this isn't the time or the place

the idiots in my lit class found a way to somehow incorporate poop into our discussion of a flannery o'connor story. no kidding. and colonel sanders was wearing huge gold cuff-links resembling the heads of lions. i don't know much about mens' fashion, especially the relationship between size and appropriateness of cuff-links, but i think it would've seemed entirely out of place on anyone else.

work has been strange. we moved desks so that i'm right underneath the air conditioner. i still have a view of the window, but now sit directly in front of my supervisors, which just makes me more nervous than i already was. sitting under fluorescent lights and having everything you say monitored--it's a bit like being paid to be interrogated. as soon as i walked in the door yesterday i wanted to cry. i can't explain why.

i called in sick on sunday and monday, even though i wasn't (it was chris' birthday) and going back took all the strength i had...i just kept hitting the snooze button, even though it was 10 o'clock, getting back in bed and thinking of what would happen if i quit that day. 'i'd still get my commission check at the end of the month. i could go back and work at otherlands. i could take out a bunch of student loans. i could lay in bed until october. or next spring. yes. that sounds delightful.'

i just will never understand what we're supposed to do with ourselves. i feel like i should be climbing a mountain or meditating on a rock or some shit, you know? traveling and discovering things. but yesterday i read a little comic strip about a ghost who goes to paris and it taught me a lesson that swimming in a fountain in paris is a lot like swimming in a fountain in the raleigh springs mall. it's probably sort of fun and sort of boring (and maybe even scary, in the case of the latter). and it made me think 'ok, maybe that little ghost is onto something. would i really be that much happier filling my brain with postcards of northern lights and towers and paintings and great walls?'

'yes, self, actually you would be.'
'but how would you get the money to go all those places?'
'i don't know. sell flowers or teach english or something? who cares. that totally isn't the point.'
'yes, but why spend time wishing for things you can't afford? isn't that kind of materialistic?'
'look, jerk. all i said is that i want to travel. we shouldn't be slaves to money. we should go where our heart tells us to. marvel at all the diversity and wonder of the planet.'
'do you know how bees build a honeycomb? or how a leaf forms? have you seen a fucking walking-stick? that shit is amazing! the stars look the same everywhere you go, self.'
'fuck you.'

every so often this happens. things start to get those wavy heat-lines and i can't pay attention to one thing or another. i just swing back and forth, trying to grab hold of something that makes a little sense. like a shop-class birdhouse in an earthquake, the little nails being jostled out of their hinges.

maybe this is just what being twenty-something is like. maybe all the pieces will fit together someday. who knows? do you think you know? do you know you know? will you come have coffee with me and explain it to me? i'll make us some toast and some hard-boiled eggs.

debatable

last night at around 1 am, thank jesus i was up late, i saw one of those huge flying cockroaches (they're called "american cockroaches" for anyone wondering. i can only suppose it's because they're so huge) on the wall above our bed. we spent the next 45 minutes trying to find it and suck it up with a vacuum because neither of us could bring ourselves to smash it. i think it may've been the biggest one i've seen since the time when robin and i lived on madison and spent an hour jumping across the furniture like we were playing the hot-lava game waiting for it to get off my goddamned record player (proof that what chris said last night--about them knowing what your most prized posession is and getting on it because they know you won't kill them there--is true) until we could douse it with aqua-net. and it occurred to me that i probably don't know a single person with whom i can't share a similar experience. it'll reduce a grown man to a child, i tell you what. last time this happened chris said "we're going to be somebody's parents someday..."

i'm really starting to hate this literature class, man. i mean, really. i like the stories we read. love them, actually...i'm dreading moving on to poetry (there is very little poetry i like). the short story is a nice medium. lots of southern writers we're studying. so yes, it's not the material or even colonel sanders i don't like. it's these people in class, you see. the ones who laugh at fictional characters in a story. characters i relate to. i guess laughing at something that is entirely fictional has to indicate some severe insecurity, but isn't sympathizing with the same character sort of the same (in that opposite way, like love vs. hate)? if we were the story, i would be riabovitch and those guys behind me would be the other officers in the camp who think they're so great because they get all the ladies.

i'm actually ahead in something for once in my life. these journals aren't due until friday and guess when i did them. go on. did you guess "yesterday"?. can you believe it? i guess having a boring job will make an over-acheiver out of me yet.

for anyone wondering, it's probably not a good idea to drunkenly snatch the phone from a friend who happens to be talking to your ex-whoever and say "lemmie talk to 'em". because you know what? they're going to sound different than how you remember, and there's probably not going to be enough to talk about to warrant your interrupting the real conversation anyway. you will probably feel like a fool, and saying goodbye will be painfully awkward. i mean, it's not a terrible idea. it'll just leave you feeling as though you'd just taken a big gulp of perrier when you thought it was going to be sweet tea.

also it's not a good idea to start talking about sex and marraige at bed time. you will think it's a good idea. it might even be one of those great times where you really have a heart-to-heart with your current-whoever, the kind that is unexpected and doesn't turn sour like it so easily could given the subject matter. but i promise, regarless of when you decide to end the conversation, you will wake up on less than four hours' sleep. you should probably just jot down some notes and discuss it over dinner tomorrow.