Sometimes, I swear, it's like he knows the camera is on. And off he goes bathing like some kind of kitty porn exhibitionist.

...as though one word from him would set it right. She waited. She waited until the red glow read 12:00, until the screams inside her threatened to leap through her taut lips, until the catalyst of her nervous thoughts threw waves of energy through her fingers still clutching the sheets.

And then she let go, slid out, of the bed, of the room, of her worries, and let go to arrive at a place she knew all too well. Midnight with a single light, and only the distant world for company.

And even then she knew she'd have to return sometime.

10 AM to 3 PM:
The indoor temperature where I work never dropped below 105 degrees.

I have to go find all that skin that melted off me.
Oh... and I'd like to thank every out of state customer who felt it necessary to tell me that "back home it's still in the 60's!" Yes, thank you, very much.

7.5 hours and counting until the Tuesday workday, and here I am, click, click, clickin' away. This is the first night in a long while that sleep has run from me, and rather than continue to fidget beneath the sheets for another hour, I left sleep alone.

What I have to show for it:

George W. Bush's Resume
A sad obituary for a dearly departed friend...
PublicRadioFan.org
Catch Dubs

I have to go to bed.
Really.

Run Josh, run.

...Although, I'd have to side with the idea that politics are the sandbox of the rich, and the regular man (or woman) on the street doesn't have a chance in hell at playing with big kids. There's a system of control in place: money controls the media, the media controls the public, the public keeps the money in office. Until restrictions are in place to keep people out of the voting booths who have no idea what they're voting for or against, the control system will continue to work, unimpeded. Case in point, I know two people who voted for Bush on the grounds that he "just sounded better... I don't know."

But run, anyway. Exercises in futility are always, at the very least, entertaining.

I feel bare, passing the houses and lives, on a street I've walked one hundred times. The grass lawns rise cool and wet to greet me, licking my legs with pockets of soft, damp air. And I'm lost in new release. I find myself among the iron-railed balconies hiding in curtains of willow leaves; the furtive-eared cats resting in window sills; the living rooms glowing in blues and golds. And in the whispering quiet of crickets singing hymns, I am reborn inside my sad flesh.

Finally, someone says what I've been thinking all along:

"Anyone devoted enough to download audience-recorded live versions of a song by a favorite group will surely purchase a professionally made take."

I am where life goes to die.

Melodramatic? Maybe. Accurate? Yes.

Since beginning my 30+ hour work schedule, I've been numbed to the entire world. Every joyful space in my soul has filled with the white noise of shuffling papers, and every witty thought I've harbored has shriveled and died before even blooming.

I realize now that I had never been tested, and now that I'm being tried... I'm failing, painfully.

A few thoughts:

Office work is spirit-crushing.
This room needs 500% more furniture.
Cats and chili do not mix.
I need 800% more excitement.
I've been a lazy blogger, and I almost care.

Too often now I find myself grabbing at moments, determined to find one moving enough to leave an impression, a mark, a memory. And all too often now, they slide through my hands like water, only blue with the shadows of substance.

At times I feel content. On Sunday mornings with the sun joining us in bed as your eyes and rested smile meet mine across the sheets. On cool evenings in the wake of the day, finding silence in the song of a single bird. At times I do feel content.

But I've been fighting to hold these moments, to make them last, to endure more than the four seconds that my contentment will grant me. The time between them is a vast gray sea of monotony, and I am weary worn with wait and boredom.

All right people, sound off.

Tonight's debate originated from a movie outing. Two older women enter the small theater, five minutes into the previews. The bottom half of the theater remains open, while the upper half is nearly full with most open seats being separated into singles. One of the women slides past me and asks the couple next to us (rather loudly for an already dimmed theater) if they would slide down so that she and her friend could sit together.

My position: If you show up late to a movie, you deserve shit seats. And if you ask me to move down, after I've been there thirty minutes before the previews even start so that I could get the seat I want, I'll tell you to shove raisinets...

Anyway, there are those who think my response is rude. I think the people who ask you to move are rude.
So which is it?

{Cue cheesy celebratory trumpet and chimes music.
Echo effect on vocals.}

Aaaaand now...

It's that time once again...

Time for
The Random Link Awards!

I'm just that lazy this evening.
Heh.

First up, our prize for best new web toy featured in a very recent post:
Rob's Amazing Poem Generator
You never know what you really mean until you see it in poetry.

The award for newly discovered, endearing animation site goes to:
Homestarrunner.com
Nothing sexier than a cartoon character in a Mexican wrestling mask.

And finally, the winner of sexiest celebrity (of sorts) blog goes to:
Pajo & Paz's Journal
Zwan, up close and personal...

This page in poem form (Courtesy Rob's Amazing Poem Generator):

the early mornings,
you say,
until she slinked off
to feel him reaching back,
She was gone, like a topic, you reach
to be reheld
in the depth contour
marked on my desk,
and before I
meant it,
allowed me to taste the other
girls here

You know, I quite like it.
But of course I would...

She so desperately wanted to feel him reaching back.
She so desperately needed to be wanted.
But her hands stayed empty
And her words unheard
Until she gave up trying
All together.

Bravo, Texas Democrats. Bravo.

For once, the Democratic Party has decided to grow a spine and refuse to be told what to do by the GOP. Rather than let Tom DeLay and his cronies in the Texas legislature redraw the state's voting districts to put more Republican heads in Congress, Texas' Democrats just left - and a small key group of them are still holding out in Oklahoma until the vote is dropped all together.

Brilliant.

Listen to the Republicans cry, "It's in violation of our state constitution! They're holding up the legislative process!" Isn't it funny how constitutions become something worth protecting when it's in your party's best interest? And who exactly is holding up important reform? Couldn't all this time be better spent on reforming education or health care? Oh wait, we're talking about Republicans... So, no.

Either way, I'd like to applaud these renegade Texas lawmakers for finally standing up to the party of bullies in its home state. ...If only the cowards in Congress would get the hint and do the same.

Addendum:
I just adore the way the New York Times decided to close their article on this subject:
"Supporters stopped by with fruit baskets."
Journalistic brilliance in all its pseudo-stoic splendor.

I'm last year's toy.
Collecting dust and feeling obsolete
In the presence of newer models
With more buttons that make more noise.
Nothing quieter now
Than the sound of my own wait.
When the dust resettles,
I'll be the collector's item.

Location, location, location.

I tucked myself away between two jejune moments and found a tiny scrap of paper left behind in the decay of reinvention. It read like secrets you tell the moon. So I settled in and did some retracing. I skimmed along the past with the fingers of my mind, sliding along the maps of paths taken and not, and discovered that I had loved and I had lost and I had been. So I clutched up that treasure, newly found from being lost, and buried it in my pocket to be reheld in another forgotten crevice of life's routine.

Sometimes I forget that I was once a whole person, sparkling with anger and lusty moongazer dreams.

The calendar went by, tack by tack to another white wall, until nothing was left at all. Nothing but an automaton girl with a "How do you do?" smile and eyes that barely smile at all.

I exaggerate. My new thing. It helps me taste the old me, as if she were in the room and I could just take her hand and tell her to return. If only I could make things more exciting than they are.

But she left the room a year ago, two years ago. It's hard to tell. She was inching toward the door and before I knew it, she was gone, like a cat you reach to pet who's long since grown bored of your attention. She slinked off to be loved elsewhere.

Some days I forget her shine, her rawk sign, her angry regrets and self-denial, the way she hated at full attention and loved just the same, her dumb boyfriend anger, her petty sidewalk capers, her pumpkin lust, her moondust fantasies, her refusal to eat because no no no I'm too fat, her shimmering anger and satellite love.

I forget her until she walks in the door with tickets in her hands, saying let's go let's go let's go...

But I work tomorrow, and the cat must be fed, and who knows what's on TV tonight - it's probably too good to miss.

Time: 10 hours past maximum sun exposure
Feeling: Warm and crunchy... like toast
Latest Regret: Sunscreen, why don't I ever remember sunscreen?
Latest Annoyance: Being too warm and tired for sleep
Hearing: The click, click, click of the fan's pull-chain above my head
Wondering: What's wrong with liking toast that's only slightly tan? Huh? There's nothing wrong with that.
Sorting Through: Mother's Day photomoments
Latest Tasty Food Surprise: The breakfast burrito from McDonalds. I'm ashamed, but I love it.
Number Of Friends I'd Like To Hear From: 2
"Oh yeah" Remembrance Of The Night: I was in a car accident two days ago. More on that later.
Immediate Plans: Giving sleep another chance, this time without the comforter.

Going to the video store is always a fiasco.

Why the sudden veer off topic, you ask? Not that there was a topic, I reply. Well, yeah, you say, but still, video stores and "woe is me" babble aren't exactly in the same basket. Whatever, I retort in frustration, can I go on? Oh, you say, please do.

That's why there's now a little notepad paper list sitting silently on my desk. "Movies to Rent" it calls itself. If only things were so simple. This little list isn't as innocuous as it may seem. No, no, it harbors greater powers than just the ability to tell us what to watch. It also glows with intensity as it screams out the fundamental differences in the way Tony and I see the world.

Jenny, I think you need to lay off the early mornings, you reply. But if you saw it, you'd know what I mean.

Allow me to demonstrate.
Under my list of movies to rent: Igby Goes Down, Moonlight Mile, Nora, and Run Lola Run.
Under Tony's list of movies to rent: The Transporter and Extreme Ops.

This little list is more than what it seems.
(Glaring at the paper in front of me)

Yeah, you're right, I need to stop waking up so early.

Work followed me into bed last night. Just slid under the sheets and cozied up to my right arm as if I had asked it to.

Have fun in Chicago, Jenni...
We'll miss you.

I concede. I've been defeated. I give up. Here's the flag.

With a short, four hour work day and one day off tomorrow, I feel like I've been granted some special prize. They've actually ground my hopes and soul into thinking 36 hours of free time is magnificent.

"Oh what will I do with all that time to myself?!" I ponder all aflutter.

What happened? When did I relent?
And now that I have, will I ever find myself again?

Life is becoming so suddenly sterile. Work has me tied down to an ever-changing schedule. Jenni is running away to Chicago. And these 7AM to 11PM days seem stiflingly "normal." There has to be someway to derail this train, if only to watch the cleanup.

Another day, another day of work.
If I knew my next day off, I might be able to stand it, but now, as I continue with no sign of rest in sight, I can't help but feel a bit like Sisyphus.
Another day, another march up the hill with that damn boulder.

And all this while Spring Jamboree is going down. I'm missing out on the small town action.

Figures.

The roads are surprisingly alive at 7:30 in the morning, as the sun is gently sliding into the sky. I'm new to this world myself. The blues and the greens and the light of pure calm are more dazzling than the blacks of night had ever been. Though I still question myself here, an intruder in a time not mine, and the sun's gentle slide seems to mirror a duplicit lover returning from treacherous night affairs to climb quietly into bed.

Miserable. If I had to describe this new job in one word, it would be 'miserable'. Yeah yeah, it's only my first day, but the girl who trained me filled me in on the fact that she hasn't had two days off in a row since September. Fucking September, in customer service. I've just gone from a leisurely three days a week to signing my soul away with all of the hours I used to have for the enjoyment of simply being alive. Miserable.

Though it wouldn't improve household sentiment if I were to threaten to quit.... So we'll see how it goes, and maybe, MAYBE, I'll be willing to sell myself for a month or two more to this hellhole, but that's it.

Damn. Just when I thought that nothing could be worse than boredom.

Damn.
Damn.
Damn.

Today I start my new job, and I'm wondering what I'm worth and what I am. I've been doing a lot of that lately. I feel so compelled to value myself as I've been told to, on the basis of my market skills. I fought that indoctrination from the moment I became aware of it. High school teachers pressed organization, discipline, hierarchy, and I knew there was more. My mother stressed normality, routine, resignation, and I knew she was closed-minded. The world told me to straighten up, fly right, put on that happy face even if you're selling your youth away for pennies, and I began to think, "Maybe they're right." Resignation's setting in, cloaking my higher thought processes like a wet blanket, and today I start my new job - wondering what I'm worth. I suppose I'll find out.