Straight No Chaser

Also

i hate this orange shirt and the way people respond to me when i'm wearing it. i tend to stick to drab colors at the office--black pants, black tops, white tops, earthtone skirts, fleshtone shoes--so as to chameleon my way through my days, slipping under the radar when i need to get stuff done. the cubicle is an ugly shade of tannish gray. so am i, in sum, when dressed the way i normally am here. today i picked this ribbed orange top that falls low beneath the buckle of my black pants, hoping the bright color would neutralize my mood and level of consciousness. instead its primary effect has been to make me a perfect target for anyone wanting a quick conversation between duties. "that shirt brings out the color in your," began this one lady, and i waited for the end of that sentence (eyes, hair, skin, what?), and she finished it off with "--great shirt." come on now. i finally had to put on a hoodie, one with the name of my school emblazoned across the front, and while i have a reasonable amount of school pride, i'm not one to advertise my status as the only one on management without a degree. the orange is hidden for now, but burns underneath.

the sade woman isn't here. i'm worried that yesterday was a fluke, that she, like me, was transitioning between desks and is now stationed somewhere permanent, where her music is playing constantly but just not close enough. i keep humming "kiss of life" out of subconscious longing for her. that in itself, my own humming, is driving me crazy.

the window lost its magic when i saw the purple bird shit all over the awning. and when i realized it looks into one directly across the street, one that opens into a room that is clearly used for couples counseling. directly below, on the next lower floor, gymboree. and above, art class: papered floors, easels everywhere, one guy in a smock hanging decorations from the ceiling. class isn't in session yet, apparently; when it starts, i'll be wishing i could be there instead of here, and i might start wanting to close the window. i have, also, this tremendous desire to write about the people outside (yesterday a reader asked whether a poem was waiting between the slats of my blinds, and i said no, but that i'd try to use them as a prose press), but am wrenchingly afraid of what i'm going to see if i just perch on the ledge and stare, and how it's going to factor into my present worldview. not positively, i'm afraid. even the kids in the gymboree class are bothering me; i looked at them and heard "#42" and had a hard time looking away. it is unbecoming to cry at work. i will not do it.

people are randomly reading and commenting on "Invalid Item"  in waves, weird only because i haven't touched it in at least a year, and at this point the only people who go near it (and cringe away, in many cases) are people raiding the entirety of my portfolio. no one just stumbles in, chooses the longest, most tedious read and then comments, unprompted. i'm starting to think it must be sponsored somewhere? i love the exposure but hate not being able to control where it's being plugged. i hope the sponsorship ends soon and that people go back to ignoring it. it's like a giant white elephant weighing down that whole folder.

i think it'll be days before i can review anything else. meanwhile i'm gestating two stories at once, one more precocious than the other. grim's is still stuck in last week's holding pattern, so close to done that i want to scream. the other one, the nine-way one, consists of precisely zero words thus far, but is providing a preliminary hell all its own. i'm taking my time on my favorite part, working out the genetics of the subject family, but next comes those hateful characterization exercises, plot curves, horseshit i hate and will probably skip. i plan things and they turn out disastrously. i jump right in and serendipity takes over. somehow i haven't figured out how to apply that to real life yet. anyway, one of the characters is ninety-nine percent me, not by design, but because i convinced myself i'd run out of unique personalities and needed to borrow. writing is nearly as horrid a passion as love.

if i were a poet i'd be scribbling everywhere. fortunately, the fuckers didn't even give me post-it notes this year, so it's no great loss.

none of this is it. orange shirts and such i couldn't care less about. every so often the puppetmaster just tugs the wrong string, and i fall asleep feeling unwanted and underappreciated, mistreated and misunderstood. then wake up ninety minutes later and watch the world turn the same ugly shade of gray as my cube. but don't worry. the string isn't the poison, just the activator. i'd explain more clearly if i knew how to write at all.

ROAR.