Work Diary 8/6/04

Work Diary, 8/6/04

1. I've started the Yoga thing again. "And while waving your fanny in
the air, reach down and touch your toes while whipping your head in the
air and punching your lower abdomen with the pure essence of being." I
exaggerate, of course. A real Yoga teacher would never say the word
"fanny."

2. I have a new neighbor downstairs. His girlfriend has a long streak
of acne down one side of her face. It's just the one side, which I
don't get. I thought acne was an equal opportunity destroyer. From a
distance it looks like a tiger snuck out of the bush and swiped her
face. Up close she gives me vertigo, the red side competing with my
sense of balance. I'm serious. I need to learn how to talk to people
without actually paying attention to them. Isn't that what everyone
else does? Anyway, I gave her a beer and she went away.

3. A conversation I heard in my building while walking down the hallway
behind a mom and dad and their screaming toddler:

Husband to wife: "How can you do that?"

Wife to husband: "Do what?"

"Ignore it like that."

"Ignore it? Ignore it? I hear it all the time. I'm used to it. Maybe
someday you will be, too."

So maybe the times have not been a-changin'. What a loaded statement -
Maybe someday you will be, too - delivered with the type of venom that
makes testicles retreat to the safety of furry groins. Or maybe they
weren't husband and wife, just acquaintance-like fuck-buddies settling
that month's support check. Or maybe he was her long lost dad. Or
maybe?it doesn't matter. People's lives suck in general, I've
noticed.

4. I just got back from a wedding in Montana. I had no idea Montana was
actually pretty. If someone from another country asked me, "What do you
think of Montana?", I'd say, "Flat and kind of dry, with stinky yet
adorable cowboys." I was wrong on the former, and the jury's still out
on the latter. I never got close enough to an actual cowboy to test
his?er, effervescence, though I did spot one who could have thrown his
funky hat to the wind, walked into a New York modeling agency, and been
set for life. He's best forgotten, so: Montana has rolling hills and
weird flora and fauna on its rocks. It has large animals with hooves
and antlers that could easily kill the driver of a car, if said driver
were so inclined to hit one. The nights are cold, perfect for sleeping.
And there's nothing to do, perfect for sleeping. The wedding itself was
beautiful and sweet and trivial, in that such things have the ability
to turn the trivial into something worth noticing and
remembering.

5. My poor ex-boyfriend's new lover. I go over to the house, find old
CD's that he's pulled out of the closet, and pick them up while saying,
"Oh, I love this CD! And, omigod, look at this one!" Then I walk out
and put them in my car. They are mine, after all. I'm not petty
but?well, they are mine, after all.

6. Let's talk about my upstairs neighbor. She's a big ol' black girl
who's on the phone night after night, talkin' about how she's been
wronged. "Oh, NO," she says, "He did NOT say that!" It's like watching
Comedy Central without the visuals. If I'm up late, I can hear her
chatting away up there, pledging her undying allegiance to her listener
while swearing to "kick some ass." Apparently she's done just that,
yanking some "white ho's hair" so hard that she "be bald for life on
that patch." So, see, people do suck in general, but my life could be a
lot worse. I could be that white ho.

7. It's been raining, mostly in the late afternoons, pulling us out of
our drought. We say the word "drought" so easily here, as if we're
patrolling the streets, emaciated and weak from thirst as the rich
drive by in their chariots. "If only I could get you into a back alley,
away from your guards," we mumble while picking our scabs and
stretching out dented tin cups. Then we go inside and take hot baths,
refilling the tub when it gets too cool. Later we remember to turn off
the tap while brushing our teeth, turning it back on only when it's
time to rinse. Just as we are ready to fall asleep, a voice on the
television announces, "Tonight! On Fox News! Everybody's dead! Tune in
to see if you're one of them." We never get to sleep after that.

8. I went to the dentist today for the first time in eight years. Oh,
the fear. The trembling. The sweaty armpits and damp forehead. It turns
out they were very nice. I passed the periodontal exam with flying
colors, had no cavities. "You haven't been to the dentist in eight
years?" the hygienist exclaimed, "My god, you're lucky! You wouldn't
believe what we see?" Then she proceeded to give me a blow by blow
account of what they have seen - the scraping, the pulling, the overall
stained, gooey, mushy, slatternly ickiness of it all. I just lay there,
murmuring agreement while staring at the photograph they'd tacked to
the ceiling: snowy field, fence zigzagging across it with a leafless
tree imprisoned behind the posts and slats. "Solitude," it was titled,
shot by someone named Weston. Yep.

9. I keep reading books in which the pivotal support of the main
character's psyche is incest. Getting these books is completely random:
Some come from the bookstore, others from friends. I found one of the
damn things in an airport bathroom, tucked behind the porcelain like it
was trying to hide. Where do all these stories come from, and why now,
in so much contemporary literature? It pains me that my writing
generation's muse is a blindfolded mama, ears stopped up by Vodka and
feet firmly planted on the far edge of the property, away from the
midnight whimpering. Maybe I'm not reading the right books, or maybe we
are all just hellish bedfellows named Dora, cursing and outwitting one
another as we try to get to the next level of clean, crisp sheets. Or
maybe this is what the public wants. I'm not sure which is worse.