I Hate Myself Without You

“God damn it! Get out of here you stupid cat!” I tossed Joshes cat Anemone out of my office. She had jumped up on my filing cabinet and knocked over a stack of bills and file folders I had just finished sorting. I huffed angrily, running both hands through my hair. I bent down and started picking up the papers.

“Josline, what happened?” Josh called from the living room.

“Your stupid cat knocked my stuff over!” I yelled at him. Josh soon appeared in the doorway. When he saw the mess, he helped me pick everything up.

“I'm sure she didn't mean to,” Josh said defensively. I looked at him with a pointed glare. “She's just a cat.”

“Yeah, I know that!” I sighed. “I need somewhere that the cats cant get to. There isn't even a door for this room!”

“We could buy a door...” Josh said.

“That's not what I mean Josh,” I stood up, Josh following suit. “I mean, I think we need a bigger place.”

“What? What's wrong with this one?” he asked. “There's room downstairs.”

“No, there isn't. There's enough room for all of guitars and shit, but that's the extent of it. There's still boxes that I haven't unpacked from when I first moved in here!” I explained. “Why haven't I unpacked the boxes? Because there's no room!”

“Maybe you just need less stuff?” Josh said. I tilted my head with a frown on my face.

“Maybe you could get rid of a few hundred guitars?” I folded my arms across my chest.

“Point taken,” Josh said, defeated. “Can we even afford a new place though? That's what we would need to be concerned about.”

“Yeah, that's true,” I had to give that to Josh. He had a point. With all the touring, extra shows, and having a 4 year old, our budget was tight. I sighed. “All I want is a place that I can just go to when I need my “me” time. That's hard to do in this house with such limited space.”

“Your “me” time is a little hard to have because of having a 4 year old,” Josh teased. He hugged me. “Let's just try to figure out where we're going to go from here, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” I mumbled into his chest.

“Just look forward to getting back on stage in a couple of days,” Josh said. Marianas Trench had asked us back at the beginning of the tour if we'd be interested in playing their Vancouver show. We told them that when it was closer to then, we'd have an answer. And, ultimately we said yes. It was just one show, but I was sure that everyone was pumped to actually play together again. We had a band practice when MT was in Nanaimo.

I gave up cleaning my office when I had to pick up Finley from school. He wasn't feeling very good, so I had to take him out of class early. When I went to the school, Finley was in the “sick room”, complaining that he had a fever. I felt his forehead and he was pretty warm. When we got home, I told him to get into the bathtub. He whined that he didn't want a bath. But I had my ways of killing a fever. Finley eventually did get into the bath. It was lukewarm water. It was supposed to help regulate your body temperature better then an ice cold shower. Finley sat in the bath with his Batman action figure (his favourite bath time toy) and I poured water over his head. He wasn't very fond of that, so he figured he would splash me with water. I had a huge wet spot right around my chest. It wasn't so bad since I was wearing a dark blue t-shirt. Finley finished his bath, and said he felt a little better. So I gave him a children's Tylenol and sent him to his room to nap. It was the same thing my mom did for me when I had fevers. They usually went away in a few hours. It had worked on Finley once or twice, but he rarely had fevers. My mothers knowledge was magical in times of need.

I went into my room to change my shirt. Josh walked right in just as I was pulling my shirt over my head. “Ooh, can I help with the rest?” I pulled the shirt off my head to look at Joshes cheeky face.

“No, you may not,” I said, turning away from him. Joshes arms snaked around me.

“Pretty please?” He said, kissing my neck.

“Don't 'pretty please' me!” I said. I turned around in Joshes arms, his eyes were slightly squinted.

“Touché my dear. Touché indeed...” Josh let go of me so I could get another shirt on. He picked up my other shirt to toss it into the laundry basket. “Why is your shirt wet?” He cocked an eyebrow at me.

“Because of Finley splashing water on me,” I explained, pulling a white tank top over me.

“Why...Finley's home?”

“Yeah, he has a fever. So I gave him a bath to cool him down a little. Now he's just napping,” I said. I pulled on a red hoodie and zipped it up halfway.

“Ah, your moms magical cure?” Josh asked. I nodded. “She has a few of those. He vocal chord saver tea really comes in handy on tour.”

“Why do you think honey, plain tea, and brown sugar is always on our rider?” I told him. “Airin goes through a LOT of it. I swear he pees 8 times before getting on stage.”

“You're no better...” Josh teased.

“I'm a little better than him. I only pee maybe 5 times before a show,” I stuck my tongue out at him.

“Oh, sorry for not being exact!” Josh smiled. “Oh, by the way, Airin called and said that he thinks he might be coming down with laryngitis, so he might not be able to do much singing on Saturday.”

“Alright, that's fine. I'll probably call him back in a little while or something. I really want a nap right now,” I said, rubbing my eyes with the palms of my hands.

“Then why don't you take a nap?” Josh asked.

“Because, if I take a nap, I'm not going to get up for 2 hours,” I said. “And what if Finley wakes up?”

“I'll deal with him Jaws,” Josh assured me. “Remember, he's been my son for 4 years too you know,” Josh added.

“Alright. But don't give him anymore Tylenol for at least 4 to 6 hours. I gave him 2 about 15 minutes ago,” I said.

“Alright, gotcha,” Josh nodded. I flopped backwards onto the bed, my feet still on the ground. “I don't think you'll be able to nap right that way...” Josh said.

“You'd be surprised. On tour when we have to sleep in the van, Marque and Jason were in the back, just chilling, Zack and I were in the middle seat, and I somehow managed to curl up in the seat, while Zack's head was digging into my hip. It was surprisingly comfortable, except for Zack being there,” I said. Josh chuckled.

“Well, if you sleep like that, you're going to screw up your back again,” He explained. I lifted my head up. He was right for the second time that day.

“Fine!” I huffed, crawling into the bed. “Be that way!” I flopped my head down on my pillow. Josh laughed again, and crawled next to me.

“You're so strange,” he said.

“I really don't know how you've stayed with all these years then,” I replied. He kissed my forehead.

“Strange is sexy, that's why.”