Stunning the world (or an overuse of superlatives)

I woke up this morning with my head filled with cotton, and when I got out of bed I staggered, slanted across the room and into the boys' bedroom to wake Henry for school. After he left, I lay back down and wondered if I was having a stroke. I felt dramatic. It's been a long time coming, I imagined. You'd deserve it. I pecked a few times at my phone, read the ten warning signs, and texted a friend. Go smile at yourself in the mirror, she wrote. See if it's even. I stood up again and slanted toward the bathroom where I stood in front of the mirror and smiled. Both ends of my lips curled upward, and I looked old. It's an even smile, I think I texted back, and my friend reassured me that it was probably an inner ear thing. I went back to sleep. My head still feels like cotton, but I'm no longer staggering and my temper is short. On the way to Oliver's saxophone lesson, a song came on the radio, and we wondered if it was Beyonce. I'll look it up, Oliver said, and he grabbed my phone. Beyonce stuns the world with her new album, he read, and little tufts of cotton blew out of my ears and floated around the car.