Sleeping In

"Mia! Wake up. Iz almoss 1 o'clock!!"

Consuela is knocking on my door. "Mia! What yer doing in dere? Yer iz time to wake up!"

I roll over and put the pillow over my head. I still can taste the wine on my tongue from last night. "Go away!" I yell at her. "I'm sleeping in today -- it's rainy. I don't care!"

She opens my bedroom door and storms in. "Iz NOT RAINY! Yer iz suppose to write, Mia! Don't yer want to be dat butterfly or somesing?", and with that she sits on the bed beside me. I think I hear one of the springs snap from the weight of her.

"Not today!" I moan from underneath my pillow. My head really hurts. The last thing I feel like doing is actually writing anything. The industry can wait.

"But Mia," she says as she goes over to the curtains and begins to open them, "Yer iz no good if yer iz no writing. Cuz den yer is all weepy and yer iz not happy." And with that she rips open the curtains and lets the sun pour in. Like a vampire, I creep further under my covers...not wanting to turn to dust like they do in those old black and white movies I used to watch at my Nana's when I was a kid.

"Noooooo!" I whine from under the covers. This isn't happening. Isn't the point of being a writer to slack off once in a while and no one is the wiser? I don't have anything due today. I deserve to be lazy, don't I?

"Iz good fer yer, Mia. Yer iz not happy if yer iz not writing" she says as she waddles out the door. Two seconds later I hear her blasting Enrique Iglesias. She's humming off-tune to his otherwise catchy song. I take a deep breath, and decide to embrace the day, the sunlight, and Enrique. Maybe I should write...

I turn the corner and slowly shuffle my way into the living room. Enrique is making me nauseous. I can't even breathe without feeling an ache somewhere in my body. I slowly make my way over to the couch and flop onto it like a limp rag doll.

I close my eyes and start to rub my temples. "I need Advil," I whisper, "and a glass of water". Consuela can't hear me over the music, so I try again. "I neeeed Advil and a glass of water!" but she still doesn't turn around. I grab one of the picture frames on the window sill and whip it at her head, "Consuela!" I yell. My ugly hungover side is slowly coming out. The frame misses her by about three feet, but it does get her attention. She turns around, and smiles -- clueless.

"Consuela! I need ADVIL and some WATER..." I snap with all the energy I have. She looks at me and begins to sulk. I've obviously hurt her feelings. "Please," I say as I flop back on the pillow. She goes into the kitchen and comes out a moment later with a bottle of Advil and a glass of water. I pop them back and hope that they start to work.

"Consuela," I say to her before she turns around, "can you please turn down the music. I have a headache."

"No!" she says defiantly and returns to her swiffering. She's dancing back and forth to Enrique. I think she's in love.

As I lay there, in pain, I start to sort out a backstory for one of the characters I'm trying to write. It's been bothering me for a while. Maybe now, in extreme agony, it will come to me. I stare at the ceiling hoping that the words will begin to stream down from heaven and magically appear on my page. 'Hope' being the operative word.

As I muddle around in my hungover mind about how the next few episodes are going to hammer themselves out, I watch Consuela getting her groove on to her Latin/American heartthrob. And when the Advil finally kicks in, I head to my laptop to write.