Work Diary, 7/9/04

Work Diary, 7/9/04

I live in an apartment now. My balcony overlooks the entryway to the
building. I can sit there and watch people come and go, which I do, or
watch the movies I rent daily from the Blockbuster Video down the
street. They are so used to me by now, the clerks, that they have a
giant-size Hershey's with almonds waiting when I approach the register.
I don't have the heart to tell them I am not always in the mood for
chocolate. This is more or less true.

The neighbor above me is a large black woman who laughs like a PA
system with a stuttering problem. Across the hall is a couple who jogs;
they often walk up the entryway, looking completely defeated. He holds
the door open for her, wincing, and she rubs her neck. I imagine their
lovemaking is slow but purposeful: We WILL be asleep in the next seven
minutes. Get on with it.

Below me is the first floor. The apartments are cheaper there. There
have been break-ins, and rapes. The manager was very up front about
this. "I've always kept a baseball bat under my bed," I said. "Perhaps
something higher up, then," she answered.

The building is a pseudo-high-rise of six stories. It has a pool. Right
now the management is running a promotion, advising possible tenants
that in THIS community, THEY are the STAR. Life-size cut-outs of Elvis
and Marilyn Monroe adorn the lobby, freaking me out. I like to watch
but being watched is an entirely different experience. The laundry room
is open twenty-four hours a day; at two a.m., anyone would forget that
it's not really Norma Jean sneaking a peak as you pick up the dirty
underwear that's fallen from your basket. I always sigh in relief and
wish that old Norma would just go home.

Across the parking lot is an assisted-living home. It's full - right up
to its ten stories - so a lot of the old folks have been shuffled into
my building. They fart and chatter as they prevent me from completing a
purposeful stride down the hallway. On the day I moved, one old lady
told me that my sofa was unsuitable for apartment living: "It's too
big," she said, "You will never get it up the stairs or the elevator."
She was right - the old often are, strangely enough - so I made calls
to men stronger than me and we threw the sofa onto the balcony, which
has much wider doors. It took all of thirty seconds, and yet we felt
we'd accomplished something momentous.

I have more money now than I ever did. My rent is cheaper than half the
mortgage; I eat frozen foods that cost far less than ordering out and
even less than going to a restaurant. I wear the same clothes I always
have, clothes that have become new in this strangely sterile
environment, where everything is painted and carpeted and honed down to
efficient living. I use very little electricity. I've let my magazine
subscriptions expire.

That is my life, and I won't survive it. I've been half-dead for the
better part of a year. My cup manages to be half-full but begs to be
half-empty. It's that empty part I've been avoiding, with the movies
and reading and short, unnecessary trips to the grocery store. I miss
my old life: my dog, my garden, the filthy carpeted stairs that lead
into a basement full of fourteen years of sentimental junk. I will
never be the same; I haven't changed at all. There is no groove, no
slow commitment to climax. I look in the mirror and it's pure ugly
looking back.

That's me: Pure Ugly. And so, so stupid. I didn't want it to be this
way; I couldn't be happier.

"Hello," I say, "How may I help you?"