barkley - a hastily scrawled book report

I was thrilled when I saw TZ's Facebook post about the Barkley Book Fair. I ran the day run last time he put it on, summer of 2010, and I knew I wanted to run the night run. But 2011 went by with no Barkley, and I never did get around to buying a headlamp, and by the time this year's race came around, I had chickened out all the way.


See, Barkley is a special run. You have to know the right people to even know about the race, let alone run it. It's strictly the cool kids who show up to this one - well, and they let me tag along, so they're not all bad. Anyway, there's a day run and a night run. Both runs have the same basic idea - you run around on Turkey Mountain, looking for books. Every time you find a book, you tear out the page that corresponds to your bib number, taking your torn-out page with you. When you get to the finish, you hand off your pages to a page-counter, then you drink a beer.


The day run's course is marked, and this year's was pretty simple. I seem to remember having more trouble finding books last time.


The night run doesn't have course markings - instead, you get a map and some handwritten clues. Clues like, "The troll left a mess!" or, "Death of many bikers."


The books themselves are one of my favorite things about the run. Ken takes pains to provide books with appropriate titles. Books like Fatal Terrain, The Long Walk and Pathfinder meet their doom at Barkley. I think of it sort of like a Viking's death for a book. Most books don't go out like these - maybe we should actually put their carcasses on some sort of funereal pyre at the end of the next Barkley. Hard to say, though - it's pretty hot for a fire. Oh! I know, maybe LAST year's books should be immolated NEXT year. Or something. I don't know, I'm spitballing.


I ran the day run, which was a lot of fun. Hot and fast, but not too fast. I ran with Chris and Rafael, both of whom I've run with before, and Rachel, a newish face - it's hard to say who's new and who I just haven't met yet, so I don't want to call anybody new. There were others whose names I can't recall - the girl in Vibrams, I think was the one Rafael called Hardcore Girl. It seems like I'm missing one or two. Anyway, it was fun. Rafael fell down, claiming a twisted ankle, but our jeers and taunts motivated him to get back up to speed  - just kidding. We all stopped to walk with him and nobody ran on without him. It's really not that kind of race. He walked a bit, but quickly found that he could run after all - the big faker just wanted a breather so he could smoke us all at the finish. It's that kind of race.


I had a beer at the finish and hung out for a bit, sweaty and happy, and people I hadn't seen in a while started showing up. Delighted to see Wilma and Channing and John and Kathy and Troy and Roman and I don't even remember who else, I drank another beer and before I could say, "I'm not that kind of girl," Brian had loaned me a headlamp and I was in for the night run.


I can't tell you much about the night run. I'm afraid it might violate the code. I'm not exactly sure what the code is, so I have to be extra careful so I don't get banned from future Barkleys. I can tell you it was fun. It was scary in places, but since there is no whining allowed and whiners aren't allowed to participate, it was actually pretty lovely. I think that's all I'm allowed to say. I'll have to check with TZ.


We crossed the finish line, without all the books, without all of our original crew, way past midnight.


We ended the night at IHOP, where I devoured chicken fried steak and eggs until exhaustion crept in. I drove home half dreaming already and went directly to the shower. I watched dirty water sluice between my toes on its way to the drain. After running trails, watching all the dirt run down the shower drain is my favorite part.


I put in a Rita Hayworth movie, flopped on the futon and was asleep before the opening credits finished rolling. Loki woke me up this morning, meowing in my face, demanding water from the bathroom faucet immediately or else. I dutifully complied, then padded back to the futon where I slept until noon with no further disturbances or demands.


It's a pretty good life, you know?


Also! Not one single tick. Was I doing it wrong?


Also! I bought a headlamp today.

Roses are RED, motherfucker.

Normally, I hate the Blue Rose for playing obnoxious music half the fucking night, more than I hate, um...

People who say "then" when they mean "than"

People who say "supposably" when they mean "supposedly"

People who can't differentiate between "your" and "you're"

People who don't punctuate (fuck you I come by my self-loathing honestly) and expect you to sort out their idiotic incoherent sentences

People who pronounce the "t" in "often"

People who shop at Wal-Mart, buy dogs from breeders, eat a bunch of processed food and bitch about how there's NOTHING TO DO in Tulsa oh and also they're scared of downtown, then they look at me like I'm some kind of freak for knowing when the farmers' markets are. Or for running a marathon. Or for not having cable so I can't talk about dancing with the biggest singing loser survivors around the fucking water cooler every goddamned day.

People who answer my, "Good! How are you?" with, "Well. I'm doing well." as if they're fucking trying to fucking correct me when all I was doing was trying my best to be down-home and fucking SOCIABLE to some sort of ASSHOLE who is PISSING ME OFF and HARSHING MY FUCKING MELLOW by TALKING TO ME.

I've had a little sugar.

Hell is other people. I'm really glad I live alone.

Oh, but you? I love you.

Anyway, normally, I hate the Blue Rose. And I especially hate the music they play all the goddamned time. But right now? This bluesy guitarsy thing they've got going on? It's pretty nice actually.

Read a damn book

Kurt Vonnegut made me cry today. I was getting ready to walk to yoga in the park, listening to Armageddon in Retrospect in the locker room of my office building, and "Spoils" hit me, hard. It was actually kind of comical. I was jamming my feet into shoes when I cottoned to the rug that was about to be pulled out from under me. I actually looked up and caught my reflection's eye in the mirror, like, "Can you believe this is about to happen to us?" I watched my face crumple. My nose turned red instantly. My eyes spilled over immediately. Nothing to do but wait it out, so I kept listening while I dabbed at my face with a paper towel from the handy dispenser.


The last time Kurt Vonnegut made me cry, it was because he died. The bastard. We were all on Myspace then and a writer I admired posted a blog entry about him, closing with something about him being up in heaven now, meant of course to be a joke. We watched in smug horror as people lined up to agree and offer platitudes. Obviously they didn't know him like we did.


"Spoils" is a cheap trick, a slow build to a clownishly obvious break, a kick in the kidney that happens in slow motion. But I'm sitting here hoping I didn't spoil it for you. I hope you read it. Or let Rip Torn read it to you. He did a pretty awesome job.


"The Unicorn Trap" gives back what "Spoils" takes away, by my reckoning, so I'd recommend taking the two together.


As for me, I'm going to bed. As soon as I finish the book. 26 minutes left of listening, and my sheets are in the dryer. So tired I'm thinking about leaving them there and sleeping without them. 


From the introduction - "Reading and writing are in themselves subversive acts. What they subvert is the notion that things have to be the way they are, that you are alone, that no one has ever felt the way you have. What occurs to people when they read Kurt is that things are much more up for grabs than they thought they were. The world is a slightly different place just because they read a damn book. Imagine that."


Good night, rebels.

West Palm Beach yammerings

He grinned at me over his shoulder as we paddled kayaks across smooth saltwater. His fishing hat flopped around his ears. The water was clear enough to see pairs of horseshoe crabs getting romantic on the bottom. We dragged our kayaks up onto an island and searched for shells. The best shells I found still had tenants. The tide went out while we poked through tide pools. Crabs scuttled away from us to hide under logs.


I get it now, why people decorate their bathrooms in seashells and driftwood. I mean, I don't get why it's always the bathroom, but I get the need to put that stuff somewhere. All those spirals and horns and crisscrossing lattices, all that shocking color fading to pastel as it dries in the sun. 


Kayaking back, the wind was against us. Or maybe it was the current. Anyway, it was hard going. We laughed. We panted. We paddled some more. 


I drank rum from a container that can only be described as a bucket. He threatened to sing the song, but I ordered a pina colada anyway. We ate conch fritters with sweet chili sauce and watched lizards strut across the sand. Eddie narrated the scene from a lizard's point of view.


We hit up the local running store for souvenirs, a tradition I greedily claim credit for starting. See, what with Eddie always going off someplace, I've been to a lot of runs by myself. Some people took to greeting me not with, "Hello," but with, "Where's Eddie?" So I said, bring me a shirt when you come home, so when you go back, I can wear that shirt and people will know where you are without having to ask me.


I don't really mind. But lately I've caught myself avoiding events sometimes because it makes me sad to talk about it. He's been gone a long time this time.


We got smoothies and snuck them into the movie theater to watch The Avengers in 3D, laughing in the very back row with our silly glasses, salty and sweaty, tired and giddy.


We rented scooters and drove to the beach. Alec Baldwin exited the scooter shop as we approached. I didn't recognize him right away. I speculated that we had just seen a Baldwin. I wasn't positive which one until the shopkeeper told us.


Eddie showed me how to ride a scooter, coaching me around the parking lot until I felt brave enough to face the streets. My first left turn was nearly a disaster. I panicked, grabbed the brakes, barked the tires and had to stop on the side of the road, hands all atremble, heart pounding. My right foot came down on the pavement reflexively when I hit the brakes, muscle memory for the wrong task. My toe dragged for just a skip of a step, not even drawing blood. 


Actually, it might have been my second or third left. Anyway, it was a left. Eddie came back to check on me. He squeezed my shaking hands and we went on. 


I bought a copy of Swamplandia! at a local bookstore and read it on the beach between dips in the ocean. The Atlantic made me wish I had gills. I floated on waves, laughing when one dunked me under.


I overheard someone at the park's visitor center saying, "There's nothing worse than saltwater up your nose!" It's one of those things that's going to roll around inside my brain until it causes a stroke, a la Louis Black's theory. I stopped myself from butting in then, but geez, lady. Saltwater is preferable to pretty much any other thing you can put up my nose. If you're keeping a list.


We talked about plans for the summer, if Eddie ever comes home. We agreed that we need to spend as much time on the water as possible. We need to make it a priority.


It was only a weekend. We rushed around doing everything we could think of that sounded fun. We laughed a lot. We talked about important things, like hammocks and Scarlett Johannson, ottomans and alligators. We ate ice cream in bed. We watched dumb television. We rode scooters and kayaks and splashed in the Atlantic Ocean. We ate really delicious food and watched beautiful people walk up and down the streets.


I found souvenir magnets for the girls at work. As we headed back to the hotel that last night, we saw an old man holding a sign on the side of the road. The sign read, "JUST HUNGRY" and my eyes were already welling up before I even saw him hobble toward the line of cars, walking with a limp I fervently hoped was a fake. I turned my head and casually brushed tears off my cheeks, defiantly liberal, bleeding heart and Fight Club quotes (You don't know where I've been, Lou! You don't know where I've been!) Eddie slipped some folded bills to the old man and a sob caught in my throat while I laughed and said thank you. I need things like that.


You can say he probably makes more money than I do, out on that street corner with his pitiful sign and his scraggly beard, shuffling from car to car with a hangdog look. I say fine. Good. Everybody has to make a living somehow. I hope he made a hundred dollars that day off suckers like me.


Because the alternative is horrifying. We sneer about panhandling scams and frauds and hurry past before the idea can sneak up on us - what if this one isn't a scam? What if this guy really is hungry? And you there with your full belly and your jokes, what kind of person are you?


I'm a sucker. I'm okay with that. I want to feed everybody and make sure everybody has a safe place to sleep. If that could be my job, I think I'd do it happily forever. I'm not afraid of being scammed, that doesn't scare me, that happens every time I fall for a commercial. 


Or vote. 


What scares me is NOT being scammed. Walking away from someone who needs help. And when you think about it, who doesn't need help? So most of the time, I give what I can. 


If that makes me a naive simpleton, well, that's okay.


Also it should be noted that I really don't like people all that much, so why I get all weepy when I see an old guy limping, I couldn't tell you. Maybe it's an allergy or something.


So this is my first night home. The cats seem pretty happy to see me. The weather has cooled off a little since last week. I'm trying not to turn my air conditioning on until June, so if this keeps up we'll be fine. I'm drinking wine while Nassim lounges against my bare leg. We are sitting in the growing darkness watching words form on this backlit screen. I want more words; he wants his belly scratched. His purring shakes the couch.


I cooked brown rice and lentils and added broccoli, red bell pepper and pineapple. It's utterly delicious. I'll be eating it for lunch, warmed up or not, for days.


I don't have any more words. Nassim wins.

must nots

Two years ago today, it was too cold to sit outside at the Mercury.

"He's fucking perfect. I want to laminate him."

we used to call him butterball

I bought this computer because my brother talks a lot.


I needed a computer, I guess - I at least wanted one, and I could justify the purchase pretty easily for all sorts of reasons. But I hung up the phone with my brother and the thought struck me that I should be transcribing the stories he tells.


Stop me if you've heard this one before. But he hasn't called me since I got this computer, and that's okay, I don't want to force it. I wanted a chance to get used to the keyboard, and I'll probably want a Bluetooth thingy so I'm not cradling the phone between my ear and my shoulder while he talks. He talks for a really long time sometimes.


He texted me today, asking if I knew of any vacant apartments nearby. I didn't. 


Last I heard, he was staying with a friend and I think he had a job. He hovers on the edge of homelessness and my sister and I fret. We celebrate each success, each new job and new path and new idea, but politely. We don't get too excited. He doesn't tend to stay employed long. I don't know why.


For Christmas, we got him a lot of clothes. Warm clothes. Socks and jeans and a Budweiser hoodie, a stocking cap and hand warmers, t-shirts and underwear.


We got him things to keep him warm without being too precious - he tends to break things. We got him things without much resale value - his wife, or former wife, has recently confessed to being a meth addict, and some things have gone missing. 


My family isn't much on big emotional displays. Well, my brother is, but he's the only drama queen in the family. And he doesn't have emotional displays so much as desperate cries for attention. The lot of us, crammed together in a room, we can be awkward if we try to be like a normal family.


The fuck is a normal family anyway.


But presents are easy, even fun. I can buy some fucking presents. I love the shopping and the choosing and the wrapping - best of all is when inspiration strikes and you think of just the right thing, but that doesn't always happen, so you can't rely on it, you just have to keep your eyes peeled and snatch up the things that will be useful or pretty or fun or appreciated.


When I see someone using something I got them as a present, when I see a scarf I made around someone's neck or the flask I had engraved comes rolling out from under a truck seat, or my brother's Facebook photo shows he's wearing a shirt I got for him, I call it a win.


Because I'm not very good at the words and the touchy-feely stuff. I cook, I buy presents, then my brother comes over and I stop him in the middle of his story to call bullshit on that because he didn't even HAVE that car then.


And the room gets kind of quiet and my sister's all, Kate. And I'm all, fuck. God damn it, Alan, I'm sorry I messed up your story. Please continue. More mashed potatoes? Here, have a beer and a present.


Because that's how we are. And I feel like, if I can just keep him talking, someday maybe I will understand who he is. In the meantime, I just try to respect it. And I fail. A lot.


But you really gotta hear his stories.

unwise, unruhe, unruly

He tipped up the bottle of beer, swallowing its contents in one fluid motion.

Fluid ounces disappearing like a magic trick. I marveled. I envied his ability to drink. Not his ability to drink alcohol, his ability to drink anything. I was coming off a stomach virus of unknown origin, the likes of which I hope to never see again, and for several days I was unable to eat or drink anything except in the tiniest of nibbles and sips. It was maddening.

I've never been the sort of girl who nibbles. I've never left half my food uneaten unless I didn't like it or, as in this case, I was sick. This stomach virus had me completely turned around. I joked about it in restaurants. The waiter would come back around, take Eddie's plate away and keep walking. I'd watch his back get smaller, sigh and say ruefully, "He didn't even ask me if I was finished."

I didn't look finished. Five bites, I counted. I could manage five bites and then I would be full. My stomach would take nourishment, but only so much. I was grateful, humbled, thrilled that the vomiting had stopped.

Vomiting really takes it out of me. It shocks me that it's not that way for everyone. I've known people who can throw up like toddlers - run around in circles, puke on you, rally and keep running in circles. That's never been me.

My vomiting was a rush from a car that had probably stopped moving. Probably. I said something like, "Here. Here is fine," and I bolted from the car, stomach spinning, running for the grass.

Why grass? I don't know. Seems less messy than puking on the sidewalk where it can all splash back up at you. Or maybe it's an instinctive thing, an animal thing. I don't know. But I saw grass and I beelined.

Mercifully there was a chain link fence and my fingers found it, dug into it, locked on while my body heaved as though racked with sobs. I watched from a distance, horrified and fascinated. This was not how I had planned to spend my vacation in Miami. I puked into the grass and tears ran down my cheeks. I panted. My knees buckled and I really did sob, giving in to the misery of it.

All through yoga, I'd felt really sick. It baffled me, because the class really wasn't that hard. It was an interesting class, but I felt out of joint somehow. My tendons felt creaky, my muscles reluctant to stretch. I kept thinking maybe I was pushing too hard, because I kept feeling this horribly queasy feeling.

It was almost a relief to throw up. I say almost because I didn't feel better afterward. I felt less likely to throw up, but not finished. I didn't know then that I would throw up exactly two more times before my immune system took up its weapons and battled the sickness with more mysterious, less explosive methods until finally I was fine again, but I knew I didn't feel magically better, the way you do sometimes when you've thrown up a bad taco. I hadn't eaten much of anything since breakfast that day, actually. That probably should have been a red flag.

I don't know what day it was, maybe Tuesday, maybe Wednesday. I watched Eddie down his beer and felt envious. I'd given up alcohol for Lent but I wanted to drink a Gatorade with that same nonchalance. I wanted to guzzle water. I wanted to be like normal. I didn't want to be delicate and fragile and curling up in a feverish ball on a hotel duvet. But there I was. Eddie, for his improvised part in an unplanned play, was glorious. Don't tell anybody, but he might be the sweetest man in the world.

That's not just the wine talking. Lent is over, thank fucking GOD.

But really. I've never known a kinder, more patient nursemaid. He managed to be helpful without being stifling. He rushed out to buy me candy when I finally perked up and said I wanted some. I tried to stop him, said I hadn't picked what I wanted, and he called out, "I'm just getting you one of everything!" before the door slammed behind him. He made me laugh. When I apologized for being a wimp, he looked at me like I was crazy and told me to shut up. He hugged me, but never quite enough, which I have learned is a constant between the two of us. He hugs me and I hug him back and we go on about our lives and always there is a part of me that feels I didn't hug him quite enough, feels raw, feels exposed, feels unwrapped.

So there. That's how I feel about that. Come at me, karma.

all sorts of nonsense and a recipe!

April 14

Thought I was going to bed early, but I guess I was just taking a really late nap. I woke up an hour after falling asleep, hungry, hot and restless. I put on The Sweet Smell of Success and watched Tony Curtis be sleazy with the same mix of admiration and apprehension he always inspires in me, but the movie didn't hold my attention. 

Not the movie's fault. My attention is skittish these days.

I dreamed about work. Someone picked me up after a nap to take me back to the office, and I realized while flying down an unfamiliar highway that I'd been asleep for way too long - I'd come home to take an hourlong nap and accidentally slept for 12 hours or more. It was the middle of the night and we were going to the wrong office - it was a dollar store in a high-rise office building, with a lone employee mopping aisles and counting down cash registers. Neither the dollar store employee nor my coworker/tormentor had much interest in my agitation. Turns out, neither did I.

I'm reading Poser: My Life in 23 Yoga Poses by Claire Dederer. Booksmart Tulsa is having an event with the author next week or the week after at the YWCA and I just might go, if I decide I like the book.

I'm listening to a biography of Mussolini because it was the most interesting-sounding audiobook download available to me at the library. So far, it's pretty interesting - and I know nothing about Italian history. Maybe I'll learn something.

I didn't run the Muskogee Run this morning. I stayed in town, ran 10 miles by myself, almost got hit by a car, flipped off the driver and felt ashamed of myself.

I almost get hit by cars on a pretty regular basis. This is the first time I can recall flipping a driver the bird. Not my finest half hour. I have all sorts of excuses - I was 7 miles into a 10-mile run, I was crossing with the light and the driver was rushing to make a left after their protected left had expired - I mean, I was right. I might have been killed, so a little angry gesture might not have been that big of a deal. It's just not something I normally do. Normally I take a deep breath and smile, telling myself the driver might have been having a bad day, was maybe distracted, in a hurry, maybe just got some bad news. Never mind the bad news my broken legs would be for me or what sort of a bad day I'd have, getting hit by a car while out for a run.

I normally remind myself of that thing someone wise said - something about how you should be kind to everyone you meet, for they are fighting a hard battle. This morning, though, I was all about my own hard battle. 

Like I said, not my finest half hour.

The driver of a Jeep waiting for the light to change added to my regrets with a single word. "Nice," he deadpanned, disgust in his voice. All sorts of retorts sprang to mind, but I shut my mouth and ran on, after the SUV that almost mowed me down was gone. I wanted to turn to Jeep Guy and deliver a wild lecture beginning with how it's not my JOB to be nice, I've been nice my whole fucking LIFE and what does he know about that, ending up somewhere in the systematic oppression of women by society - but my lecture had no teeth, being delivered by a 34-year-old perpetual adolescent with no real commitments or attachments (I won't even buy a couch, I joke, when people ask me why I'm still renting an apartment), enjoying the luxury of a weekend off from my cushy office job that pays me well enough to let me afford expensive running shoes, a GPS watch and innumerable other fancy little doodads while other people STARVE. 

The almost-getting-hit-by-a-car scared me into a gesture. Jeep Guy's comment pissed me off. Notice he didn't say "Watch out!" when the giant SUV was headed for me. He didn't speak at all, that I heard, until he saw an opening to make an ironic comment on my unplanned and unflattering gesture. So fuck that guy. Fuck that guy for hitting a nerve.

Maybe the Mussolini biography helped expose that nerve, going on and on about the pampered bourgeoisie until I was pretty sure everyone could see that underneath my expensive running shoes and expensive running socks was a fresh pedicure, a bright and cheerful pink I'd picked out on Friday and handed to the Vietnamese lady at my regular pedicure place - saying this out loud, I would have choked on the words, "regular pedicure place." 

I came home and made myself a protein shake while I put an egg casserole together. My mom's Betty Crocker cookbook calls the recipe "Savory Eggs," but I don't exactly follow the recipe anymore. Today I made savory eggs with swiss and cheddar cheeses, mushrooms, bell pepper and a tiny smidge of onion. I called it Philly Cheese Eggs. I put the casserole in the oven while I showered away 10 miles of sweat and regret. The eggs were cooked when I was clean - like magic.

My phone's camera died while I was in Miami, but I probably wouldn't have remembered to take photos of the eggs anyway. But they puffed up prettily and the finished product was delicious. I will try to recreate the recipe from the cookbook - I'll type it out exactly and try to get the fonts right, but it won't be the same. One of these days I'll take a picture of this cookbook and share it, and then maybe you'll understand. 

Savory Eggs

Different and delicious lunch or supper main dish; serve 

with buttered spinach and a salad bowl.

1 cup grated Cheddar cheese

2 tbsp. butter

1/2 cup cream

1 tsp. prepared mustard

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

6 eggs, slightly beaten

Heat oven to 325° (slow mod.). Sprinkle cheese in 

square pan, 9x9x13/4". Dot with butter. Mix cream, 

mustard, salt and pepper; pour half over cheese. 

Pour eggs over top, then remaining cream mixture. 

Bake 25 min. Serve at once. 6 servings.

I used Happy Eggs from my co-op, which meant I had to throw one away because there was a tiny chicken miscarriage inside. That's the risk you take when you insist on eggs from humanely raised chickens. Sometimes the chickens manage to find a way to get it on with some sexy rooster, and then the eggs they lay contain tiny potential chickens instead of just delicious yolks and whites. It's a fucking catch-22, people. I paid extra for eggs from chickens that had a decent life, so now I gotta look at their abortions, which kind of puts me off eggs altogether. Chickens, by the way, are complete sluts. Just like people.

All that aside, these eggs are delicious when they're not carrying semiprecious cargo and must be discarded.

I mixed Jarlsberg and Cheddar cheeses and used milk instead of cream. Powdered milk I mixed up, actually, because regular milk just goes bad in my fridge waiting to be used - I bought this powdered milk like 6 months ago and this is the first time I've opened it. Before I poured the second half of the milk-and-mustard mix, I sliced up a handful of mushrooms from my co-op, about a quarter of a bell pepper from the regular old grocery store, and just a little bit of a co-op onion. I sprinkled those over the cheese, eggs and milk, then drizzled the rest of the milk-and-mustard mix over the vegetables.

It needs to bake a little bit longer when you add a bunch of crap to the recipe like that. I like using a glass pan because, well, first of all, it's the only square pan I have. But even if I had a choice, I'd pick the glass one because you can see when the eggs start to get a weensy bit brown around the edges, and that's about when the middle is set and it's time to come out of the oven.

The next day, a square of this stuff on toast with a smear of Miracle Whip makes the best egg sandwich ever.

I listened to What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami and Carlos Eire's Learning to Die in Miami last week. Work's been really busy, see, and it's the kind of busy I generally like - I spend a lot of time researching towers. I'll get a purchase order with a  long list of jobs, and I'll have to gather documents and photos for each tower, also checking our system to make sure we haven't worked on the tower before. It's solitary work, involving a lot of time focused on a computer screen, saving document after document and counting antennas in photos. Listening to a book keeps me from overthinking when the work gets tedious. Having an earbud in helps me stay detached, which is no mean feat in my office. Detachment is crucial, as far as I'm concerned, in the constant petty squabbling that explodes in the air around me like angry swarms of wasps. I make jokes, I back away, I reluctantly offer my opinion only when put on the spot, and only if that spot is in the corner. I have no dog in this fight. I don't have a dog at all and I don't think dogfighting is okay. I have never been more miserable, I think. Then I remind myself that I've been plenty more miserable. It's just that I used to like going to work, at this office. Then everything changed and now I don't like it and the contrast is what makes me miserable more than anything else. If it had always been this way, I wouldn't notice - I probably would have quit a long time ago - but since it was once fun, since there are still parts of it I enjoy, since the misery flares up in such stark relief against what was once a peaceful, challenging, interesting workday, I notice. And I look at my retirement fund and wonder how long I could live on it if I cashed it in now. I think about deleting this paragraph because I wonder if it could get me fired. I think I'll leave it in.

April 15

I woke up on the futon with cats scattered around me. There are only two of them, but they're huge, so they can scatter pretty effectively. I made myself a cup of shitty coffee and picked up Poser again. I like the book. I don't know if I like it enough to attend an event - a signing, I'm thinking? I don't know, that something-or-other at the YWCA. I don't recall the exact details, but it was interesting enough that I marked it "Maybe" on Facebook when the event came up in my notifications.

I bought the most magnificent peacock brooch in Coconut Grove. It's glittery and beautiful and I have no idea how I'm ever going to wear it. It sits next to a pile of magazines on my desk, waiting to find a home. Maybe I can pin it to a bag or something. Once again, you need to see a picture and my stupid phone is dying bit by bit.

It has occurred to me to print these entries out and mail them to my dad, pretending it's a letter to him. When I do that, I hope I remember to delete this line.

Oh, I found the prettiest neighborhood yesterday! Around 26th and Lewis, there is a tiny little lane that looks like nothing but passes some of the most gorgeous houses I've ever seen. There were some ostentatiously expensive houses, but the real knockouts aren't those testaments to conspicuous consumption. There is a house or two back in that little secret area that almost stopped me in my tracks as I ran through. They didn't look real. They looked like houses described in books, but better realized than my brain could ever go because I'm still not clear on what a flying buttress or a dormer window is, or how eaves look when they're proper eaves and whether the garden path is just something I lead y'all down or a real thing headed for a real garden. My details aren't architectural. But these houses were amazing.

Also I found another charm as I was running. A red heart on a jump-ring. It looks like it came off a child's necklace or bracelet. The jump-ring is bent and a little rusty. I picked it up without really thinking. I don't know where it's going to go. I only know that I am a magpie, picking up bits and pieces. I don't know if I'll ever put it all together into a whole single piece. Is that really necessary, anyway?