Isn't It Pretty to Think So

I'm a cocktail shaker of emotions tonight.  I've tried to write this earlier but was capable only of adolescent mumbles.  I will try again.  Well lubed already.  God. . . who knows what madnesses the night has in store.  The worst kind, I'm certain, the madness of crazy, energized solitude.  It is a full moon, too, one I'll probably not be able to see in this horribly humid sky.  It will haunt me like Queen Mab tonight.

I gave up on going to the gym after work and opted for sushi instead.  It was the better choice given everything else.  And lo. . . when I sat outside on the veranda, the speakers were dead.  Lord above, I thought, it is a sign.

"You want the usual," the young waiter said.

"Yes, that is what I want tonight."

"Sake or beer?"

"Oh, hell, I'll take the sake.  I don't care that it is hot."

But I was wrong.  The heat and the humidity were stifling.  The sake went right through my pores, and I began to sweat like a drunkard drinking sake on a hot and humid evening.  I tried to write, but it was of little use.  I spilled a bowl of soy sauce and tried to wipe it up only making a sticky, dark glue across the table top.  Flies hurried over to lend their aid.  The friendly waiter came over and asked if he should cut me off.

"If you would, maybe you could just drive me to rehab?"

I hurried through my dinner thinking only to get home.

I keep the house too cold.  I learned that from a bad and wicked friend who never scrimped when it came to certain comforts.  Too cold was just right.

"Bonjour, Madame," I cooed to le chat.  "Et allait-il comment votre jour?"

She walked slowly by in that slinky way she has to make you think it is not her idea for you to pet her.

"Avez-vous faim?"

I gave her a handful of food and poured a little medicine to help the nervous and digestive systems.  Standing there watching Madame Chat poke at her food with a bit of disdain, I thought about the day.  It is one of the disadvantages to living alone, this thinking.

The factory job had gone along.  I had meetings all afternoon, the last one worse than the usual drivel.  And as the program droned on, I asked the fellow on my right a question, to which he responded.

"I'm sorry," I heard the Talking Boss say, "there are too many conversations going on in the room at once.  Maybe we can stop and listen to what you two are talking about."

"Oh, O.K." I said in a loud, inauthentic voice.  I hate authoritarians the way a Baptist hates a sinner.  My response was instantly good.  Impressive, really.  In some areas, I have skills.  It is funny to think how much my skills will cost me in the long run when it seems to me they should be recognized and rewarded.  But there is injustice in the world as we all know.

After the meeting, though, I took kudos from my fellow proles, and as we walked out, I began retelling the tale to my pals as we do, reliving the blows in slow motion and technicolor just in case they had not been paying perfect attention.

And just before I got back to my building, I looked up to the landing where a beautiful blonde was staring down at me.  She leaned over the railing, lifted her sunglasses, smiled and said, "Hey P.O.B."  That was her nickname for me once--Poor Old Bastard.

"See you later fellows," I said not taking my eyes from her.  She looked the same as she had twelve years ago.  I knew I didn't.

The rest will have to wait.  I wrote it all under the influence of the full moon and medicine, and it was not clever.  It was nothing at all.  I've tried to rewrite it this morning, but it remains impressively the same.  And besides, I had a message waiting in my email inbox this morning telling me what a lovely pain in the ass I am.  My flaw, I think, is that I can only see the first part of that.  I am blinded to the other.

But the full moon had its way and the night was full of stories.  There was in the end a greater madness to it all.  But it will keep.  Now. . . I must return to the factory.