This is what I do when I'm unemployed.

It's 10:49 in the morning and I am sitting on a dining-room chair dragged in here as a makeshift desk chair, listening to Nirvana to keep the silence at bay. My room is dark even with the curtains yanked as wide open as I could reach; the afternoon sun hasn't hit this side of the house yet, and won't anyway because there's no sun to be had today. I'm drinking lukewarm coffee out of a travel mug already reheated once. I had to grab the used napkin from a plate on my dresser to blot a drop of coffee from my front. It smells like strawberries. I usually don't eat in my room, much less leave dishes overnight. But I went to sleep and nobody took it for me. I can't carry a plate on crutches, so I'm leaving it. This one had half a slice of cheesecake on it. I'm careful, but the mug is designed stupidly and I always drip on my front no matter what I do.

It irritates me particularly because the sweater I'm wearing isn't mine. It once belonged to my father, a cream-colored scratchy cable-knit wool cardigan from the western coast of Ireland. I don't know where he got it. I remember him wearing this a lot when I was small and he was still young and had a wiry runner's build and his hair was all-dark, and when he'd scoop me up his mustache would tickle my face. He shaved it off when I was seven and I begged him to put it back. The sweater hangs in my closet now, because I am always cold. Suddenly I'm very affronted by the audacity of this coffee beading up on top of the wool.

I slide the top all the way closed and shove the mug away.