Let the seasons begin

Today, I quit my job. I can begin to explain the exuberance that jolts through my veins when I really process those four words. I. QUIT. MY. JOB.

The poison that crept up my spine each day that filled me with anxiety and fear and made my face cringe up so tight that it was very difficult to smile, is now over. The benefits that I did not get are nevermore. The public embarrassment passive-aggressive torment is through. AND NOW...my life is anew! My heart can barley contain itself!

Here's how it went down.

I had a beautiful night last night in Echo Park with my boyfriend and two dogs and one cat and a bunch of cacti. We ate the best pasta in all of Los Angeles, went on a safari in the backyard, hung out on the floor with the two shaved sheep dogs, sat in an old 69' Dart and drank wine, watched Burn After Reading, and then slept like logs. When the alarm went off this morning at 7:30, I didn't get up.

I kept sleeping and was in the middle of I'm sure a very odd and enthralling dream of which I cannot recollect right now. At 8:37 I decided to pull myself together and prepare to go into the trenches of my workplace. Whenever I think about this process, I feel like a used ashtray. I took a shower, and it was so nice and so clam, the morning light was glowing through the fogged window in the bathroom and I did not want to leave. That was when the reality hit me, that I didn't quite accept yet, I didn't have to leave. I didn't have to keep poisoning myself. I was fully capable of not choosing to do that.

Still, I kept along with my morning routine which has dwindled down from actually making myself up and dressing like I give a damn to throwing on whatever I seem to have in my car from the past few days and covering my dark undereye circles with sunglasses hoping to still pass as a young woman, happy and hopeful.

Skip to 30 minutes later. I am driving on Alvarado Street headed towards the 10. The sun is beautiful and the heavy clouds are reflecting iridescent rays of light that burst out in every direction. I get so distracted I almost swerve into the car beside me, who then speeds up and cuts me off but I'm not mad. Typically, I'm pretty hyper-sensitive to how other people feel so I often find myself trying to either bring people up from sadness or down from anger. This is a pointless task for the most part.

Bob Dylan's Highway 69 album is playing and I feel fantastic! Minus the impending sense of doom that flashes through my mind at each red light, realizing I am that much closer to work. Realizing that I am ultimately going to go in and waste this glorious day away in a damp basement that has all the right asethetics and charm but none of the honest good feelings that I have outside in this day. Will I be there until 8 tonight? 9? 10? I push the putrid thoughts out of my mind and concentrate on Maggie's Farm. Through my coffee-colored lenses, everything looks so wonderfully vibrant.

On the highway, the work poison creeps back up through the nape of my neck and filters down through my arms. I light a cigarette and switch on Graveyard Woman. I think of the ocean and how at this very moment, there are waving crashing up towards the shore. Bubbling white foam is chasing little birds back from the sand where they scurry back and forth to nab up little bites of seafood. My heart is there and I realize that I can physically go there if I want. I do not have to go to work in this place where my heart dies and I'm constantly running back and forth for someone else who isn't the ocean. The idea is almost too much and I keep driving towards doom.

By the time I exit the highway, my mind is already made up. For posterity, I half-heartedly try to convince myself that I should be the bigger person. I should just forget these thoughts and go in and work and kiss some more ass and cause no one any trouble. It is too late though, the ties to this job were cut back at that red light on Alvarado. I am done. Now I am a block away from work, I can either go in and be an empty shell of a person and grow increassingly angry on the inside and be a decent person, or I can go see the ocean.



You can picture the rest.

Being a Rug

To be a rug.

I laid on the floor last night after dissolving a spoonful of banana-split ice cream in my mouth, and after the taste left my tongue, I began to wonder what it would be like to be a rug. A rug does many things that for the most part go virtually unnoticed. Of course it is a dead thing, an inanimate object. But if it was alive, how would it go about it's daily routine? How would it take everything in?

Here's what I did to find out:

Lie down on the floor on your back, preferably on a hardwood floor so as to feel the ground beneath you and the barrier you provide the feet that will walk upon you. Feel what being a comfort and softness for feet is.

Now, close your eyes and listen to the room you are in. Is it a kitchen? With a tea kettle beginning to boil, a water faucet turned on rinsing dirty dishes, footsteps pattering this way and that, clinging of pans, the blunted slam of wooden cabinets and spices being opened, sprinkled, and then set aside...someone humming their favorite song?

Breath as softly and as quietly as you can. Remember...you cannot see your body, you have no limbs, you are a rug, one stretch of fabric laid on the ground. Stay still and listen to everything outside of yourself. Pay no mind to the noises you make.

Now, open your eyes, slowly, quietly, and look about your room. Blend in. Do you see people talking? Chattering? How do they look? What do their faces say? Are they burrowing their feet in your warmth while they dance along conversation? A rug could get lonely if there's no one walking around, it has too much time to think about itself, about how it could have been a flying carpet...

Look up at their eyes and tell me what they say. Are these people close? Or are they far apart? Can you see the nervousness or excitement in their eyes when they begin to laugh after an awkward sentence? You can really see the truth underneath the feet and eyes of the players, like a child.

Do not move, do not speak, watch them. Watch the room. Be still.

Can you stay long enough? For you cannot move, your head cannot turn, you only have eyes and ears but you can feel the weight pressed upon you. You live only through your observations. And though if you're lucky enough to have an owner that cleans you so you look nice, picks up the crumbs they spill on you so the roaches don't scamper over you at night, and straightens you out every time someone accidentally skews you out of your normal straight line so you feel equalized; that's all a rug could hope for. But you would have quite a bit of knowledge stored in your threats. Wear and tear, sweat and wine, and probably a lot of other things that humans disperse on their trappings.

A rug truly does have the most unobtrusive patience of anything I have ever thought about, besides perhaps a blanket that waits for you wherever you may toss it and stays there until you are cold again and need it’s warmth.

Ultimately from this experiment I realized again,
DIFFERENT VIEWPOINT = DIFFERENT THOUGHTS.