years earlier. But if Carol was being completely honest with herself, she probably wasn't a wild and crazy gal back in her hey day either. Hell, she hadn't even entered into a bar until well after her twenty third birthday.