9:12 a.m.: “It’s cowboy boot night at the Daisy Dukes Saloon. I want to go,” Katee tells me. Didn’t’ you just go there the other night? I ask. “That was for stewed, screwed and tattooed night,” she says. “I thought I could win a prize but nobody liked my tattoo.”
9:13 a.m.: Why? You have a nice tattoo. “I know, but it’s not hidden. The crowd likes tattoos that are only visible when you peel down. One girl had to lie on her back and use a mirror to show people her tattoo. The crowd loved that. It was cute though — a little choo-choo train with Jesus as the engineer.”
9:14 a.m.: Well, next time you go to tattoo night I’d be game but count me out for cowboy boot night, I say. “Come on,” she says. “I’ll dig your cowboy boots out of your closet for you and shine them up.”
9:14:23 a.m.: I gotta go to work, I say.
10:02 a.m.: New guy is walking out of the office and heading to the parking lot as I’m coming in. “I’m going to listen to some music in the car and wait for the world to end. Want to join me?” he asks. No, I’m going to wait it out inside. Thanks, I say.
10:04 a.m.: Temp lady at front desk is wearing a frilly, weird wika gown with a pentagram necklace that lights up. What, did Charmed have a garage sale? I ask. “Very funny,” she says.
10:20 a.m.: Tech girl is telling everybody how this old, foreign guy has been stalking her at her apartment complex. “He’ll be, like, just standing in my parking spot and gawking at me,” she says.
10:21 a.m.: “Does he say anything?” Tiara asks. “I can barely understand him,” tech girl says. “But this morning he clearly said, ‘Do you want to go to Chile with me?’ I’ve always wanted to go to Chile and it’s winter there now so you can ski and I’ve always wanted to ski in summer, but not with him. And then he said, ‘Would you like to get a salad?’”
10:22 a.m.: I like that move. I have to give him credit for that pickup line, I say. You go big right off. Ask the girl if she wants to go to skiing in Chile and then immediately drop down to getting a salad. I might even go bigger and then smaller, like, “Do you want to sail the seven seas with me? And then when I get the no I go directly to, “I’m going to buy some stamps. Want to come?”
10:33 a.m.: Katee calls. “I found your boots but I can’t shine them,” she says. “They’re suede and it’s not even a cool tan suede. The boots are reddish brown and all puffy and floppy from sitting in the closet for so long. They look like something that Antonio Banderas cat in Shrek would wear.
10:34 a.m.: No cowboy night for me, I say.
1154 a.m.: Marti asks me if I’ve seen Bourne Ultimatum yet. “You should really make sure you see it while it’s still on the big screen,” she says. “It’s riveting.”
11:54:41 a.m.: I don’t want to be riveted, I say.
12:21 p.m.: Go to lunch and eat alone.
1:40 p.m.: When I get back from lunch the lady that comes by to sell flowers to nearby offices is parked under a sliver of shade and when I ask her how she’s doing she says, “I may have a way to make some extra money but I need second opinion.”
1:41 p.m.: I’m not really a person other people go to for a second opinion, I declare. I’m usually further down the list … fourth, fifth opinion at best. “Don’t worry, you’re like he 20th person I’ve asked but I’m really all discombobulated on this.”
1:42 p.m.: She explains that a guy she knows who’s been selling DVD bootlegs of first-run movies out of his trunk has added a new feature to his product. “He decided in the left hand corner he’ll have a girl stripping,” she says. “You know how when you’re watching a bootleg you curse when someone gets up for popcorn and walks right in front of the camera?”
1:43 p.m.: Yeah, I say. “That’s how he got the idea,”she says. “When he filmed Stardust some girl blocked out a whole scene but everybody told him it was the only decent part of the movie because she was so hot.”
1:44 p.m.: So you’re going to strip in bootlegs? I ask. “I don’t know. I figure the quality is so bad nobody will be able to tell it’s me. The guy told me to think of the job as being like the person who stands off to the side and signs for deaf people.”
1:45 p.m.: He’s a good salesman, I say. “Yeah, he says everybody sells five for $20 but with this bonus he can go 5 for $25,” she says. “If I do it my debut will be on the Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford. The guy says it’s going to blow and I’ll be the best thing in it. I’ll bring you a copy.”
1:45:50 p.m.: OK, thanks, I say.
2:12 p.m.: New guy pulls me aside to explain to me they’re going to hang the temp lady for practicing witchcraft in the office. “Out back by the loading dock in five minutes,” he says. Thanks, but I’m going to sit this one out, I say.
2:17 p.m.: Markeitng guy comes over to my desk all excited about a new drug he just heard about. “How long has it been since we’ve had a new drug? “ he asks. I don’t know, 18 months, I say.
2:18 p.m.: “At least,” he says. “It’s called ‘cheese’ on the street and it’s coming up from Port St. Lucie.”
2:18:20 p.m.: I don’t think I want any drug that originated in Port. St. Lucie, I say. “Don’t speak toos soon,” he says. “I bet in six weeks you’ll be beggin’ for the cheese.”
2:19 p.m.; for the first time in my life I wish I could send myself into the future exactly six weeks so I could see myself ‘beggin’ for the cheese.’
2:29 p.m.: I can’t see exactly where it’s coming from because there's a high partition between our department and the accounting department but I just heard someone on the other side very loudly singing, "Choc-o-late Rai-i-i-I-n..." And his version sounds even better than the original. Less operatic, more Fine Young Cannibals.
3:02 p.m.: Catch Carrot alone in the break room. Want to go skiing in Chile with me? I ask. “Nooo,” she says.
3:02:11 p.m.: Want to get a salad?

10:17 a.m.: “My ass is twitching,” Marti says.
10:17:31 a.m.: OK, I say.
10:18 a.m.: “You know how your eye gets a twitch and it won’t stop? It’s like that,” she says. “Only its my ass.”
10:18:31 a.m.: Is it doing it right now? I ask.
10:19 a.m.: “Yesss!” she says muffling her voice and squiggling around in her desk chair. “I can’t stop it.”
10:19:12 a.m.: You shouldn’t be ashamed, I say. It’s involuntary, like Tourette’s.
10:19:40 a.m.: “My ass doesn’t have Tourette’s,” she says. “You’re making things worse. I don’t even know why I tell you things.”
10:20 a.m.: Stand up. Let me see, I say. Sometimes you have a little muscle spasm and it feels like an earthquake going through your body but it’s not even visible to the naked eye.
10:20:21 a.m.: “You think so? You could be right,” she says walking toward me backwards so no one else can see what she’s doing.
10:21 a.m.: Yeah, I don’t see a thing, I say. But I like the way your pants fit. They’re snug but not too tight. They hold the cargo perfectly. Your ass looks great. Go, run along, parade around and show it off to the world.
10:21:42 a.m.: “It’s not even doing it yet, stupid. Just keep watching.”
10:22 a.m.: Keep watching.
10:23 a.m.: “There, you see that,” she says. Oh my, I say. Yeah, I saw that. It’s like a … baby kicking. You’re not pregnant, are you?
10:23:23 a.m.: “My ass isn’t pregnant,” she snaps back at me.
10:23:51 a.m.: Oh, there it is again. It’s kinda cute. You shouldn’t worry about it.
10:24 a.m.: “Well, I’m worried about it,” Marti says. “I had a twitch in my eye once and it lasted almost four months. People thought I was winking at them all the time. Only it was the wink of a crazed spastic.”
10:24:20 a.m.: I don’t think anyone is going to think your ass is winking at them, I say.
10:24:30 a.m.: Marti huffs and runs back to her chair. I guess you could wear bulky clothes or something for a while until the tremors cease, I say.
10:25 a.m.: “I’ve got like a ton of errands to run today,” she says. “Shit, you’re going to have to come with me.”
10:25:14 a.m.: Why?
10:25:23 a.m.: “To block my butt, stand behind me in lines and stuff. Run interference for me,” she says.
10:26 a.m.: That does sound like fun but…I don’t know, I say.
10:26:19 a.m.: “Come on,” she says. “I’ll buy you a submarine sandwich afterwards.”
10:26:25 a.m.: OK.
10:40 a.m.: “Back off!” Marti says as we’re heading across the parking lot to her car. “You don’t have to be that close. I feel like I’m wearing you.”
10:41 a.m.: Don’t yell at me. I’ve never done this before. I don’t know how far I should be, I say. How do you want me to do this? “Just gauge the situation. Use some finesse for God’s sake,” she says. “You’re the buffer between my butt and the rest of the world. Govern yourself accordingly.”
10:44 a.m.: Is it doing it now? I ask Marti at the first traffic light.
10:44:23 a.m.: “No.”
10:44:31 a.m.: Is it doing it now?
10:44:40 a.m.: “No.”
10:45 a.m.: Now???
10:45:23 a.m.: Katee calls me on my cell phone. “I’ve decided I’m going to sign up for a college class,” she says. What kind of class? I ask. “I don’t know. I just want to take one class. You know, I think it will make me feel better about myself.”
10:46 a.m.: Since when do you want to feel better about yourself?
10:46:14: “Since my Dad said he’ll pay half my rent if I start college,” she says. “Plus, I mean its great working as a hostess at Mississippi Sweets and making $887 dollars a week and all but…
10:47 a.m.: You make $887 a week?
10:47:23 a.m.: “That’s the average. I told you during the season I made $1200 that one week.”
10:47:39 a.m.: I thought that was a one time thing. Jesus, how do you make $1,200 hosting at Mississippi Sweets? “It’s the sauce, I guess. I don’t know,” Katee says. “But I’d like to do something with more prestige for less money some day.”
10:48 a.m.: Well, yeah, I guess it’s a good idea, I say. Hey, I’m driving to the bank right now with Marti from work because her ass is twitching and I have to run interference. “Tell her to punch it, “ Katee says. “I had a twitch like that in my upper thigh and I punched it and it stopped. Killed it dead.”
10:49 a.m.: Marti, Katee says you should punch the twitch. It kills it dead. “Who’s Katee?” My roommate.
10:50 a.m.: “How am I going to punch my own ass?” Marti says. “Oh no, you’re not punching me in the ass.”
10:58 a.m.: In line at bank behind Marti but she keeps turning around to talk to me and I have to turn with her and her ass keeps getting away from me. Now I know how the secret service feels in those movies where the president’s wily daughter keeps trying to ditch them.
10:59 a.m.: “Which daughter do I remind you of, Mandy Moore or Amanda Bynes?” Marti asks turning around again. You’ve got Mandy Moore’s butt with Amanda Bynes personality, I say circling. Now turn around.
11:04 a.m.: In bank parking lot Marti stops outside the car and says, “I don’t know if I can take you drafting off me all day. You want to just try the punch?”
11:04 a.m.: Definitely, I say. “You can never tell anybody this happened,” she insists. Don’t be silly. You shouldn’t be ashamed, I say. There’s nothing erotic about this. It’s not like I’m slapping your ass in a fit of passion. I’m just going to punch it in a parking lot.
11:05 a.m.: Marti opens the back door of the car and leans in as if she’s looking for the road map from her last big trip to Orlando or something. “OK, whenever you’re ready,” she says.
11:06 a.m.: “Come on, what are you waiting for?”
11:06:14 a.m.: It’s hard to punch someone when you’re really concentrating, I say. Quiet. I’m eying it up. I want to nail it mid-twitch. Like scaring somebody with hiccups.
11:07 a.m.: OK, I say. The next one’s it. This might hurt a little. Try to think of something to take your mind off it.
11:07:13 a.m.: “You’re friend really makes $1,200 as a hostess at Mississippi Sweets?”
11:07:19 a.m.: Yeah, can you believe that.

7:54 a.m.: Wake up wishing I could actually get under Rihanna’s umbrella.
9:44 a.m.: Have to make a stop on the turnpike on the way in to work and when I go to use the restroom I am literally blown away by the new hand dryer. If you’ve ever been on an airstrip when a jet turns its engine over that’s exactly the way this turbo dryer sounds.
9:44:47 a.m.: And works.
9:44:51 a.m.: It’s instantaneous. Whoosh! And your hands are dry. It’s so fast you’d think it was sucking the moisture up instead of flash drying your hands. It’s…
9:45 a.m.: “Miraculous, isnt’ it?” the maintenance guy says. It’s the future I’ve always dreamed of, I say. There’s none of that…
9:45:21 a.m.: “Rubbing your hands together like you’re a Cub Scout in front of a rain-soaked campfire?” maintenance guy says. “We’re the only stop in the region with one of these. All the rest are being tested in Maryland. People are coming from miles around. There aren’t too many other attractions in South Florida.”
9:46 a.m.: There’s Harry Potter in 3-D at the Muvico and this! I say heading back to the sink to wet my hands again.
9:46:13 a.m.: Whoosh!
9:46:20 a.m.: And again.
9:47 a.m.: “Tell a friend,” maintenance guy says.
9:47:14 a.m.: I’m going to tell the whole world!
10:17 a.m.: A few minutes after I get to work I notice Andy in accounting suspiciously tilting up an empty Mountain Dew bottle. And I can see his eye peeking through the spout like it’s a … telescope. Maybe I’m just being paranoid.
10:18 a.m.: There, he just did it again. He’s spying on me. The bastard is spying on me.
10:18:40 a.m.: Hey, I say. Stop spying on me. “What?” he says. Don’t be zooming in on me with your Mountain Dew bottle. “You’re paranoid,” he says.
10:19 a.m.: No, I already considered that, I say. I’m not. You’re spying on me through a Mountain Dew Bottle. “Get out, I’m just drinking this,” he says holding up the bottle. “See.”
10:19:19 a.m.: Damn it. He just did it again. There’s barely a hint of yellow at the bottom. It’s residue. Listen, I say, I don’t care if you’ve got a soda pop telescope going there just stop fish-eyeing me with it. Go look at the sun.
10:20 a.m.: “Oh, that’s a cool idea,” he says heading out.
11:04 a.m.: Art guy is illustrating one of his new inventions – a commuter roller coaster that would operate from West Palm Beach to Miami. “I took the Tri-Rail one day and everybody is sitting there zonked out drinking coffee and doing Sudoka. Then I pictured everybody on a roller coaster heading to work - newspapers flying in the air, coffee splashing into people’s hair, laptops crashing off treetops.
11:05 a.m.: I look over his shoulder. Oh, I like the 4- mile corkscrew between Boynton Beach and Delray, I say.
11:05:30 a.m.: “Check out this face-down drop into a fog-filled hole right out of the gate in West Palm, he says trailing his finger across the route. “That’s followed by a 170-foot dive into an underground tunnel before the ticket taker even makes the rounds. Hold on to you lattes, motherfuckers. We’re about to drop of the face of the earth…or Pompano Beach. Whatever.”
11:06 a.m.: “Between Commercial and 595 I’ve got 17 inversions followed by 6 miles of loops based on stunt pilot acrobatics,” he says. “At the Glades interchange we’re topping at 245 feet. You’ll be able to see as far as Bermuda to the east and gator wrestling at Swamp Billie’s to the west.”
11:07 a.m.: Do you have to be 48 inches tall? I ask. “No, no you can be two inches tall on this badboy,” art guy says. “A potato chip could ride this thing and not have to worry. It’s revolutionary.”
11:54 a.m.: Marketing guy, who has been unable to sell or lease out a condo he ijnvested in 2005 is begging me to take his afternoon shift at the condo. What are you talking about? I say. “Oh, I thought you already knew,” he says. “I been renting it out by the hour now. You know, for sexual laisons. Woman cheating on their husbands and stuff.”
11:55 a.m.: You’re like one of those hotels that charges by the hour. That’s gross. “Hey, hey, he says. “This is nothing like that. This is like the boutique version of that. I’ve got an espresso maker for God’s sake. You can make waffles or panini sadnwihes afterwards. It’s more like a quaint bed & breakfast & fucking establishment.”
11:56 a.m.: Nevermind I thought you’d like to make a quick $200 for a couple hours of babysitting. Babysitting. You just take the money, run the debit cards or whatever. Help out with the CD changer if need be.
11:57 a.m.: “It’s a sweet deal,” new guy says. “I manned the station last Wednesday. Sat around the kitchen reading Jane magazine and eating almonds. Got up to get someone a towel once. That was it.”
11:57:14 a.m.: “:Forget it,” marketing guy says. I need some who can be discreet. I don’t’ know if you’re even capable of being discreet.
11:57:34 a.m.: Oh, I can be discreet, I say adamantly. I’m the king of discreet. “There’s no such thing as the king of discreet,” he says. “But I’m not getting into that with you . Can you be there by 2 p.m.? The key is behind the fourth chili pepper on the string of lights around the front door.”
11:58 a.m.: Chili pepper lights? Oh, this is some high-class oper…”Yes or no?”
11:58:04 a.m.: Yes.
12:20 p.m.: Go to lunch and eat alone.
1:34 p.m.: Drive through marketing guy’s complex three times before I spot the chili pepper lights on the third floor.
1:42 p.m.: Getting situated in the kitchen and trying to make an iced coffee when a woman with blazing red hair comes reeling through the door. She sticks a wad of cash under a candy jar on the counter, says tell Mark I’m already in the bedroom when he gets here. Will do, I say.
1:43 p.m.: She stops at a mirror in the living room and starts adjusting everything about herself. Her hair, her eyes, her lips. her breasts, her pantyline. I sometimes get upset when women do this in front of me, like they’re fixing themselves up for everyone but me. But in this case I do not care.
1:44 p.m.: Look for the almonds.
1:50 p.m.: Guy comes in carrying his suit jacket in his hand. “Someplace I can hang this?” he asks. Sure, I’ll take it, I say.
1:51 p.m.: Check his coat.
1:52 p.m.: Is Heather here already? Oh, I don’t’ know. I didn’t’ get her name. “I’m Gregory,” he says. Mmmm, I thought she’d said she was waiting for a Mark. I’ll be right back I say.
1:53 p.m.: Knock lightly on bedroom door. Red-haired woman opens it a crack. Did you say you were waiting for Mark? I ask. ‘Cause there’s a Gregory here. “Oh,” she says sounding a bit disappointed. “All right , send him in.”
1:55 p.m.: Put my ipod ears in and read a book about cave diving. I would love to try that but I know one of my tanks would get stuck between two boulders and then I’d eventually be a skeleton with a big scuba take on his back and the flippers would look so big on my skeleton feet after 10 years or so.
2:22 p.m.: Heather bursts out of the bedroom and dives into the refrigerator. Her hair’s aflame and she looks like she’s been through a maelstrom or the 4-mile commuter corkscrew between Boynton and Delray. Every inch of her has been unadjusted.
2:23 p.m.: She’s wearing a tiny robe and her legs are an army of frecklses battling at the knees. “Where’s the Capri Sun?” she says. Oh, here they are.”
2:24 p.m.: She eyes me and the iPod and asks if I’m listening to BonJovi. No, I say. “Do you think their new album sounds country?” she says. I don’t’ really know what they sound like, I say. I just know Bon Jovi is cute.
2:24:17 p.m.: “Yeah,” she says heading back into the bedroom.
2:36 p.m.: Only about ten minutes go buy and the pair leave together without even saying goodbye to me.
2:40 p.m.: A younger lady dressed in all pink taps lightly on the door and then lets herself in. She gives me her debit card and gets a glass of green tea. “I always use four ice cubes,” she says plonking them into the drink one at a time.
2:41 p.m.: She takes off her shoes and puts them up on the kitchen counter. “My feet are sad today,” she says.
2:43 p.m.: I go back to reading my book. “There’s no cats here. I can tell,”.she says. “A cat has never lived in this apartment.”
2:48 p.m.: A scruffy haired guy comes in and pink lady jumps up. “Here’s my man.”
2:51 p.m.: They rush off to the bedroom and then the guy immediately comes out with just a towel on his waist and he’s got it low so it shows the bony part of the that’s so sexy.
2:51:41 p.m.: “Any chance we could get some extra pillows?” he asks. “She wants to be propped up a ceratin way. She’s fussy like that.”
2:52 p.m.: Let me see what I can find? I say heading toward the hall closet. “Oh, and we need four more ice cubes,” he says trailing behind me. “The fuckers melted,” he says.
2:52:21 p.m.: This is not the future I’ve always dreamed of.

Or

“I really did need a box moved. But the next thing you know I was bent over a three high stack of ink toner and seeing nothing but red.”
- new sales girl

11:12 a.m.: It’s the fifth day of working on the sex issue nonstop when the crossword puzzle girl, who’s trying to come up with sex terms for this week’s puzzle (pg. 52) asks what a rusty trombone is?
11:13 a.m.: Music guy quickly volunteers and starts clumsily detailing the maneuver before saying, “I better draw you an illustration.”
11:14 a.m.: Several co-workers watch over his shoulder as he scribbles away but before he even finishes the marketing guy turns to Marti and says, ”I want to fuck you.” “What!?” Marti screeches.
11:14:30 a.m.: “Right now,” marketing guy exclaims. He’s uncontrollable and starts grabbing at Marti.
11:15 a.m.: Tiara goes to get the boss. Boss comes out, takes in the situation, and says, “Well, I guess I can’t very well apply the usual code of conduct after asking you all to be as offensive as possible in this sex issue so if you want to jerk off or screw each other go ahead. I don’t care.”
11:15:37 a.m.: “All right!” marketing guy yelps. “All right, nothin’,” Marti says. “Get away from me.”
11:16:50 a.m.: “Come on, you know you want it,” tech girl says. “Well, I am a little tense,” Marti says.
11:17 a.m.: “Angie and Brian used to use the storage closest for sex before they got fired,” tech girl says.
11:17:22 a.m.: “Yeah, they had that code where Angie would ask for help moving a box and then they’d go at it for four minutes,” new guy says.
11:18 a.m.: “Could you help me move a box?” Marti says shyly to the marketing guy.
11:20 a.m.: Employees we rarely see are suddenly interested in what we’re doing. Heidi and Staci come over from the ad department and Andrew and Scottie from accounting are fumbling around.
11:24 a.m.: People are loitering outside the storage closet and at first I think they’re just ease-dropping but they’re actually in line - in twos and threes. Just about everybody has been asked for help moving a box.
11:26 a.m.: Arguments are breaking out and some people are getting antsy waiting for their turn. Juan, the new sales guy who’s rumored to be a serious swinger, immediately takes charge of the situation. And he’s either quite good at this or people don’t need much of a push to start fucking each other in public.
11:28 a.m.: Juan is directing people like he’s operating a Caligula fantasy camp. “Kerri, don’t swallow. Your tummy’s going to be full before everyone else gets a turn.” “Son, if the clothes are getting cumbersome just hike her skirt up.” “Hey you! Don’t touch your member. It’s a turn off.” “Scottie, loosen up the grip. A woman doesn’t like her head held like a volleyball and jammed down during oral sex.” (Here’s the move.)
11:35 a.m.: Kerri, the temp worker, says her first husband could never get her off so she knows over 2,000 positions. “ I tried everything. I’m Kamasutra Kerri. I just need a volunteer,” she says. New guy jumps right up and seems to be having the time of his life until he gets too excited in the fifth position. “Oops. OK, I’m going to need another volunteer,” Kerri says.
11:50 a.m.: Juan is hooking up a DVD player to the office TV. Before this, the only time we turned on the TV in the office was for the boss’s baseball games and the Gonzalez hearings. Now showing: Anal Fever 2.
11:58 a.m.: “If anybody needs any natural lubricant for areas that just won’t lubricate see me,” Staci says. “I’m always wet. It’s my gift to the world.”
12:04 p.m.: Carrot admits she’s often fancied the idea of being a dominatrix. “I’m not really into the whole sexual aspect of it but I like the idea of whipping people,” she says. “I think I have some stuff in the car.”
12:10 p.m.: Tiara says she doesn’t feel sexy enough. “I’m going to go to that costume shop and get like a Catholic schoolgirl’s outfit or something,” she says.
12:22 p.m.: A huge crowd has gathered around red carpet girl’s desk and there’s sporadic applause, like she’s putting on some kind of a show. “I can text with my twat,’ she says waving. “I’ve been doing it since the 10th grade.”
12:25 p.m.: Skip lunch.
12:33 p.m.: New guy is shaving Marti. “My fiancé never lets me do this,” he grins.
12:40 p.m.: Carrot appears in the office all legs and leather and looking like Kate Beckinsale in Underworld: Evolution, except for the clown nose. “I wanted to make it fun too,” she says.
12:42 p.m.: “You,” Juan says pointing to Scottie, “go with Carrot to the basement.”
12:42:14 p.m.: “Neat, I didn’t even know we had a basement,” Scotty says.
: The interoffice mail guy comes in and after a quick glance around the office asks if he can stay awhile. “I’m ahead of schedule this morning anyway,” he says. “Sure you can stay,” tech girl says. How far ahead of schedule are you. If it’s four minutes, come with me. I need help moving some boxes.”
1:10 p.m.: Heidi tells me she reads Laurel Hamilton vampire books because vampires have the best sex. “You want me to sit on your lap and read you this part about this girl vampire hunter having sex with two guys?” she asks. If you want to, I say.
1:30 p.m.: Heidi gives me the set up that the hunter is narrating while getting it on with vampires Demetrius and Jean-Claude and then gets right into it: “Auggie was hard enough that the head was naked above the silky foreskin. I rolled my mouth over that head, then shoved as much of him into my mouth as I could, as fast and hard as I could. It made me come up choking, but it also tore Auggie away form Jean-Claude’s mouth.” - Jean-Claude is the master vampire of the city, Heidi interjects. That’s not important, I say. Go on.
1:32 p.m.: “ I went down on him again, slower, lingering over the feel of him in my mouth, so ripe, so thick, and how the hard line of that curve felt going down my throat. --- I rose up from Demitrius’ body and said, “Don’t, don’t close down. Lets’ do this. Do it all.” - How am I doing?” Heidi asks. Great, I say. This has been the best story time ever.
1:50 p.m.: Tiara comes back from the costume shop but she looks like sort of a transvestite/ tin man/ nun. “They were out of the sexy stuff so I had to put a mishmash together. This feather duster goes with a French maid outfit though,” she says. That’s good, I say. “And they gave me this to strap on.” Oh my God.
2:07 p.m.: Scotty comes up out of the basement with file clips on his nipples and his pants down revealing a baboon red butt. “I want to cover up but it’s so sore,” he says. “My ass needs air. Don’t let the clown nose fool you. That girl means business.”
2:09 p.m.: Go down to basement, hear the crack of the whip and spot the interoffice mail guy just about to scream when Carrot jams one of those sadistic red latex rubber ball gags in his mouth.
2:10 p.m.: Run back upstairs.
2:33 p.m.: Tiara is distraught. “People tell me I sound like a goose when I orgasm. I honk,” she says. Honking’s hot, I say.
: Several male employees are arguing over the intern. Music guy says she’s hands off as usual. “But she’s game,” Scotty says. “She’s the intern,” music guy keeps repeating.
: Boss comes out and announces, “You can do anything you want with the intern but just today.”
2:50 p.m.: Several female coworkers are taking a break and discussing how Andy may be weasly looking but he’s actually a “major fuckster.” “You get him in the closet or the break room and he’s like a transformer,” someone says. “ I know,” red carpet girl says. “I felt like I was being gouged by the rod from a nuclear reactor.”
2:51 p.m.: “No, its more like riding the turret of a battleship,” tech girl says.
2:51:14 p.m.: “I closed my eyes and made believe I was the ocean floor being pounded by an offshore drilling rig,” Staci says.
3:01 p.m.: Word goes out that they’ve got kiddie porn on the Internet in the billing department. “Yes!” art guy screams running off but comes back totally dejected. “It’s kitty porn, not kiddie porn,” he says.
3:10 p.m.: Juan is working the room again, spouting out orders: “ A little more finesse folks. That looks more like Dunkin’ Donuts than tea baggin.’ Heidi, if you’re going to do it standing up facing the wall, put your heels back on. They’ll make your perky butt stick up just right. That’s better.” “Jesus, you guys sound like chalk on a blackboard,’ he says to one couple. ”Get some of that lubricant Staci’s dispensing.”
3:16 p.m.: Big boss comes in, looks totally shocked for a second but then nods and says, “I get it, transformative change. Penguins behave this way. No inhibitions. I love it. Who wants to take a ride on my Harley?” I’ll go if I can call you Jean- Claude?” Heidi says.
3:33 p.m.: There’s a line at the art guy’s desk and he’s painting the breasts of several girls who came over from the nail salon next door. It’s as if he’s operating a booth at Ozzfest.
: “Don’t call me mommy!” Staci yells at new guy. “Don’t call me daddy,” new guy shouts back. “Daddys different,” Staci says.
: Juan is berating Scottie. “Cunnilingus or analingus – one or the other! No mixing it up on my watch.
4:10 p.m.: Tiara is completely disheveled. One breast is hanging out. “I don’t care,” she says. “You can put it away for me if you want. I won’t slap your hand.”
4:11 p.m.: Put Tiara’s left breast away. .
4:12 p.m.: You look like hell, I say. You feel OK?
4:12:34 p.m.: I think I have anal fever, she says.
4:15 p.m.: Boss comes out to make an announcement: “Anyone who calls in sick tomorrow with anal fever will be docked two days pay.”
5:05 p.m.: A tall Vietnamese nail tech with a herd of wild horses airbrushed across her small breasts sticks out her hand and asks me if I want to get high. I guess so, I say.
5:10 p.m.: She leads me out the break room door lays down on the grass along the canal. “Salon weed is the best,” she says lighting up. “You want to eat animal crackers off my stomach?” Yes.
5:16 p.m.: “If you want to taste me down there you can,” she says uncrossing her legs. OK, I say, but can I finish the cookies first?
5:32 p.m.: As I’m heading back inside there’s an odd looking guy outside the back door holding a goat. “Juan asked me to bring it in when the time is right,” he says
5:34 p.m.: When I get back in the office crossword girl says, “Look,” pointing across the room to Marti and the music guy. “That illustration didn’t do the rusty trombone justice.”
5:35 p.m.: A little turned off, I head toward the basement. Near the front of the office Juan is trying to get everybody to move in for a group photo. “Say Sodom and Gomorah,” he grins
5:36 p.m.: As I pass the storage closet I hear someone exclaim, “Don’t, don’t close down. Let’s do this. Do it all!”
5:37 p.m.: “Terry, you ready for your whuppin’?” Carrot asks sweetly.
5:37:28 p.m.: I guess I deserve it, I say. But do you have to stick that rubber ball in my mouth?
5:37:39 p.m.: “Not if you take it like a man, little boy. No screaming.”
5:38 p.m.: Jam ball into my own mouth.

Or

: “I really did need a box moved,” sales girl tells me. “But the next thing you know I was bent over a three high stack of ink toner and seeing nothing but red.”

11:12 a.m.: It’s the fifth day of working on the sex issue nonstop when the crossword puzzle girl, who’s trying to come up with sex terms for this week’s puzzle (pg. 52) asks what a rusty trombone is?
11:13 a.m.: Music guy quickly volunteers and starts clumsily detailing the maneuver before saying, “I better draw you an illustration.”
11:14 a.m.: Several co-workers watch over his shoulder as he scribbles away but before he even finishes the marketing guy turns to Marti and says, ”I want to fuck you.” “What!?” Marti screeches.
11:14:30 a.m.: “Right now,” marketing guy exclaims. He’s uncontrollable and starts grabbing at Marti.
11:15 a.m.: Tiara goes to get the boss. Boss comes out, takes in the situation, and says, “Well, I guess I can’t very well apply the usual code of conduct after asking you all to be as offensive as possible in this sex issue so if you want to jerk off or screw each other go ahead. I don’t care.”
11:15:37 a.m.: “All right!” marketing guy yelps. “All right, nothin’,” Marti says. “Get away from me.”
11:16:50 a.m.: “Come on, you know you want it,” tech girl says. “Well, I am a little tense,” Marti says.
11:17 a.m.: “Angie and Brian used to use the storage closest for sex before they got fired,” tech girl says.
11:17:22 a.m.: “Yeah, they had that code where Angie would ask for help moving a box and then they’d go at it for four minutes,” new guy says.
11:18 a.m.: “Could you help me move a box?” Marti says shyly to the marketing guy.
11:20 a.m.: Employees we rarely see are suddenly interested in what we’re doing. Heidi and Staci come over from the ad department and Andrew and Scottie from accounting are fumbling around.
11:24 a.m.: People are loitering outside the storage closet and at first I think they’re just ease-dropping but they’re actually in line - in twos and threes. Just about everybody has been asked for help moving a box.
11:26 a.m.: Arguments are breaking out and some people are getting antsy waiting for their turn. Juan, the new sales guy who’s rumored to be a serious swinger, immediately takes charge of the situation. And he’s either quite good at this or people don’t need much of a push to start fucking each other in public.
11:28 a.m.: Juan is directing people like he’s operating a Caligula fantasy camp. “Kerri, don’t swallow. Your tummy’s going to be full before everyone else gets a turn.” “Son, if the clothes are getting cumbersome just hike her skirt up.” “Hey you! Don’t touch your member. It’s a turn off.” “Scottie, loosen up the grip. A woman doesn’t like her head held like a volleyball and jammed down during oral sex.” (Here’s the move.)
11:35 a.m.: Kerri, the temp worker, says her first husband could never get her off so she knows over 2,000 positions. “ I tried everything. I’m Kamasutra Kerri. I just need a volunteer,” she says. New guy jumps right up and seems to be having the time of his life until he gets too excited in the fifth position. “Oops. OK, I’m going to need another volunteer,” Kerri says.
11:50 a.m.: Juan is hooking up a DVD player to the office TV. Before this, the only time we turned on the TV in the office was for the boss’s baseball games and the Gonzalez hearings. Now showing: Anal Fever 2.
11:58 a.m.: “If anybody needs any natural lubricant for areas that just won’t lubricate see me,” Staci says. “I’m always wet. It’s my gift to the world.”
12:04 p.m.: Carrot admits she’s often fancied the idea of being a dominatrix. “I’m not really into the whole sexual aspect of it but I like the idea of whipping people,” she says. “I think I have some stuff in the car.”
12:10 p.m.: Tiara says she doesn’t feel sexy enough. “I’m going to go to that costume shop and get like a Catholic schoolgirl’s outfit or something,” she says.
12:22 p.m.: A huge crowd has gathered around red carpet girl’s desk and there’s sporadic applause, like she’s putting on some kind of a show. “I can text with my twat,’ she says waving. “I’ve been doing it since the 10th grade.”
12:25 p.m.: Skip lunch.
12:33 p.m.: New guy is shaving Marti. “My fiancé never lets me do this,” he grins.
12:40 p.m.: Carrot appears in the office all legs and leather and looking like Kate Beckinsale in Underworld: Evolution, except for the clown nose. “I wanted to make it fun too,” she says.
12:42 p.m.: “You,” Juan says pointing to Scottie, “go with Carrot to the basement.”
12:42:14 p.m.: “Neat, I didn’t even know we had a basement,” Scotty says.
: The interoffice mail guy comes in and after a quick glance around the office asks if he can stay awhile. “I’m ahead of schedule this morning anyway,” he says. “Sure you can stay,” tech girl says. How far ahead of schedule are you. If it’s four minutes, come with me. I need help moving some boxes.”
1:10 p.m.: Heidi tells me she reads Laurel Hamilton vampire books because vampires have the best sex. “You want me to sit on your lap and read you this part about this girl vampire hunter having sex with two guys?” she asks. If you want to, I say.
1:30 p.m.: Heidi gives me the set up that the hunter is narrating while getting it on with vampires Demetrius and Jean-Claude and then gets right into it: “Auggie was hard enough that the head was naked above the silky foreskin. I rolled my mouth over that head, then shoved as much of him into my mouth as I could, as fast and hard as I could. It made me come up choking, but it also tore Auggie away form Jean-Claude’s mouth.” - Jean-Claude is the master vampire of the city, Heidi interjects. That’s not important, I say. Go on.
1:32 p.m.: “ I went down on him again, slower, lingering over the feel of him in my mouth, so ripe, so thick, and how the hard line of that curve felt going down my throat. --- I rose up from Demitrius’ body and said, “Don’t, don’t close down. Lets’ do this. Do it all.” - How am I doing?” Heidi asks. Great, I say. This has been the best story time ever.
1:50 p.m.: Tiara comes back from the costume shop but she looks like sort of a transvestite/ tin man/ nun. “They were out of the sexy stuff so I had to put a mishmash together. This feather duster goes with a French maid outfit though,” she says. That’s good, I say. “And they gave me this to strap on.” Oh my God.
2:07 p.m.: Scotty comes up out of the basement with file clips on his nipples and his pants down revealing a baboon red butt. “I want to cover up but it’s so sore,” he says. “My ass needs air. Don’t let the clown nose fool you. That girl means business.”
2:09 p.m.: Go down to basement, hear the crack of the whip and spot the interoffice mail guy just about to scream when Carrot jams one of those sadistic red latex rubber ball gags in his mouth.
2:10 p.m.: Run back upstairs.
2:33 p.m.: Tiara is distraught. “People tell me I sound like a goose when I orgasm. I honk,” she says. Honking’s hot, I say.
: Several male employees are arguing over the intern. Music guy says she’s hands off as usual. “But she’s game,” Scotty says. “She’s the intern,” music guy keeps repeating.
: Boss comes out and announces, “You can do anything you want with the intern but just today.”
2:50 p.m.: Several female coworkers are taking a break and discussing how Andy may be weasly looking but he’s actually a “major fuckster.” “You get him in the closet or the break room and he’s like a transformer,” someone says. “ I know,” red carpet girl says. “I felt like I was being gouged by the rod from a nuclear reactor.”
2:51 p.m.: “No, its more like riding the turret of a battleship,” tech girl says.
2:51:14 p.m.: “I closed my eyes and made believe I was the ocean floor being pounded by an offshore drilling rig,” Staci says.
3:01 p.m.: Word goes out that they’ve got kiddie porn on the Internet in the billing department. “Yes!” art guy screams running off but comes back totally dejected. “It’s kitty porn, not kiddie porn,” he says.
3:10 p.m.: Juan is working the room again, spouting out orders: “ A little more finesse folks. That looks more like Dunkin’ Donuts than tea baggin.’ Heidi, if you’re going to do it standing up facing the wall, put your heels back on. They’ll make your perky butt stick up just right. That’s better.” “Jesus, you guys sound like chalk on a blackboard,’ he says to one couple. ”Get some of that lubricant Staci’s dispensing.”
3:16 p.m.: Big boss comes in, looks totally shocked for a second but then nods and says, “I get it, transformative change. Penguins behave this way. No inhibitions. I love it. Who wants to take a ride on my Harley?” I’ll go if I can call you Jean- Claude?” Heidi says.
3:33 p.m.: There’s a line at the art guy’s desk and he’s painting the breasts of several girls who came over from the nail salon next door. It’s as if he’s operating a booth at Ozzfest.
: “Don’t call me mommy!” Staci yells at new guy. “Don’t call me daddy,” new guy shouts back. “Daddys different,” Staci says.
: Juan is berating Scottie. “Cunnilingus or analingus – one or the other! No mixing it up on my watch.
4:10 p.m.: Tiara is completely disheveled. One breast is hanging out. “I don’t care,” she says. “You can put it away for me if you want. I won’t slap your hand.”
4:11 p.m.: Put Tiara’s left breast away. .
4:12 p.m.: You look like hell, I say. You feel OK?
4:12:34 p.m.: I think I have anal fever, she says.
4:15 p.m.: Boss comes out to make an announcement: “Anyone who calls in sick tomorrow with anal fever will be docked two days pay.”
5:05 p.m.: A tall Vietnamese nail tech with a herd of wild horses airbrushed across her small breasts sticks out her hand and asks me if I want to get high. I guess so, I say.
5:10 p.m.: She leads me out the break room door lays down on the grass along the canal. “Salon weed is the best,” she says lighting up. “You want to eat animal crackers off my stomach?” Yes.
5:16 p.m.: “If you want to taste me down there you can,” she says uncrossing her legs. OK, I say, but can I finish the cookies first?
5:32 p.m.: As I’m heading back inside there’s an odd looking guy outside the back door holding a goat. “Juan asked me to bring it in when the time is right,” he says
5:34 p.m.: When I get back in the office crossword girl says, “Look,” pointing across the room to Marti and the music guy. “That illustration didn’t do the rusty trombone justice.”
5:35 p.m.: A little turned off, I head toward the basement. Near the front of the office Juan is trying to get everybody to move in for a group photo. “Say Sodom and Gomorah,” he grins
5:36 p.m.: As I pass the storage closet I hear someone exclaim, “Don’t, don’t close down. Let’s do this. Do it all!”
5:37 p.m.: “Terry, you ready for your whuppin’?” Carrot asks sweetly.
5:37:28 p.m.: I guess I deserve it, I say. But do you have to stick that rubber ball in my mouth?
5:37:39 p.m.: “Not if you take it like a man, little boy. No screaming.”
5:38 p.m.: Jam ball into my own mouth.

10:10 a.m.: An employee who always acts like she’s the most overworked person in the office is going on and on about how she just needs a break when marketing guy blurts out, “ ‘Wah, wah, wah!’ Stop your whining. You’re so full of it. Do the math.”
10:11 a.m.: “What math?” she asks. “I don’t do math.”
10:11:15 a.m.: “There are 52 weeks in a year, so that means 52 weekends,” marketing guy says. “That’s 104 days off right there.”
10:11:34 a.m.: “I worked a weekend once,” she says.
10:11:40 a.m.: “You did a story at the Hard Rock on a Saturday night, and you drank for free and ended up getting laid,” marketing guys says. “That doesn’t count.”
10:12 a.m.: “But anyway,” he continues, “then, you have your two weeks’ vacation and, like, four personal days? Then, throw in the usual seven or eight national holidays a year. Plus, you’re Jewish, so toss in a few of those Rosh Hashana things and right off the bat, you’re up to more than 135 days a year that you do absolutely no work. And that’s not even deducting hours for how many days you come in late or leave early.”
10:13 a.m.: “I work late, too,” she says. “Once, and that was because … ”
10:13:12 a.m.: “Never mind.”
10:50 a.m.: Since our last staff meeting got a little heated, the boss has hung a new slogan over his office window just in case anyone still has any misconception of how things operate around here. Sign reads: “I may not be right, but I’m never wrong.”
11:12 a.m.: New guy is upset with all the places that ask if he’d like to donate a dollar. “It started at Publix,” he says. “After they ring you up, they say, ‘Would you like to donate a dollar to help children with cystic fibrosis?’ or whatever. So yeah, of course you do. But now, every place is doing it. Wendy’s did it to me last night. I can’t donate a dollar at Wendy’s. I’m there for the Super Value Menu to begin with. I’m living on 99-cent chili. When are people going to give me a dollar?”
11:14 a.m.: Everyone gives new guy a dollar.
11:33 a.m.: Music guy comes over to me all excited about a “brilliant” idea he has. “We take existing biographies of famous people and insert your name, whoever you are,” he says. “So when you’re reading it, it’s all about you, only you’re, like, Alexander the Great or somebody.”
11:34 a.m.: Terry the Great?
11:34:34 a.m.: “Maybe that’s a bad example,” he says. “But say it’s Keith Richards’ biography and a chapter begins, ‘Shine sat in the shadows on a wobbly crate looking like a vampire, a needle still hanging from his left arm.’ ”
11:35 a.m.: I see where you’re going with this, I say, but I don’t know if I want to come. Let me ponder it over lunch.
12:50 p.m.: Head to lunch to eat alone.
12:52 p.m.: As I pass the temp lady at the front desk, she sighs and says, “There’s so little reward in life.”
12:52:11 p.m.: Amen, I reply.
1:05 p.m.: At the park where I eat my tuna kit, a baseball field is under construction, and several workers are putting the finishing touches on the dugouts. I have zero interest in baseball, but I like everything about dugouts. I like dropping beneath ground level, the dirt and the sudden coolness.
1:22 p.m.: Before I finish eating, the workers disperse on a break of their own, so I go sit in the home team’s dugout. The earth smells fresh, and the prairie dog view is relaxing. I think about the nights in ninth grade I spent in the dugout at Randall Field lazily talking to Sue Martelli about how we’d have a horse farm one day and a soda machine in our bedroom.
1:26 p.m.: Dugouts are always best at night, when baseball is the furthest thing from your mind.
2:05 p.m.: When I get back from lunch, all the employees are being herded into the conference room for another corporate meeting. The same honcho who came in last week to scare us with film clips from 300 — to illustrate how we’re being massacred in the industry — is standing in the front of the room.
2:07 p.m.: “First off, I want to apologize,” he begins. “Last week got a little bloody, and I guess I said something about someone’s baby having to strip her way through vocational school if profits don’t pick up. And my assistant tells me the part about children being smothered by a circus tent was a bit disturbing to some of you. Anyway, I’m here tomake amends.”
2:08 p.m.: He pauses, leaving us with deadly silence, and then yells, “Penguins!”
2:08:22 p.m.: “We’re switching to a penguin analogy. Everybody loves penguins, right?” he asks.
2:08:41 p.m.: We all look at one another.
2:09 p.m.: “You’re not offended by penguins, are you?” he asks the same sales rep who last week had to imagine 4-month-old baby Emily and her chubby little arms swinging on a stripper pole.
2:09:22 p.m.: “No, penguins are cute,” she says.
2:10 p.m.: “Exactly,” he says, opening up his dress shirt to reveal a T-shirt that reads: EMPEROR PENGUIN. “The future is now, and I’m ready to lead you on the march to success.”
2:10:12 p.m.: “The iceberg is melting, people!” he bellows. “Who’s with me?”
2:11 p.m.: Our boss, who has been standing quietly next to the penguin emperor, takes his dress shirt off to reveal a Kellie Pickler T-shirt.
2:12 p.m.: Emperor Penguin just looks at boss oddly, shrugs and says, “That’s not part of the new program. But this is!”
2:12:18 p.m.: Emperor Penguin’s assistant jumps up and spills a large bag of ice across the conference table. There’s a collective gasp, several people lift their coffee cups off the table, and the new lady from marketing gets hit in the tooth with an ice cube. “I’m OK,” she says.
2:13 p.m.: Emperor Penguin is beaming as if he just blew up a bounce house for us to romp in. “Who’s first?” he shouts.
2:13:30 p.m.: We all look at one another: First for what?
2:14 p.m.: “Come on, you folks in the back. Slide on your bellies across the table. Come to me. Join me on this quest.”
2:15 p.m.: One by one, several employees start sliding on their bellies across the conference table. A few have pretty good form with their feet up in the air and chunky stomachs rolling them along. But many can only move awkwardly in stops and starts and fits and farts.
2:21 p.m.: The ice is turning to water, and everyone is kind of just puddle-jumping now. The last employees in line either throw a leg up on the table in a gesture of camaraderie or stick their fingers in the water and halfheartedly flick it at their faces in sort of a sloppy, holy-water blessing.
2:23 p.m.: I feign a coughing fit and excuse myself from the room … and the future.

I hope and I pray you’ll leave me one day.
– Camera Obscura

10:12 a.m.: Everyone is standing around red carpet girl’s desk and she’s ranting about being arrested at some kind of purse party in Boca.
10:13 a.m.: “You mean like knock-off handbags?” Tiara asks. “No, don’t be silly. I don’t buy fakes. These are legitimately stolen purses - some guy out of New York. The best selection.”
10:14 a.m.: So they raided the place? I ask. “They didn’t mean to,” red carpet girl says. “Some neighbors complained about cars blocking the road and then when the police came my friend Allysa was in the driveway showing some waitress from The Cheesecake Factory a Dooney & Bourke slouch and the cop got curious and Miss Cheesecake got scared. Told him everything. Those Factory girls are idiots.”
10:14:21 a.m.: “Yeah,” new guy says. “You’d think with that big menu you’d have to be smart but I went out with a Cheesecake Factory worker and she was dumber than me.”
10:15 a.m.: “We tried to give the cop a Fendi for his wife and send him on his way but he was a hard-ass about it,” red carpet girl says.
10:16 a.m.: Did you actually spend a night in jail? I ask. “I wish”, she says. “There were so many of us they stuck us in the break room at the police station. It looked like a prostitute roundup only with better pedicures. They made us turn our cell phones off and keep our arms crossed so we couldn’t text. Oh, and the soda machines were out of everything but canned iced tea. I hate canned iced tea.”
10:18 a.m.: Can we go online and see your mug shot? Carrot asks.
10:18:33 a.m.: “They didn’t photograph me,” red carpet girl says disappointedly. “They said some of us are going to be witnesses and some of us are going to be charged. I asked if I could choose and the lady cop just looked at me like she wanted my earrings. I don’t even care but now I have to go for an interrogation at like 4:30 on Friday and I was supposed to leave early to go ‘glamping.’”
10:19 a.m.: Glamping?
10:19:11 a.m.: “Glamorous camping,” red carpet girl says. ”I just went out and bought this metallic silver air mattress and I found a rain fly in a soft-hued lily pattern that I absolutely love.”
10:20 a.m.: “I wish I had your life,” Tiara says. “You wouldn’t know what to do with it,” red carpet girl says. “You’d be like a Cheesecake Factory girl in a trig class.”
10:34 a.m.: Go online to learn what I can about glamping and what kind of equipment I might need or desire.
10:40 a.m.: Put headphones on because Marti keeps complaining about her roommate. “I don’t mind sharing,” she says. “I just don’t like having people around me that I feel obligated to share with.”
11:19 a.m.: Intern stops in the office after a long vacation. Shows me a photo she had taken with the world’s third largest elk that was on exhibit in Georgia. That’s different, I say. Do you know where the second largest elk is? “If I knew where the second largest elk was why the fuck would I get my picture taken with the third largest?” she says getting in my face.
11:20 a.m.: I start quivering and she says, “Sorry, my mom thinks I should get into anger management but I don’t want to not be angry.”
11:33 a.m.: Read in a magazine about what you’re supposed to do if attacked by different kinds of animals. If cornered by a baboon: Start clapping.
12:51 p.m.: Sales guy comes by to tell me he’s been seeing this girl that works in his optometrist’s office. “She’s perfect for me but it’s like I’m falling just short of her expectations,” he says. “It’s like I’m almost…”
12:52 p.m.: That’s exactly it, I say. You’re an avalanche of almosts. You’re almost smart enough, almost good looking enough, almost witty enough, almost tall enough, almost articulate enough, almost make enough money, almost…
12:53 p.m.: ”So she should keep looking?”
12:53:12 p.m.: Definitely.
1:07 p.m.: Go to lunch and eat alone.
1:17 p.m.: Spot a pinecone on the ground near the picnic table I’m eating at. Pick it up and then look around for stuff I can use to make a picnic table centerpiece. Gather up a few small fronds, a handful of gravy-brown berries and some tiny blue flowers that I decide to call tiny blue flowers.
1:01 p.m.: My picnic table centerpiece is beautiful.
1:03 p.m. And I’m glad I have no one to share it with.
2:04 p.m.: When I get back in the office all the employees are in the conference room where some company honcho we’ve never seen before is giving a presentation on why new initiatives are crucial for the survival of the company. On the screen behind him he is showing battle scenes from the 300. Blood is everywhere and he says, “This is how we’re being massacred right now. Am I making it clear enough how imperative change is? Should I go on or do you just want to stand there dumbfounded with your mouths open while you wait to be crucified?
2:05 p.m.: “I don’t want to be crucified,” one employee says meekly.
2:05:37 p.m.: “Then we fight back. We line up and get on the bus to Thermopylae. We put on our Spartan pants and get to work.”
2:06 p.m.: “Are we going to have to buy our own Spartan pants or will the company provide them?” new guy asks without getting a response.
2:07 p.m.: “Does anyone here have children?” the honcho asks and the sales rep - who just had a baby - raises her hand.
2:07:44 p.m.: “Boy or girl?”
2:07:50 p.m. “Girl.”
2:08 p.m.: “Well, do you want her to have to strip to pay for nail tech school or do you want this company to thrive so you’ll be able to pay her tuition to a top university?”
2:08:22 p.m.: “I don’t want Emily to have to strip,” sales rep says.
2:09 p.m.: “Well, these are the kinds of decisions we’re making here today people. The 300 too much for you, how ‘bout the circus?” he says clicking to a circus video image. “Imagine the big top suddenly collapses on itself and begins to smother every living thing beneath it.”
2:10 p.m.: “Tigers and elephants and clowns in little cars crushed. Children swinging little monkeys on a stick one second, gasping for an air bubble in a bucket of popcorn the next. You!” he says to me. “What’s going through your head right this second?”
2:11 p.m.: Well, I say I was thinking how I’m always attracted to trapeze ladies even if they’re not particularly pretty. I have the same thing with women who drive in open jeeps. I just find them sexy no matter what they look like.
2:11:28 p.m.: The honcho suddenly comes at me. I’m cornered, my back pressed up against the copy machine. He’s a big guy and I can tell he thinks I’m about to shit my Spartan pants but I know exactly what to do.
2:11:36 p.m.: Start clapping.

10:04 a.m.: The temp worker at front desk, who has been here for eight months, stops me on my way into the office. “Hey,” she says. “I’m really down and depressed. Do you have time to talk?”
10:05 a.m.: I've no time for self-pity or the shallows of loneliness but am passionate about both so I make the time, I say.
10:13 a.m.: As soon as I get to my desk there is a major disruption. Sales guy uses the word “pussy” and several women in the office jump all over him. “I thought that was the nice word to use,” he says. “I thought it was the other word you hated.”
10:13:22 a.m.: “Just call it a vagina,” intern says. “No! Don’t do that!” Marti says so adamantly we will forever wonder why but never ask.
10:13:31 a.m.: “I like club vajayjay,” red carpet girl says.
10:13:54 a.m.: “The wunda down unda,”’ Tiara says.
10:14 a.m.: Employees start shouting out names from “the great divide” to “bikini biscuit” but nothing is sticking.
10:15 a.m.: Get e-mail from coworker too shy to shout anything out. It reads: “i like honey pot.” : )
10:15:40 a.m.: i like honey pot too, I message back. :)
11:13 a.m.: Art guy who was sent to India two weeks ago comes strolling into the office and we’re all shocked. Right after our company outsourced our tech support to Bangladdesh, they also contracted to have human resources operate out of Bhopal, India and its become kind of an office joke.
11:14 a.m.: Every morning someone will go online to check weather conditions and shout out something like, “It’s a hazy 104 in Bhopal today with a chance of dust showers this afternoon. Don’t forget your umbrellas.”
11:15 a.m.: So that’s fun but the odd thing is that, even though we’re having across the board budget cuts in every department of the company, you have to fly to Bhopa to be fired.
11:16 a.m.: And that’s why we’re so surprised to see the art guy returning. “No, no, you got these new guys all wrong,” art guy says. “They’re much more understanding than our old HR people. The first thing Raja told me was its not sexual harassment if there’s no penetration. They call it ‘Eve teasing.’They’re playing by a different set of rules. You know, its OK in their culture to light someone’s shoes on fire.”
11:17 a.m.: While they’re wearing them? I ask. “You know, I didn’t ask,” art guy says. “I just assumed.”
11:17:31 a.m.: “Who’s Raja?” Tiara asks. “He is basically the entire human resources department in Bhopal,” art guy says. Most of the people in the village think that HR stands for Human Raja. He’s the man.”
11:18 a.m.: Boss comes out of his office. “What are you doing here?” he says to art guy. “We sent you to India to be fired?”
11:18:43 a.m.: “My sins have been forgiven,” art guy smiles. “India is the land of third chances. That’s what Raja says”.
11:19 a.m.: “What the heck did you do over there?” new guy asks. “Oh, they got films and stuff and a sexual deviant management class too,” art guy says. “Plus, Raja enjoys watching the Vietnamese soap operas he picks up on DirectTV. You think the Latin soaps are hot, you gotta see these.”
11:21 a.m.: “And most afternoons we’d go to the marketplace. Don’t worry, I got souvenirs for everybody,” he says. “I love it over there. The nightlife is awesome. In the city, instead of hansom cabs they have magic carpet rides and at midnight they put blaring lights on the streets so all the women’s suri evening wear becomes transparent.”
11:22 a.m.: All the employees are shaking their heads.
11:22:18 a.m.: And wondering what they need to do to get sent to India to be fired.
11:43 a.m.: Get e-mail from Tiara titled URGENT: “A new phrase to describe getting fired has now been added to the office vernacular. Getting axed is now referred to as ‘taking a magic carpet ride.’”
12:41 a.m.: Go to lunch at the park and eat alone.
12:54 a.m.: As I’m heading back to my car a little girl from a day camp stops me and says, “Can I shine my apple on your shirt?” Yeah, I guess so, I say.
12:55 a.m.: She quickly wipes it up and down on my shirt and runs off.
1:22 p.m.: Art guy is handing out souvenirs. I get a set off camel salt and pepper shakers. “The one with the two humps is the pepper,” he says.
1:23 p.m.: “A ganesha statue!” the new guy shouts. Red carpet girl is laying out a glorious linen bedding set in her cubicle. “Eighty cents,” art guy says winking at me.
1:25 p.m.: Carrot holds a strangely vicious looking embroidered tunic up in front of her and says, “Look, doesn’t it make me look dangerous, like I want to kill somebody?”
1:25:20 p.m.: You always look like you want to kill somebody, I say. “OK, but this makes me look like I’d really do it, right? Like it almost gives me permission.” Yes, the tunic gives you permission to kill somebody, I say.
1:28 p.m.: Go to bathroom and a sign over the door reads: “Bhopa or Bust.”
2:10 p.m.: Several members of the staff have been acting up all day, apparently hoping that HR (Human Raja) will be called in to deal with them, so the boss comes out of his office and announces: “If anyone thinks they’re going to get a free all expenses paid trip to India to be fired they are sadly mistaken.”
2:11 p.m.: “So you really can’t be fired anymore? Can you?” Tiara asks.
2:11:39 p.m.: “That may be the case but we’re still working on it,” boss says. “It’s just one more piece of the transformative change puzzle is all. I’ll have a firm answer for you in about two years.”
2:11:45 p.m.: All the employees immediately close their eyes and envision the boss’s shoes going up in flames.
2:12 p.m.: While he’s wearing them.
2:41 p.m.: Intern excitedly shows me her new suri body wrap. “Later I’m going to put it on and climb a ladder up to the florescent lights so everybody can see through it,” she says. “Stick around.”
2:42 p.m.: I’d like to but I remember I have an errand to run. I have to stop by a friend’s house and feed her cat and finches.
3:12 p.m.: Feed the finches and make sure I shut the utility room door again so the cat can’t get to them.
3:14 p.m.: Go to the kitchen and while I’m making Tang the finches are making a horrible racket. The cat, Kaiser Roll, looks at me like “just let me eat them.” I tell her if they were mine I certainly would.
3:33 p.m.: Hanging out in the kitchen as if I never have to move again. I really do want to give up on …everything. But then you hit a day that’s wrapped in suri and full of shiny apples, magic carpet rides and honey pots.
3:35 p.m.: There’s a laptop on the counter so I go online.
3:37 p.m.: The skies are cloudless and it’s a dry 99 in Bhopa today.

I’ve got your back…and I’ve got your front.
- Brad Paisley

11:50 a.m.: “Ahh, look at the baby horse,” Jessa says lowering her window. “And that calf. I like anything babies.”
12:03 p.m.: Sign along highway reads: Drive the speed limit or PAY THE PRICE!
12:04 p.m.: “Let me drive,” Jessa says. “I don’t’ like being threatened like that. There’s no reason to threaten us. Pay the price. Fuck them.”
12:04:22 p.m.: You really want to drive? I say. “Yes. Pull over at the next rest stop. I have to go to the bathroom anyway,” she demands. OK, I say.
12:18 p.m.: Reach over to change the radio station and Jessa slaps my hand. “That’s Faith and Tim, asshole.”
12:31 p.m.: Pass graveyard. “I read somewhere that when you’re buried with fake breasts they’re the only things that will remain intact,” Jessa says. “So if they dig up your coffin after two hundred years all that will be in there is a set of silicone breasts.”
12:32 p.m.: “In a thousand years they’ll be nothing of me left,” she says. “Real breasts are fleeting.”
12:33 p.m.: “You can write that down if you want,” she says. “I know you like to write shit down.”
12:34 p.m.: Write it down.
12:36 p.m.: Hey, I say. I was reading the other day about this superstitious guy who whenever he bought a coke would have to open several of them first because he claimed he could tell by the sound of it opening whether it was a lucky coke or not.
12:37 p.m.: “Your nonsequitors are tiresome,” Jessa says. “We passed a graveyard, that’s why I told you about the breast implants. You’re just blurting out stuff. Plus, now you’re making me thirsty. You should have packed a cooler.”
12:38 p.m.: You caught me off guard, I say.
12:42 p.m.: “How’s Katee doing?” Jessa asks. She’s like all the people I know who are going to start their lives tomorrow but never do, I say. “Like you,” Jessa says.
12:45 p.m.: “When we get near your house I want to go to the bank and get all my money out of the ATM,” Jessa tells me. “If the military can direct deposit they can direct withdrawal. I’ve got to get to the money first.”
12:46 p.m.: “Oh, and I need to get Q-Tips. You can get everything on base but Q-Tips. I don’t know why. You know I’m going to have to stay with you guys for awhile.”
12:46:14 p.m.: I figured as much, I say. “I just don’t want to surprise my parents with this right now. My Dad won’t understand,” she says.
12:47 p.m.: What about your mom? I ask. “She’s been fucking her boss and telling my Dad she’s been going to Curves. I don’t’ think she’ll care one way or the other,” Jessa says.
12:48 p.m.: What do you want to do when you get back?
12:48:43 p.m.: “I don’t know, apply at Spencer Gifts.”
12:49 p.m.: “And I want to go to the Warped Tour. Will you drive me to the Warped Tour?” Sure.
12:50 p.m.: “Am I the only one looking forward to Rush Hour 3 (italics) coming out?”
12:50:14 p.m.: No.
1:03 p.m.: I don’t see any official rest stops coming up, I say. Do you want me to just pull off and find a gas station? I’ve got to get gas anyway. “I’m not going to the bathroom at a gas station but do what you have to do,” she says.
1:12 p.m.: Stop to get gas and Jessa goes into convenience store.
1:17 p.m.: Almost done filling tank when Jessa comes up from behind and pops open a coke about two inches from my face. “Lucky enough for you,” she says.
1:18 p.m.: Did you use the bathroom? I ask. “No way,” she says. “The sight of that bathroom made me never want to go to the bathroom again. So I’m not.”
1:18:14 p.m.: We can go to the Bob Evans across the street. “What for?” she says. “I no longer go to the bathroom.”
1:20 p.m.: Jessa takes the wheel and we begin to make very good time.
1:41 p.m.: “I told you about Matthew”, Jessa says. “What about you and what’s her name?” She doesn’t’ think she can love me but I think she can, I say. “You’re such an optimist,” she says.
2:13 p.m.: Go to bank and Jessa is feverishly trying to get all her money out of the ATM. I remind her there’s a limit at the ATM and she neds to go in the bank. “I don’t want to go in a bank wearing camouflage,” she says. “It scares people. Besides, if you wait a few minutes between withdrawals the machine forgets you. Here, here’s 20 dollars. Go buy yourself something pretty.”
2:20 p.m.: Walk over to the car and try to get love bugs off the hood by spitting on it.
2:25 p.m.: Jessa comes back with wad of cash and tells me to hold it for her until she “gets her motherfuckin’ shit together.”
2:31 p.m.: Katee is ecstatic to see Jessa. “You look great. You’re all clavicle-y. And I love your pants,” Katee says hugging her. “When people wear faux camouflage I think it’s stupid but when it’s real it’s cool.”
2:31:31 p.m.: “Trust me, nothing’s cool about these pants,” Jessa says.
2:32 p.m.: Tell Katee that Jessa no longer has to go to the bathroom. “Ever?” Katee says.
2:32:12 p.m.: “Ever,” Jesse says.
2:32:23 p.m.: “That’s awesome,” Katee says.
2:33 p.m.: “How’s Matthew?” Katee asks. “Useless,” Jessa says.
2:33:21 p.m.: He can’t do the fucking motion anymore, I say.
2:33:29 p.m.: “Oh, that’s too bad,” Katee says. “Let me try on your Army boots?”
2:36 p.m.: Wearing nothing but a sleep shirt and the boots, Katee starts stomping around the apartment and kicking everything in sight. “These are awesome. My foot doesn’t feel anything when I kick,” she says. “I could kick stuff all day with these. How do you get them so shiny?”
2:39 p.m.: “Cool Whip,” Jessa says. “It’s an old Navy trick but we use it in the army too. “We have Cool Whip. I’m going to go polish my shoes,” Katee says cheerily.
2:44 p.m.: Jessa looks at me wearily and says, “I need to lie down.” You can sleep in my bed, I say. “I don’t’ want to sleep on your smelly sheets,” she says. “This couch is perfect. And hey, if I change my mind later will you take me back tonight?” No, I say.
2:45 p.m.: Katee comes out with Cool Whip. While both spooning it into her mouth and dabbing little blobs on to a pair of pink high heels, she starts blabbing about some peace rally where Doorway 27 is going to be playing. “They suck. And I don’t give a crap about peace. This couch is my fucking peace,” Jessa says crashing down and burying her face in the sofa.
2:46 p.m.: With her voice muffled by the cushions she says, “If anybody goes out, get me some Q-Tips.”

Note: This column is dedicated to the memory of Spc. Jessa T. Galan and Pfc. Sam W. Huff.

1:44 a.m.: Get call from friend Jessa who’s been in the army for 28 months now. “You need to pick me up,” she says bluntly.
1:44:54 a.m.: It’s the middle of the night, I say. Where are you?
1:45 a.m.: “I’m still in Georgia. If you leave now we can eat breakfast together. There’s a bunch of places right here.”
1:45:23 a.m.: I can’t come now. It’s a five-hour drive, I say. “You have to,” she says. “I’m AWOL.”
1:45:40 a.m.: Are you serious? “Yes, I’ve been calling the bank all night waiting for my check to be direct deposited. I wanted to make sure I got paid at least one more time. Well, the money’s in and I’m gone.”
1:46 a.m.: I can’t believe it. “Oh, this convenience store I’m in has hats made out of turtle shells,” Jessa says. I’m going to get you one.” Hear Jessa asking clerk how much turtle shell hat is. “I’ll take it,” she says.
1:46:38 a.m.: No you’re not, I say. “I am unless he refuses to sell it to me. Here, you want to talk to him?” No. “Hello,” clerk says. “Hello.” Don’t sell her the turtle hat, I say. “Who are you?” he says.
1:47 a.m.: “I don’t think he likes you,” Jessa says getting back on the phone. I can’t be messing around, I tell her. Are you really AWOL? Because if you really are I will come but don’t make me…
1:47:14 a.m.: “Let me know when you’re 20 minutes out and I will order you a lumberjack breakfast,” she says. “Where do you want to eat? All the breakfast houses are here – Original Pancake House, Huddle House, Waffle House. The Waffle House looks cozy.”
2:12 a.m.: Get dressed and begin driving up I-95.
2:22 a.m.: Listen to a preacher on the radio for fiver hours. He keeps talking about God but he sounds like the devil.
7:34 a.m.: Jessa is sitting at the Waffle House with two huge plates in front of her. One is wiped out and the other is nearly clean. “I started on yours,” she says. “You want me to finish it?”
7:35 a.m.: Might as well, I say. She seems more contemplative than she did on the phone. You’re sure about this? I ask. “Sure as rain.”
7:36 a.m.: ‘Cause we could just go play paintball or something, I say. I won’t be mad. It’s good to see you anyway. “You can’t go up against me in paintball anymore,” she says. “I’m a soldier.”
7:40 a.m.: A little girl comes by the table, stares at Jessa, and says, “You look like Kim Possible.”
7:40:21 a.m.: “I am Kim Possible,” Jessa says. “But I’m on a secret mission so don’t tell anybody.” “I won’t,” the little girl says.
7:41 a.m. “And don’t tell anybody that I eat like a pig,” Jessa says as the little girl heads back to her mother.
7:42 a.m.: Overhear a waitress telling another couple that she visited a toothpaste factory on her last vacation. “Absolutely disgusting,” she says. “I’ll never brush my teeth again.”
7:43 a.m.: “Here comes the check. Lets get going,” Jessa says grabbing her duffle bag. “I don’t want to get caught.”
7:43:48 a.m.: By whom, the MPs? “Listen to you,” she says. “The MPs (italics). You’ve been watching too many movies.” What, there aren’t really MPs?”
7:44 a.m.: “Nobody even cares if you go AWOL. They don’t hunt you down or anything. I just won’t be able to get my college paid for anymore,” Jessa says. “And if you get pulled over by the police for a traffic violation it shows up and they can bust your balls about it but that’s about it. Remember Shanna? You met her last time you were up. She went AWOL 11 months ago and they’re still paying her. Didn’t even notice she was gone.”
7:45 a.m.: So whom don’t you want to get caught by? “Certain people,” she shrugs.
7:51 a.m.: As we’re pulling out of the parking lot I have to ask. This isn’t about some guy, is it? “Hell, no,” she says. What about that Matthew? “He got hit by a pickup truck in town and screwed up his back. He can’t do the fucking motion anymore. A girl’s got no use for a guy that can’t do the fucking motion. End of story.”
7:52 a.m.: Nobody else? “Stop it,” she says. “They’re all truly G.I. Joes – hard bodies with rubber heads. And the townies are worse. They all wear nut-hugger shorts and spend the entire weekend washing their cars. Total assholes. When you go out you don’t know whether they’re holding the door open for you as a courtesy or so they can rape you from behind.”
7:53 a.m.: “And then there’s the gays on base,” she says. “People complain about flamboyant gays but there’s nothing worse than gung-ho gays. They’re always having push-up contests.”
7:53:29 a.m.: Listen to yourself, I say. “I can’t,” she says.
7:55 a.m.: Jessa pats me on the knee, stares out the window and says. “Let’s not talk for two hours.” OK, I say.
10:11 a.m.: I’m gazing out at the farmland when Jessa sits back up. “You know, they always talk about how farm work is so hard but I’ve yet to see anybody working on a farm,” she says. “I’m not just talking about now. I mean, I must have driven past a thousand farms since I was a kid and I’ve yet to see one goddamn farmer out plowing the fields. Everything is bullshit. You know that.”
10:12 a.m.: I know that.
10:12:12 a.m.: “Even the notion that farmers work hard.”
10:12:31 a.m.: Agreed.
10:20 a.m.: “Oh, sheep,” Jessa says pressing her face against the window. “Look, they’ve just been sheared. I bet that’s the best time for the sheep - the time between shears. They know they’re free and clear for awhile, like life between dentist visits.”
10:27 a.m.: A car passes with a license plate that reads: YYYYYY. “That’s the first vanity plate I’ve ever liked. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?” Jessa says shaking her head.
10:31 a.m.: She turns up the radio. The preacher is long gone and a peppy voice is singing over and over, “Where did you get that blank expression on your face?”
10:33 a.m.: “This song reminds me of you,” she says.
10:33:23 a.m.: Do you really think they were going to send you back? I ask. “In 11 days,” she says quietly.
10:34 a.m.: Jessa sneezes and grabs a napkin. “Oh shit-kabobs,” she yells. “What the…” She pulls the napkin back and huge wads of pink gum are stretching out from her nose like taffy.
10:35 a.m.: “Why the hell didn’t you stop me?” she hollers. Don’t yell at me, I say. You picked up a used napkin. It was crumpled. I spit my gum out in it an hour ago. Oh God, its all over your face. Do you want me to stop?
10:36 a.m.: “No! I want you to die! What kind of gum is this? It smells like a circus.” Watermelon Bubblicious, I say. Three pieces. “Jesus…”
10:36:14 a.m.: “You are such a dickwad. Let’s not talk for an hour. ”
11:37 a.m.: “Thanks for picking me up.”
11:37:27 a.m.: Thanks for going AWOL.

…to be continued

I’ll let you be in my dreams
if you let me be in yours.
— Bob Dylan

8:13 a.m.: Wake up from dream about trying to park my car. In the dream, I’m in Rio de Janeiro and go to pull into the lot, but the parking attendant tells me, “No, you can’t park your car here.” I ask, Why? And he says, “Because you’re not a tourist.” But I know damn well I’m a tourist. I’m in Rio. But he keeps it up. “No, no. You not tourist. This parking lot only for tourists.” And he knows he’s messing with me. He has this little smirk on his face, and there is absolutely no reasoning with him.
8:14:12 a.m.: That’s what I hate about dreams now. Everybody in them knows they can get away with anything. You can’t reason with them because it’s like, “Really, and what are you going to do if I don’t do what you say, wake up?” To them, dreams are like the last wild frontier, and they’re taking full advantage.
8:15 a.m.: With the parking lot guy, I told him I wanted to speak to his supervisor, and, well, did you ever try to get a supervisor in a dream? Good luck.
8:16 a.m.: I’ve been in dreams in, like, a convenience store, and a guy in line will start feeling up the woman in front of him just because he can. I don’t play that way. In my dreams, I live by the same code I do in my waking life: no stealing, no cutting in line, no feeling up the ladies at the convenience store — unless they want me to. I can be in the middle of some feverish dream being chased by Super Mario and Bam Margera, but if I accidentally back into a parked car at Target while on the run, I leave my name and number. That’s just who I am.
8:17 a.m.: I’m not saying I want the job because I’m sure it would be very complicated and a big responsibility, but we need to bring some law and order into the mix and … I guess what I’m trying to say is: Dreams need a sheriff.
8:17:23 a.m.: Go back to sleep.
9:38 a.m.: While eating a big bowl of Apple Jacks for breakfast, I keep asking myself the one question that’s been gnawing at me for weeks now: Is it too late for me to be a Mia Hamm fan?
10:12 a.m.: Pulling into the parking lot at work, I see a young couple in the courtyard of the luxury apartments I’ve always wanted to live in next to our building. My car window is down, and all I can hear as I pass is the guy’s voice cracking as he says, “You killed my heart. I am done with you.”
10:13 a.m.: I like the simplicity of that — the cut-and-dried-ness of that. It stirs me deeply, and I feel for them in a way that makes me immediately think SOMEBODY NEEDS A ROOMMATE!
10:17 a.m.: In my office building, two women — one young, one old — are standing to the side of the elevator. It appears to be one of those mentoring situations, and the older woman keeps sternly saying, “Don’t ever let anybody tell you that you can’t do something. You can do anything you want.”
10:18 a.m.: Now, I’m no mentor. In fact, I was kicked out of the mentoring program, and I wasn’t even the mentor, I was whatever they call the person who signs on to be mentored. But one afternoon, my mentor, this guy who looked like John Lithgow, took me down and dropped me off at Human Resources as if it were the Animal Rescue League. I hung around for a few days to see if I’d get picked again, then figured I better get out of there before I got put to sleep.
10:18:13 a.m.: Anyway, I just don’t think that’s good advice — to make people believe they’re capable of doing anything they want. It sounds like something somebody in my dreams would come up with. I could think of 100 examples of why it’s bad advice.
10:19 a.m.: Example 1: Would you want me to give you a haircut?
10:19:31 a.m.: Example 2: Didn’t you think “JFK Jr.” the instant you heard Brad Pitt is going for his pilot’s license?
10:31 a.m.: Argument breaks out over whether there’s any difference between clothes you wouldn’t wear anywhere else but around the house and clothes you’d wear to Blockbuster. “There is a difference,” the boss finally says, “but it’s oh-so-subtle.”
10:54 a.m.: Try to finish a writing assignment, but every time I stop to think, this cartoonish paper clip pops up on my screen and starts scratching his head. He has eyes and eyebrows, and if he could talk, I bet he’d sound exactly like Gilbert Gottfried. But right now, he just keeps scratching his head like, “That’s it? That’s all you got?”
10:55 a.m.: Punch paper clip.
11:09 a.m.: Not sure whether it’s just to get out my aggression over the paper clip or not, but decide to be straight with the people I work with once and for all, just tell them right out what I think of them.
11:38 a.m.: Finish writing up on index cards exactly what I want to say, and then set out to recite them at each desk.
11:40 a.m.: Stop No. 1: Excuse me, I say (I always say excuse me; it’s one of my standards) I don’t like you. You’re stingy with a compliment, and you reek of dollar-store hairspray.
11:42 a.m.: Stop No. 2: Excuse me, but I thought you quit this job. You’re always saying you’re going to quit, but you never freaking quit. So quit already.
11:43 a.m.: I’m waiting.
11:45 a.m.: Stop No. 3: Excuse me. You killed my heart. I am done with you.
11:45:17 a.m.: Stop No. 4: Excuse me, but I never forgot the day you turned on me. It completely negated the niceness with which you’d showered me for three years. For some reason, your previous kindness made it even worse.
11:46 a.m.: Stop No. 5: Excuse me. I just need you to tone it down. We know you have more money than the rest of us and it shouldn’t really bother me — and most of the time it doesn’t — but once in a while, usually on a Thursday, when I’m sitting there planning my third in-state vacation to, say, Universal Studios for the eighth time and hear you on the phone complaining to someone about how watered down the drinks were in Fiji, it’s a little irritating. Just tone it down. That’s all.
11:46:40 a.m.: Stop No. 6: Excuse me, you smell funny.
11:47 a.m.: Get to No. 7, but the desk is empty and half the office is heading to the storage closet for index cards.
11:47:14 a.m.: And the other half already has the cards and is lining up at my desk.
11:48 a.m.: Decide to take an early lunch.
12:12 p.m.: Read that Burger King’s triple burger is no match for Wendy’s triple burger, but I’m always for the underdog, even when it comes to food.
12:43 p.m.: Try to take nap in car in Burger King parking lot.
12:47 p.m.: Fall asleep.
12:47:17 p.m.: There’s a new sheriff in town.

Contact T.M. Shine at tshine@citylinkmagazine.com.

Nothing ails me. This is just the way I am.
— Danny Deck, in the novel All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers

9:54 a.m.: Need to get out of town before I kill somebody.
10:49 a.m.: Get stopped for speeding. But the sign says 80, I tell the officer.
10:49:17 a.m.: “This is State Road 80, son.”
10:50 a.m.: I don’t get away much.
11:14 a.m.: Pull over at an eatery called Donna and Flo’s — not because I’m hungry but because the big sign outside reads: “You Can Live on Pie Alone.”
11:16 a.m.: “We’re out of pie, but we have carrot cake,” the waitress tells me.
11:16:12 a.m.: Let me think about that for a minute, I say.
11:19 a.m.: I don’t know what town this is, but I quickly learn there is only one question here that needs to be answered, and there are only two possible answers. Two gentlemen come in, and the server shouts across the dining room to one of them, “Ricky, what’s it going to be today?”
11:19:04 a.m.: Long pause.
11:19:41 a.m.: “Unsweetened,” Ricky says.
11:19:43 a.m.: “How ’bout you, Mark?”
11:19:45 a.m.: Long pause.
11:20:25 a.m.: “Unsweetened.”
11:21 a.m.: I’ve always wanted to live in a town where the only decision to make is whether you want sweetened or unsweetened iced tea, and the decision is not taken lightly.
11:23 a.m.: A fidgety guy in a gray suit comes in and goes straight to the back counter. “Can I get a whole carrot cake?” he asks. “I don’t think we have a whole one, but I’ll check,” she replies.
11:24 a.m.: The guy looks really tense, as if he just stepped out of a zoning board meeting. Or maybe he’s tweaking. Maybe this is one of those small towns where everybody is a slave to the meth — and carrot cake.
11:25 a.m.: “I only have three pieces left,” the counter lady reports upon returning. “I’ll take it. Hopefully it will hold me over,” the tweaker says.
11:26 a.m.: There goes the last of the carrot cake.
11:28 a.m.: “Hon, you decide yet?” the server asks me.
11:28:34 a.m.: Unsweetened.
11:46 a.m.: Get back on the road.
12:20 p.m.: I think about trips other people I know have taken this summer. One went to San Francisco and visited a fortune cookie factory. “I watched this old woman folding thousands of fortunes,” she said. Another went to Poland and told me the mannequins there are the most beautiful in the world.
12:22 p.m.: I’m going to the west coast of Florida to sit on the end of a pier.
12:25 p.m.: And finish reading three books. They are all good. One is about all your friends becoming strangers, another is about invisible monsters, and the third is a biography of an artist who spends his final days drinking vodka and tuna oil.
1:50 p.m.: Reach my destination, which is a small motel built on top of a pier. I reserved the room at the far end, so I’ll see nothing but water in every direction.
1:53 p.m.: “Oh, they’re biting today,” the check-in lady says. “You’re going to be glad you came.” What’s biting? I ask. “Oh, they’re jumping. Don’t even need a hook; could probably just sit in your room and wait for the fish to jump into bed with you. You need bait?”
1:57 p.m.: I didn’t really come to fish, I explain. “Well, what’d you come for?”
1:58 p.m.: To finish three books.
1:59 p.m.: She doesn’t seem pleased with me, so I buy some bait.
2:01 p.m.: Because the room isn’t ready yet, I walk across the street to a seafood market and ask what the special is today. The clerk rattles off a bunch of stuff, but nothing registers until I hear the words crawfish pie.
2:02 p.m.: I hear a person can live on pie alone, I tell him. “I couldn’t argue with that,” he says, so we don’t argue about it.
2:10 p.m.: I order some and head back to the motel.
2:11 p.m.: As I’m waiting to cross the street, a tall, bearded guy hands me a flier for a band that’s playing at a bar at 6 tonight. “Only two doors down from the motel,” he says, pointing across the street. The band’s name is Donna and the Walking Tragedy, and it advertises “screaming guitars.”
2:17 p.m.: Everybody is fishing. I can barely get to my room past all the rods and tackle boxes. There’s a spot where one family is fishing from its windows, and I have to fight through a tangle of lines that stretch across the walkway like a spider’s web.
2:18 p.m.: Get in room and quickly lock the door behind me so the fish can’t jump into my bed.
2:19 p.m.: I look up at a wall of glass, and the view is like an IMAX screen full of water. It’s startling.
2:20 p.m.: Because the room is humongous, I decide I will pick out a different spot to finish reading each book. But first, I’m going to walk into town for chewing gum.
2:39 p.m.: The entire town is wearing Crocs. I’ve never seen anything like it — men, women and children wearing Crocs in every color of the rainbow. I ask a lady if this is the town where they make Crocs or something. Is this the home of the Croc? “No, why would you ask that?” she asks.
2:54 p.m.: Head back to the room and immediately fall asleep.
6:12 p.m.: It’s after six, and all I can think about is screaming guitars, so I head over to the bar down the road.
6:31 p.m.: “I love your Crocs,” a woman at the bar says to me.
6:31:14 p.m.: They’re melon, I explain.
6:32 p.m.: “No, I don’t think that’s melon,” she insists. “I don’t think they come in melon.”
6:32:12 p.m.: Are you accusing me of wearing Croc knockoffs? I demand.
6:33 p.m.: “I’m not accusing you of anything,” she says, walking away.
6:33:03 p.m.: I’m defensive about very few things, but my Crocs are suddenly one of them.
6:35 p.m.: This guy in a tank top with a treasure chest on the front walks up and asks, ”You interested in some opium?” I can’t even respond. I mean, opium? No, I finally say. Meth and carrot cake, yeah, but I got no use for opium.
6:40 p.m.: Donna is playing an acoustic guitar. Nothing’s worse than when someone promises you screaming guitars but doesn’t deliver, so I head back to the motel.
6:47 p.m.: Hear a crack of thunder, and a horrific lightning storm erupts on my walk back. A couple in a boat fishing right outside my windows looks terrified.
6:50 p.m.: The storm starts raging, so I invite them to come in. They immediately jump off the boat and start shaking off like wet Irish setters. Listen, I say. I’ve got to take a shower, but make yourselves at home. There’s crawfish pie in the fridge.
6:51 p.m.: I’m in the shower just getting that scrunchy thing lathered up when suddenly the door flies open. “Don’t worry. I’m not peeking,” the woman says. “I just wanted to let you know we’re out here making ourselves at home.”
6:52 p.m.: Oh, shit. What have I gotten myself into? I want to be anywhere but here. I want go where old women are folding fortunes. I want to hold hands with the most beautiful mannequins in the world. Where did I go wrong in life?
6:54 p.m.: I should have said sweetened.

Next week: Part 2 of “My summer vacation.”

Contact T.M. Shine at tshine@citylinkmagazine.com.

Rerun from 8/23/06
T.M. Shine spent a week vacationing on a pier … and all he brought us was this lousy story.
by T.M. Shine

One day, I came to a fork in the road
Folks, I just couldn’t go where I was told
Now, they’ll hunt me down and hang me for my crimes
If I tell about my dirty life and times.
— Warren Zevon

7:17 p.m.: Forgot I’d put the bait in the shower.
7:18 p.m.: But I didn’t forget about the fishing couple who are waiting out the storm in my motel room. “Is it OK if we play some music?” the woman yells into the bathroom. “We’ve got Toys in the Attic.”
7:30 p.m.: When the lightning started and they were fishing from their boat right outside my room, I didn’t hesitate to invite the couple in.
7:34 p.m.: But the thunder is still cracking, and now, I’m hesitating as I dry off to head back out to deal with them.
7:36 p.m.: They both hug me. There goes the shower.
7:40 p.m.: There’s an old Newsweek on the coffee table with the headline “Weight of the World” next to a photo of Bush. “You mind?” the guy asks, picking it up.
7:40:14 p.m.: No, help yourself, I say. Take it out to sea with you and dump it somewhere. I can’t stand the sight of that guy.
7:41 p.m.: “I hear ya,” the man says. “You want to play some Uno?”
7:42 p.m.: Yeah, I guess I do.
7:43 p.m.: The guy pulls an Uno deck out of his back pocket as if he never goes anywhere without it. And why should he?
8:22 p.m.: I’ve forgotten how much fun it is to play Uno during a storm, especially if it’s with two strangers who are very content to talk only to each other so I don’t have to say anything.
8:34 p.m.: “You’re all right,” the guy says to me. “You’re seaworthy. That’s a compliment. That’s what I tell people who I think are all right. I call them seaworthy.”
8:34:32 p.m.: “Isn’t that right, Janet?” he asks his wife.
8:34:41 p.m.: “That’s right, Steve,” she responds.
8:35 p.m.: At least I know their names now.
8:40 p.m.: “I’d at least like to trip the president,” Janet says.
8:44 p.m.: Steve brings in his cooler from the boat, and we drink Yuengling until the skies clear. Then, the Uno cards are neatly tucked into the back pocket of his jeans.
10:38 p.m.: I go out on the dock with them to say goodbye. The moon has taken over the sky, and it’s extremely tranquil as they drift away … at least until I hear Janet say, “Put on the running lights, you ass.”
10:40 p.m.: Do a quick assessment of the motel room to see if they took my iPod or sunglasses or anything.
10:50 p.m.: Decide I will never again stay in a hotel, only motels. I wouldn’t even mind if that becomes the only thing I’m remembered for. “He was the type of person who only stayed in motels.”
11:04 p.m.: Get back to my main purpose for this trip — to finish reading three books I’ve forever been in the middle of.
11:05 p.m.: Step into the first one on page 221 and am moved by the love of a man for a prostitute who doesn’t need his love one bit.
12:10 a.m.: Feel a weird sort of heartache with no real focal point. No woman I am longing for. No home I am deeply missing. No cat I forgot to feed.
12:12 a.m.: Switch to another book but drop right into a scene where the protagonist is being retaught to talk after having her face shot off. The doctor is telling her to try and be like a ventriloquist: “Try to throw your voice.”
12:13 a.m.: How do you do that? I can give entire speeches without moving my lips, but I’ve never understood the throwing-your-voice part of ventriloquism.
12:14 a.m.: Try throwing voice across the room.
12:20 a.m.: This is why I can never finish a book.
12:21 a.m.: Take a break from reading to write letters to a handful of people who still care about me.
12:44 a.m.: Go back to trying to throw my voice across the room.
1:03 a.m.: Fall asleep with my voice teetering somewhere between the refrigerator and a small dinette set.
8:08 a.m.: When I wake up, I notice, on a second reading, that the letters I wrote could also work as suicide notes. They’re just subtle enough to straddle that line between the recipients’ thinking, “Hey, this is funny: Terry’s obsessed with Crocs” and “Oh, this is why he killed himself.”
8:13 a.m.: Step out onto the dock. “You missed the sunrise,” a woman fishing around the corner from my room says. That’s OK, lots of things happen without me, I explain.
8:16 a.m.: “Have you noticed this whole town is in the shade?” she asks. “I didn’t expect that. Not sure how they’re pulling it off. It’s not as though there’s one big, giant willow tree looming over the place.”
8:19 a.m.: I sit down in a pink Adirondack chair. “I came here to get some release,” she says. “I’ve been abstaining. And not just from sex — from everything. I haven’t even been eating. I’ve lost, like, 23 pounds. My ass is completely gone.”
8:20 a.m.: You’re making me hungry, I say.
8:33 a.m.: Walk down the street to a small diner. Every table features a handwritten sign that says, “No Nextel!” That is so perfect. On a daily basis, I see so many signs that say, “No cell phones” or “Please turn your cell phones off.” But this town gets right to the heart of it. Cell phones are really benign at this point. We don’t even pay attention to them. It’s those fucking Nextels that drive you crazy.
8:34 a.m.: The back and forth, that fucking voice on the other end. “The inspector says the A/C units aren’t supposed to be on the north roof” … cusssshhhh … “Well, that’s what the blueprints said” … cusshhhhhhh … “I’m going to tell him if he doesn’t like it he can take it up with the city”… cussshhhh … Fuck you! Go fucking tell him, then.
8:35 a.m.: Vacations are not good for me.
8:37 a.m.: I think about The Ditty Bops, a band on a cross-country bicycle tour. It probably started out as a good idea, but now, their thighs are burning and their asses are killing them and their ankle tattoos are covered in grease stains from rubbing against the chains. I know they just want to go home.
8:44 a.m.: Ask waitress if they have a Sonic burger place in this area. “I think there’s one back on Highway 80,” she says. Damn! I must have missed it on the drive in. It pisses me off every time I’m watching something on The WB and they come on advertising Sonic when there’s not one within a hundred miles of where I live. They’re messing with me big-time, especially when they advertise those mini sundaes.
8:53 a.m.: Just get some juice and decide to backtrack in hopes of finding a Sonic.
9:01 a.m.: It’s hard to drive wearing Crocs.
9:12 a.m.: Keeping one eye out for danger and one eye out for Sonic burgers.
9:17 a.m.: I feel extremely seaworthy.

The best way to do anything is to just let the water slide spit you out somewhere.
— Feist

10:10 a.m.: Several employees are talking about their upcoming summer vacations. “I just booked a wine tour of South Africa,” new guy brags.
10:10:32 a.m.: “I’m off to Greece,” music guy says. “I’m going to be staying in the village where they filmed The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.”
10:11 a.m.: Art guy says a friend of a friend of a friend’s sister’s chef has invited him to stay in Nas’ guest house in St. Croix. “Nas isn’t going to be there, but I’m going to be able to use his scooter to go to town for guava berries, chilled mauby, triggerfish and fresh conch.”
10:12 a.m.: Jesus, I mumble to tech girl. Where do people get the money for these trips? I’m lucky if I can … “Oh, I’m off to Northern Italy in two weeks,” she says. “I can’t wait. I just picked up an Italian dictionary so I can learn one sentence: ‘Antonio, come with me now, and you will not be disappointed.’ ”
10:14 a.m.: How do these people do it? I’ve been trying to calculate if I even have enough saved up to go to Austin, Texas, to watch the urban bat colony under the Congress Avenue Bridge rise into the sky at sunset. And then, I want to travel a little further south to that town where all they do is make black-velvet paintings. I’ve heard it’s like Hershey, Pa., only instead of street lanterns shaped like Kisses and Hershey-bar park benches, everything is black velvet.
10:15 a.m.: Black-velvet parking meters. Black-velvet lampposts. Black-velvet pizza.
10:16 a.m.: I hear you can roam through the town at 3 a.m. and visit with old women on their porches as they work on portraits into the night. I envision holding a frail señorita’s easel steady as she puts the finishing touches on a Day-Glo Freddie Mercury mustache.
10:17 a.m.: “Yeah, sounds real quirky,” new guy snickers. “Have fun. I have to go get my cash changed into Krugerrands.”
11:02 a.m.: Marketing guy has all the ladies giggling on the far side of the office. He’s all animated and full of hand gestures, and then, there’s a huge uproar of laughter. “OK, I’m late for an appointment,” he says, throwing his hands up and heading toward the door.
11:03 a.m.: He gives me a sly look because he told me the other day how he’s able to leave every encounter on a high note. “I set it up, slay ’em and get out fast,” he explained. “If I linger, the ladies get bored with me, so it’s all fast and furious. I always disappear on a high note.”
11:06 a.m.: Get phone call from marketing guy. “T, you gotta do me a big favor,” he says. “In the left-hand corner of my desk there’s a fax that I need the number from.”
11:07 a.m.: Oh no, I say. You don’t leave on your high note and then start giving me chores. “Come on, you heard that laughter,” he says. “I had no choice. I had to bolt. The ladies love a guy with a great sense of humor.”
11:07:51 a.m.: No, they don’t. That’s only in magazine surveys, I retort. In real life, women love Brad Pitt and guys who can fix shit.
11:08 a.m.: “Come on,” he says. “It’ll only take you a second.” Forget it, I say. You’re not going to live a life full of consecutive high notes while I scramble around like your errand boy. “Can you just bring the whole stack of papers out front to my car then?” he asks. You’re still in the parking lot? “I don’t really have any place to go,” he answers.
11:09 a.m.: Here’s a high note for you, I say, slamming the phone down.
12:12 p.m.: Get a call from a friend I haven’t heard from in ages, and he’s all excited about a catalog that sells original artifacts that belonged to Jesus. That can’t be, I say. “It be,” he says. “They have currency that he exchanged for sundries and such: Jesus cash.”
12:13 p.m.: I don’t even know if they had currency back then, I say. “They have some tools he used, too,” he adds, “and a couple of hats.”
12:13:28 p.m.: I don’t think Jesus wore hats, I say. I’ve never seen a picture of him in a hat. “You know so little,” he snaps.
12:27 p.m.: Go to lunch alone.
12:44 p.m.: While assembling my tuna kit, I try to imagine all my co-workers’ vacations. I can’t really picture the music guy diving for sponges in the Mediterranean or the art guy going to market on Nas’ scooter. There is only one thing I know for sure.
12:45 p.m.: Antonio will not be disappointed.
1:09 p.m.: In the parking lot, red carpet girl is sitting in the front seat of her car, eating a ham-and-cheese Dunkin’ Donuts sandwich. “Hey,” she says, “you know how I always tell you my boyfriend has, like, a blogger’s body? No more. He’s totally buff and lost about 17 pounds since he got that gamey thingamajig.”
1:10 p.m.: What gamey thing? “The Wii. He was playing tennis for, like, 11 hours straight one day last week. And he has, like, Popeye arms from the deep-sea fishing. I had been bugging him to get a personal trainer, but now … ”
1:11 p.m.: Wii is his personal trainer?
1:11:11 p.m.: “You got it.”
2:23 p.m.: My older brother calls and says, “The reason I’m not doing much with my life is because everything has been done. I want to leave my mark on this world, but there’s really nothing left to do.”
2:24 p.m.: There must be something left, I reply. “That’s what I thought. That’s why I got up early today,” he says. “I thought there were two things left that hadn’t been done, but I went to the library to double-check, and guess what?”
2:24:12 p.m.: They’ve been done.
2:24:31 p.m.: “Yep.”
2:26 p.m.: Decide to leave on a low note.
2:47 p.m.: On the ride home, I marvel about how, by nature, the days are as disjointed as my thoughts.
2:50 p.m.: Stop marveling.
3:01 p.m.: Suddenly everything is bothering me — why can’t I fix shit? — and my mind starts to wander between exits on the interstate. To lift my spirits, I start to envision my own vacation. With bats streaking overhead, I see myself cutting across town in a black-velvet taxi, sipping from a Styrofoam cup full of dirty tequila and then standing in the center of the street, arguing with a scarlet-haired woman over the last Lenny Kravitz portrait in town.
3:04 p.m.: My cell phone rings, and when I pick it up, the first words are, “Hold on, asshole.” OK, I say automatically. “Just a second. She’s coming. I found her on the fifth floor. She makes crepes for a living now, but she has a degree in theology and went to seminary or some shit,” the voice says. “Hold on. Here she is. Here’s your motherfuckin’ proof.”
3:05 p.m.: Hear a small gurgle and then a faint, quivering voice.
3:05:07 p.m.: “Jesus wore hats.”

#22995

I’ve been sitting here in our living room for the last 45 minutes staring at the same page in this Columbia House catalog, my eyes currently lost in Bloodhound Gang’s One Fierce Beer Coaster, #445678. Anna says we’re obligated to make four more selections, but I just realized by the time they come in the mail, I won’t be here.
Our 7-year-old daughter, Emily, is circling the sofa, chasing an almond-colored puppy. She has just said to her mother, “Daddy should name the puppy. Daddy comes up with the best names.” I don’t know what she’s basing it on. I named our last dog Havana and the only other pet we have is a gerbil named Turk.
“You have to name him tonight, Daddy,” she says. But I can’t do that. I don’t want that to be the last thing I do before I walk out — name a puppy.
#379875 Tone-Loc — Loc’ed After Dark
My parents will hate me. They love Anna and it certainly will complicate their relationship with Emily, but I … I don’t care for some reason. It can’t be about that, I keep telling myself. I was going to broach it tonight, bring up this silent plot in my head that’s been fermenting for months. But it’s Friday and I really don’t want the weekend to be hell for any of us, especially me. It can wait till Monday … Tuesday.
A guy at Publix once gave me his theory on how someone my age makes a decision like this because it’s the only thing in his life he can change. There’s no getting out of the job — you’re in too deep. There’s no getting out of the bills — they’re way too high. There’s no part of the day that can be used to create more time for yourself. But these people, to whom you made a solemn oath, suddenly seem dispensable. It’s strange how my marriage has become the easiest thing in my life to change.
#392217 Travis — The Man Who
I don’t want to hurt anybody. There’s a guy at work who told his wife he “never loved her.” After 17 years, he says, “I never loved you.” Even if you meant it, how could you say something like that? Why? To make that person feel they have never been loved? I assumed he must have just blurted it out in the heat of distress, that she wouldn’t accept every other reason he offered up so he just reached for the only thing left to say — “I never loved you.” I won’t make that mistake. I have to be more calculated and methodical, even if it makes me appear cold. I can imagine Anna calling her sister and telling her that I was stainless-steel and zombielike, but I know I have to save my softness for Emily.
#1614226 Trainspotting — Soundtrack
Anna is going to start by claiming that there must be somebody else. “I know you,” I can hear her saying. “Unless something or somebody dropped out of the sky right on top of you, you’d never even think of changing anything about your life. Who the hell is it? I know you.”
She doesn’t know me. But I’ve even made a mental note not to dare say that or she’d sarcastically rip me up. “Oh, no, nobody knows you. You’re such a mysterious and complicated man. Give me a fucking break.”
Anna’s always in motion. Each time I get distracted enough to look up from this catalog, she’s somewhere else — in the kitchen, rummaging through the hall closet, wrestling on the ground with Emily and the puppy. Now, she’s curled up on the couch reading something by somebody named Dean Koontz. “Honey, I want to pick some, too,” she says, glancing at me. “Don’t use up all our selections.”
#322891 The Crystal Method — Tweekend
I already know where I’m going to stay — an apartment down by the boatyard, near where the drift-fishing charters head out, just went up for rent. During the season, I won’t be able to afford it, but for the time being, it’ll be perfect. A friend once told me that if you’re miserable, it helps to have plenty of boats around. And I do believe he’s right, because each time I stopped by to check on the place, there were lots of people sitting alone, eating corn chips and staring at the boats coming and going. Lots of miserable people.
Emily loves boats that are large enough to force the bridge to go up and down. I imagine us sitting together on the balcony every other weekend, watching the yachts idling in the distance and then trolling through on the half hour. I can see us setting our watches by them and Emily jumping up, “Daddy, it’s time. It’s time.”
#334508 The Cure — Greatest Hits
It’s time for Emily to go to bed. Anna and I always take turns putting her in but for the past three nights, I’ve been doing it without provocation, as if the act would somehow make up for the abandonment. “Oh, at least he put his daughter to bed those last few days before he moved to that scummy shipyard.” You know, I’ve heard people talk about the secret life we have in our heads, but I really just view this as the planning stage.
As I look at Anna now, I’m trying to come up with a good reason for this escape — and not just for her, but for me, too. I really can’t point at any one thing she has done. I can’t say she has changed any more than I can say I’ve changed. She is as beautiful and energetic as ever. The only thing about her that has really been starting to grate on me is how she takes ownership of things that should actually remain in the public domain. Like when she says, “I have to watch my Will & Grace at 8:30” or “I have to have my Starbucks Royal Blue mocha.” But that’s certainly no reason for what I’m about to do to us.
Anna has just jumped up off the couch and is insisting that we give the puppy a bath. “But I was just going to put Emily to bed,” I say.
“No, tomorrow he will be too big for the tub. It’s now or never,” she sings, scooping the puppy up.
Emily is giggling and the sight of them both holding this upside-down puppy is so endearing that they quickly pull me into this circle of joy and I can immediately foresee the suds and the splashing and the laughter that could stretch through a lifetime.
It’s a good thing that I decided over five weeks ago not to let spontaneous joy get in the way of all this. Once I set my mind to it, I realized I have an uncanny ability to ignore the happiest days of my life. It may sound sad but, to be honest, I’ve never had anything I couldn’t let go of. And, for some reason, I don’t seem to care how that affects the people around me.
# 406744 Social Distortion — Social Distortion

*I have never leaped in my life. I am so full of shit.

Love Match

We were at the in-between stage, where you’ve taken your shower for a big occasion too early and you don’t want to put on your dress clothes until the water on your body dries and the sweat is about to begin.
I was already sweating when Sal suggested we play pingpong. We went out to the patio. Dripping, I took the arms of my robe and knotted them around my waist. Sal was not one to play games with. He was the strutter in your high school who kicked off, quarterbacked and played safety. He called his own plays.
He had the arm and the eye. I was no competition, but I always challenged him to petty games. I had claimed I’d beaten him at darts once, but he’d been drinking, and it was a lie. He had beat me drunk.
Picking up the ball for the initial se