deadly zins, mohawk zebra

She's the kind of person that obsessively, but obliviously, peels the labels off her beers. She doesn't even drink beer, really, but she will during exceptions. You know exceptions, everyone has them. Like when I am hungover I will eat peanut M&Ms. Like when I am wandering in the desert I will drink anything, anything. Like when you see someone for the first time and it changes your opinion of a certain color.

It was that way with her. I watched her peeling away, I began to scratch at the sides of my glass, wishing I had a tendency to exhibit. Of course, there was no label, and my lemon had already been squeezed into my vodka, so I removed my straw from the drink. I played with it aimlessly.

She was talking about a boy. It was always the same with her - in one and out another. Kind of like her ears. I'd say, "Zora, maybe you should just cool it for a while." She'd agree for a time span of five minutes and then, with a wink and a sleezy smile, on to the next. You understand.


... It becomes easier and easier to create people, like legos, building, building, building.


Thistimehedumpedher. This time she wasn't sure how to handle it. She wanted to die. Sentiment, sentiment. My sympathy goes a long way, I suppose. She didn't really want to die, she was being melodramatic. My mind went into a different mode, psychologist mode. You understand.

"I just ... I love him."
"Love isn't enough."
"I know."
"I know it hurts, just give it time. Hindsight is 20/20, so says my mother." Spit it out. I rationalize that cliches are only cliche because they're true. It's true.

She moves on to his attributes. She cries a little, but not real crying. Her eyes well up, and there is no one word for that, so we'll just maintain that she cries.

I think she's an idiot, really. I think she may be delusional. I think she doesn't know the first thing about love, but then again, I think, neither do I. I haven't dated in three years, I have never been in love, I just imagine it to be different than that.

I may be a cynical hag, also.

True to your heart, you must be true to your heart. This goes through my head and I think about telling her. But if I were her, I'd slap me for saying something that simple.

Women make me crazy.

le poisson

Kitchens are almost always dirty.  One expects a bathroom to be dirty, or a garage, but upon thinking about it, one realizes that kitchens are downright nasty.  

That orange slice fell behind the fridge weeks ago, I thought.  Now it's probably nothing more than a couple of seeds.  But what am I supposed to do about that?  Move the fridge to retrieve an orange slice?  Negative.  

I happened upon this train of thought for a number of reasons, the main two being that a) I work at a restaurant, and b) I am stuck in a cleaning frenzy that has lasted about three days now and is showing no signs of easing.  (And people prepare food in kitchens! I thought).  I threw down the 409 and a dingy old rag.  Time to get out of the house: commence with personal intervention.

I am a walking stream of consciousness, I thought.  

Isn't everybody?  

Well, yes, I suppose so.  But some people are less ... conscious? ... than others.

You mean like brain dead?  Or ignorant?

Probably both.  

I could go on, but the inner dialogue got confusing and technical and, to be honest, boring.  This is why our thoughts wonder.  

There are rats in kitchens.  I'm quitting my job, I thought.  I don't want to support rats.  Nor do I want to work for them.  That's what I'm doing, isn't it?  Cleaning up after them?  And flies.  Damn the flies.

I walked to the coffee shop on the corner of the next block.  Several types of people littered inside were on computers, probably wasting time.  Some of them were entranced in books and various notebooks - telltale signs of studying.  I thought about the time of year: December.  Finals.  Ah, I see.  

The skinny kid behind the counter did not care about me.  I'm getting old, I realized.  To him I look like 24-year-old boys looked when I was 16.  Only, I was in awe of 24-year-old boys when I was 16, and this kid was clearly disillusioned with me.  Try smiling, I thought.

I smiled.

"Can I have a soy latte?"

"Mmhmm."  He set to it.

Coffee in hand, I strolled back to my house.  The 409 and the rag are waiting for me anxiously.  Or perhaps not so anxiously - they must be tired.  I'm tired.  I'm a kind of tired in which you feel pleasant, calm.  You stroll down the street and wouldn't be surprised if you fell in love right then, or died.  

I supposed then that, with my coffee in hand, neither of those things would be altogether bad.  After all, I felt as though we had forgotten how small we are, and the orange slices and rats and flies had forgotten, and suddenly we're breathing for the last time, or kissing someone we feel we've known all our lives, or watching a car come barreling unstoppably toward us, and suddenly we remember.