Tuesday Morning

Tuesday morning, nine a.m.: the morning after going in about a job.
Crickets.
Halfway through $2.75 worth of iced dark roast. The shop owner picks the ice by hand
from a block in his dark supply closet.
That'll be the first to go...
Little luxuries. Hand-picked ice and shoes made from real fabric.
I'll never give up classic folk, though:

"Kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why

Oh, the aching is free!
And I'll always have diaphanous synth
even if I wear plastic shoes.
Tuesday morning and the leftover brussel sprouts have gone sour in my pleather handbag.
Are you traveling for Christmas?
Oh, fuck, I have no idea. We never have any idea bout anything, do we?
But I want to see the La Brea tar pits and eat fish tacos.
There'll still be fish tacos, right?
And concert tickets?

"Kathy," I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh
"Michigan seems like a dream to me now"
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw
I've gone to look for America

I don't know why that song always makes me cry.
Tears are free!
So are ocean air, seasons
and pavement.
How about gummy bears?
Those aren't free but they'll do in a pinch.
Still, there will always be maps
scaffolds and
windows
and I will want nothing more than to sit and dream of La Brea with you.

You Take the Good, You Take the Bad

At this very moment --11:06 a.m., E.S.T. on Monday, the 23rd of August -- the most hotly searched topics on Good Morning America's website are:

• Egg Recall
• Iraq
• Jennifer Aniston

This brief, concise list further confirms my growing theory that key to mastering the art of being human is learning to measure accurate doses of experience. A dose of recall insanity can be tempered by small, powerful doses of Iraq (just Iraq, not Iraq war, Iraq conflict, Iraq veteran) and half a dose of Aniston for balance. Dosing: a new verb with which to combat the incessant pounding of sameness.

"I've overdosed on uncertainty so I'm taking half a dose of psychic prediction."
"I missed my morning dose of clarity. I'll double up on decisiveness."

Too much of one thing means too little of something else. Dose. Dose to drown. Dose to distract. Dose to intensify. Measure for measure, easy now, in doses.

I'm the Girl in Blue

I've never had one of those unhealthy long-term relationships...

But I get it now, I really do. I am to this desk, this chair, this file cabinet as Amy Winehouse is to Blake Fielder Civil. I might as well invest in a pair of toe shoes and get an anchor tattooed on my bicep. I am her.

I've stayed here too long and am past my expiration date. Every morning I lie in bed and think of the Thriller video. I picture heaving a heavy stone lid off my coffin and staggering into the gloom wearing a dirty Van Heusen business skirt. You're getting back out there! Gasp, I almost let them bury me.

Alas, I don't accept the funk of forty thousand years as my fate. I know I have to face my Blakey. And, lest you think I should die an early death from employment co-dependence, let me tell you this: we've been told the end is near. Time to replace my toe shoes with resume paper, it seems. I am, yes, getting back out there.

This Just In

Revelation: hope is not a plan.

Futility Ain't Just a Number

Today I am going into an office to defend something, to plead for and present possible scenarios on behalf of something that I don't even want. I've had this experience before. It reminds me of trying to convince the parents of twelve year old, tanned Colorado pygmies that their daughters needed $1200 modeling classes in order to hand out packets of granola at a stock show. I had that job, too. Not at the stock show, at the modeling school. Someone asked me this morning what my bottom line is. I can't say I've ever had one. What is a bottom line, anyway? Is it the same as a deal-breaker? Do you know it when you have one or is it more of a "winging it" kind of thing (whoops, I dropped my bottom line)? And how, precisely, does one unfurl a bottom line when one is already standing several floors below it? Okay, how's this for an ultimatum: "make me like this place more, or else"?

My Heart is Wearing This Shirt

I'm not a gangsta, but damn it would feel good to be one. Because everything's cool in the mind of a gangsta. Up three-sixty-five a year, twenty four seven (cuz gangsta biz is all there iz). Damn it'd feel good to be a gangsta, feedin' the poor and helping out with their bills (cuz benevolent gangstas get the best bitches). I'd sorta like to have the world swingin' from my nuts -- just to see if it'd still feel good to be a gangsta then (damn, I'll bet it would!)

I'm not a gangsta, but damn. Damn, it would feel good to be one.