Sabbath Cup

Yesterday, Saturday, I wrote:

I was beginning to enjoy watching instant-play Netflix selections on my computer. Beginning to--hell, I already was, deeply, enjoying this on weekends. I looked forward to more, and more, and more: Brit coms, Woody Allens, documentaries; I was going to watch Cape Fear with Juliette Lewis this weekend. I enjoyed sitting there at my desk, the filmed world at my fingertips, while I would eat a square or two of dark chocolate, the kind with sea salt, and drink my excellent Ethiopian coffee. This activity was so fun! So nice! I was enjoying this new way to have weekends; I thought I might start having a few weeknights this way, too. Not terribly often, of course: with my long commute I have short weeknights, and I've been writing about reading Les Misérables at work most weeknights lately, when I've been home. Most, that is: but not all! Not every night am I bent over my notebook. I need rest and leisure. I'd added instant-play films to my new instant Netflix queue, planting my future with fruit-bearing shade trees--that is, somehow, their equivalent. I had a lifestyle ahead of me, dammit!

What happened? My neck hurts. I'm sore from that chair and the thought of screen-staring revolts me: I think it's hurting my neck. What's the point, anyway? What's the difference whether I watch something this week or next year or never? What does it matter? If it weren't for my neck, would I be asking? I wish it weren't hurting. It doesn't seem fair that rest makes me sore--that I feel no better for it, but rather and further depleted after my work week by the very measure of my self-reward: as if I were back bingeing, sickening, grossly, upon my leisure activities and running almost audibly to fat. My chocolate squares, my cups of coffee, my Netflix queue: I'm recoiling from them, pained and startled; I'm confused and ready to feel chastened. The pain in my neck puts the fear of God into me.