Work Diary 6/10/05

Work Diary, 6/10/05

A couple of things that put me back in the saddle, at least
briefly:

1. Driving to work the other morning, I spotted a baguette - still in
its wax paper cocoon - lying in the gutter. I imagined the drama behind
such a thing: An angry wife using it to hit her husband, who grabs it
and flings it out of the window; one of the sad old people with a cart
allowing it to slip onto the pavement unnoticed; a bread truck finally
unable to avoid one of the many street potholes while its cargo pops
like popcorn into the morning. I finally settled on a bored toddler,
strapped into a plastic childseat and tired of watching his mother's
hands move between the steering wheel and her phone. He plucks the
baguette out of another bag - a plastic one - with that sly
impassiveness young humans and very spoiled dogs have. The wax paper
crinkles; he pauses. He holds the baguette's end between painfully cute
shoes while pressing the window button, and then out it goes, gone
before he knows it, before his mother knows it, and it's a small thing,
really. He'll be in a good mood for the rest of the day.

2. I sat on my porch just now - the porch in Chicago, with a view of
the pretty yard I had nothing to do with - and watched the neighbor's
daughter get cornered by her shirtless boyfriend. He's a matchstick, so
thin his ribs rob you of that fuzzy fine blur of a well-built man. She
leaned against a post; he placed his hands on the rails. They kissed
like experts; he looked up. I heard a sound like carpet ripping and he
hocked a wad of sputum over the rail. Still, she stayed. "It's a city
of nine million people," I wanted to shout, "You can do better!"
Clich?s like that don't do much in the hazy pheromonal rage of suburban
porch kissing, though. Had I spoken - shouted - out loud, I would have
faced blank stares, confusion, certainly anger. The girl is one of six
- soon of seven, if her mother's stomach is any indication - and a
stupid fag's disgust is unlikely to sway her. And of course I could
never save a boy who is comfortable spitting six inches from the face
he's pretending to love.

And that's it - two things. I'm in a different place. Used to be I
could identify, categorize, pinpoint. Now I'm grateful for a quick
blurb, something that pulls my attention from all this hectic nonsense
of a new job, a new city. Friends tell me, "None of it matters, you
know," but they're speaking in the future, because really it does
matter, right now - not tomorrow or yesterday but now. Tomorrow I'll
probably agree with my friends. I can't at the moment, though. I'm
writing this while filling charts with numbers that will antiquate even
before my next birthday. I'm thinking about the man I will fire on
Monday. I'm thinking about the woman I've just hired. I'm thinking,
right?