Tangled Errands

At the library, a man is speaking to the librarian in a loud, but calm voice.
"I am just telling you that if I find any overdue fines on my account, I will sue you and the library and the city."
I wonder how many overdue fines he has that would justify the legal fees for a massive lawsuit. I also wonder if it is worse to be a city librarian or a city bus driver. I envision this man speaking in his loud, even tones to the bus driver, too. I check out my stack of graphic novels and dark Australian rock and roll and try not to stare. I can't afford a lawsuit right now.

Well dressed people walk down the street and shout to themselves. That's all right, though, because they have hands-free phone devices screwed into their ears. It's not like the other people who walk down the street and shout to themselves. I heard all about one woman's divorce while I looked at sweaters I wished I hadn't touched. What fiber is it that makes sweaters feel slimy in designer discount chains? Why do I keep touching them? I smell like someone else's perfume. There were lotion samples. I tried them all. I'm a fruit bowl now. Did any of us know what verbena  was a few years ago? Do we know now? It is a relaxing shade of green and it tempts me with promises of invigorating citrus undertones. It smells kind of like a urinal cake.

I am drinking French bottled sparkling water to soothe whatever beast has set up shop in my belly. I am trying not to blame three days of enchiladas. Anything but the enchiladas. It is an international incident in my intestines. The French and the Mexicans squaring off for possession of 23 feet of dark, cramped real estate. For now, the French are winning. The Mexicans are blaming the Americans. Never eat enchiladas from an establishment that is also known for its tater tots. They can call them "Mexi-fries" all they want, but we know the truth - the delicious, dangerous truth.

I am pretending that my car is a shuttle to another world. The world where I buy things like window treatments and decorative candle holders and create tasteful "tablescapes" in my home instead of buying lime green striped socks and seasonal M&Ms and thinking of places to shove piles of paper. My shuttle smells like corn dogs and feet. This is not a dignified mode of transportation, I fear. What if the corn dog smell clings to me along with the lemon verbena urinal cake and combined with my crazy hair makes me One To Be Avoided like the man in the library? How would I know the difference between the usual avoidance and the purposeful avoidance? I console myself that I am drinking French bottled sparkling water and therefore, classy.


I imagine I am tall and elegant and practice walking as if balancing a plate of apples on my head: neck extended, shoulders back, drawing a line from the top of my head to my coccyx. I have replaced my flapping gap-toothed jeans with flowing skirts and an ermine cape, just so. I am tempted to sweep through the aisles like a dowager, commanding the cans of black beans and bags of coffee to jump into my cart, to do my bidding like eunuchs, chop-chop. I amuse myself and then remember that it's just me, walking around trying not to think about how my hair just feels like it looks ridiculous today.

I am spending my fortune a dollar at a time on half-finished ideas and promises; shadows and imitations of things stacked in bins. Only one dollar. I forgot what I came in here for. It's like a casino with the distracting lighting and ambiguous exits. I have things in my hands that I don't remember picking up: a box of note cards, a kitchen gadget, cupcake papers that look like Russian nesting dolls. Perhaps I should eat the cupcake papers; send the Russians in to settle the Intestinal International Incident. Would that start World War 3? Probably so. Domino effect and whatnot. Not to mention the ramifications of eating twelve useless, beautifully designed cupcake papers. I should set these things down and step away. It's dangerous in here.


I am listening to children who are hungry and bored, two women who are very upset with someone and say so over and over to each other, clucking and nodding affirmation each time. I am listening to a girl explain to her boyfriend about the socks. I catch snatches and bits of words that float around me, muted and distorted by large tiled spaces stacked with consumer goods. I wonder if they know I will write about them all. That I will try on their perspectives like outfits and wonder what it's like to be so angry about library fines. To remember being small and bored in the store with my mom. To gossip freely with a friend about someone who has wronged me. To speak with such bitterness of my new-found freedom from matrimony to the invisible person on the other end of the line. I wonder if they know they are being watched. I wonder if any of them will write about me. It's possible, you know.

An Obvious Thing

We are in flagrant disregard of Duty.
It would seem an obvious thing, the sun in summer.

There are wild fires, heat waves, people evacuating, sweating. We sit in sweatshirts in the evening and discuss whether or not to build a fire. It would seem an obvious thing, the sun in summer.

It emerges and so do we. We come out blinking, a city of moles. White like Haddocks and timid, unsure. Like shy brides we haltingly walk into the parks, the squares, the public spaces. We resist the urge to cover newly exposed flesh. We take all our business outdoors. Lunches are eaten, teeth are picked, clothes are changed, naps, definitely naps.

Siblings fight and wrestle, dump water down each other's pants. I write and practice my long range stink-eye. They lift their heads and look at me sometimes. They nod, thumbs-up, mouth O-K. They do not take this stink-eye seriously. Nor do I. It is merely for effect. A reminder. Yes, we are stripped to our underwear and playing in a public fountain, but there are decencies to observe. This stink-eye of mine remains like a vestigial tail or something from a time before them, before the sunshine and the splashing and the underwear and shrieking. Some archetypal image of The Way Things Are Done and Things We Do Not Do and I Would Never...

I forget and I ignore them while they play. This is why they love me best today. Because I ignore them. Sometimes it is best to be ignored and be left to mischief. The crows are taking advantage of these lax circumstances. And a seagull has swung by from the ship canal. The seagull is ridiculous, as big as a goose. Like that tall kid in middle school who got breasts and acne early. Awkward, gawking around, looking for a place to fit. The crows mock it and chase it with their fierce, hard beaks. They have rumbling smokers' caws and slick black feathers like greasers. They are pretty and too smart for their own good. The seagull just plods around among them, trying to find a friend.

The hobos have a box of popcorn. Like a moving-sized box. Full of popcorn. I am curious about the provenance of this popcorn. They scatter the popcorn for the birds and the seagull taunting ceases temporarily. There is more than enough for everyone. I am a little bit ashamed. I have been rabidly protecting my pizza crusts, bagel ends and fancy expensive protein bar remains from the birds. I don't want them to touch me with their lizardy feet or poop near me. I am squeamish and selfish. The hobos, they understand scavenging. They understand being misfit. They have watched the moms gather their children closer when they pass. I feel bad and want to ask them about their giant box of popcorn.

The birds are done with the popcorn for now and they have moved on in a loosely choreographed flapping and squawking. Incredibly they have reformed on the arm of a well-dressed man. Pencil thin gray trousers, neatly pressed dress shirt sleeves turned up in honor of the sudden warmth. An inky flock of birds fly from knuckles to elbow and up under his Important sleeve. He walks with purpose, buried in conversation on his phone. He has Important Things To Discuss. His birds tell a slightly different story than his phone and his clothes and I want to ask him about them. I am not on the other end of his phone, though, so I do not get the chance.

The girls in dresses from my eighth grade dances breeze past. All shoulder pads, high waists, wide belts. Geometric patterns and bold colors. They can wear these though. They are young and invincible. They are not Haddocks. They are brown and brushed and do not chase small people across public spaces. They are like burnished statues, monuments to youth and perfection and seem to say "We can wear these ugly clothes because we make them beautiful with our glow. We are young because we do not remember them from before. These are not the clothes of agonizing adolescence. These are the clothes of quirky irony and we have inherited them to show you how it's done." I let them because I don't care that much about it. I laugh that what is old is new again, and I am suddenly older. They will see pictures later and wonder who these people were who thought such things were good ideas and then they will know why we others sit in comfortable jeans and natural fibers, sensible shoes.

There are children on leashes and dogs who roam free. I wonder at this backwards world and hope the dogs don't poop near me or touch me with their tongues. I briefly hope the same of the children. But they are on leashes, so it is less likely. The children are up long past nap time and sit on the ground and cry. The mothers resist the urge to do the same. Childless grass nappers open one eye and stare. They do not understand this resistance to repose. The dogs sniff for popcorn. The hobos have moved on and left their box. A large child rides a tiny tricycle through the fountain. There is scolding and pouting and arguing. Perhaps some foot stomping, too. The sun has turned a bit in the sky.

The opalescent Haddock flesh begins to turn the iridescent pink of Salmon and the dogs get restless. Mothers check their clocks and a general rustling begins. Like the crows, they begin to flap and migrate. Disorganized and all at once, emerging into a pattern. Dripping children, blue lips with soggy pants, pink cheeks and goosebumps find bicycle helmets, a drink of water. I stand and somehow dump my coffee down the back of my shirt and pants. I am dripping, too, and smell like what I imagine is South America. Musk and sunshine, sweat and strawberries and coffee. I sit back down and laugh.

I stand again and collect my things. I sneak past the box of popcorn and take a peek. I say a silent thank you for all of this nonsense. For the birds and the fountain. The hobos and their purloined popcorn in a shipping box. For the children and the dogs and the walking, rusting tattoos. For the statuesque goddesses and the skate punks. For my Haddock flesh that will carry me home with groceries and wet monkeys on two wheels.

It is all absurd.
It is all so beautiful and in motion.
An amoebic throbbing and constant moving of in and out.
The world contracts and expands to allow another and some more as we come and go.
There is room for everyone here in the sun.
It's an obvious thing, this sun in summer.

Out of Body Cocktail Party

Photo credit: fractl from morguefile.com

Do you ever sit down to complete a thought and there's a cocktail party going on in your brain? Friends you haven't seen since childhood are rubbing elbows with Presidential hopefuls. School superintendents are off in a corner somewhere in deep conversation with your mother. Ex-boyfriends are chasing your old bus driver around the hors d'ouevre table and sloshing their drinks. The deejay is blasting that Chumba Wumba song that you didn't even like the first time around and mixing it up with Depeche Mode and the soft hits of the 70s, 80s and today. There's a conga line of children, old pets, authors and movie stars. They stop and speak to you in quotes and song lyrics, bad puns and cliches. It's a wonder anyone gets anything done around here.

It was a beautiful afternoon today. The sun came out and softened the chill in the air. Everything smelled like grass and cherry blossoms. We walked to the park after school because playing tag was really the only thing any of us could think to do. An old power ballad blasted through an open apartment window and I felt like I was in a John Hughes movie. Where the skies are always blue, the lawns are always mowed and the family dynamics are always are slightly dysfunctional. It was the sort of afternoon that lifted me up and out of body and around and through time and space.

Rather than fight my out of body cocktail party, I think I'll let it rage on. I won't be the finicky neighbor who calls the cops when it's too loud, too late on a school night. I'll take my place near the punch bowl and do some people watching, maybe take some notes.