waylaid

What I keep thinking of is a girl who moves into an apartment in a neighborhood she doesn't know well. Her downstairs neighbor is a shouter and a screamer. This neighbor lives with her mother, who is a good person but who insists she has a bad heart, that the sound of the girl above is ticking days, months, years off of her life. The girl learns to step lightly up the stairs, across the tile of the kitchen, easing toe to heel. She chastises her visitors for too-loud laughter or for idiosynchratic foot-tapping without hesitation or premeditation. She only plays with her cat if she knows he'll be scrabbling for twine on the soundproof surface of the mattress, his untrimmed claws shredding through the sheets to foam padding, through foam padding to quilted bed. There's something cowardly about this way of life. Something overly precious and falsely concerned. I'm afraid this is, again, a fucking metaphor.

It's the classic blog post: where did she go; what the hell is she doing; why the hell do I keep coming back if there's nothing the fuck new? I'm a bit crushed by work right now, and please, feel quite free to make as much fun of me as you so desire. Work is a pleasure, a privilege. My apartment and place of work are dry and everyday I eat so well as to gain back the weight lost to graduate school. My nails and hair are growing so fast. So what if I'm not getting paid much? So what if my potential for advancement is equal to my willingness to sacrifice my personal life and my own creative work. The notion of the overworked and overfed girl ironically fits my own laziness. I have time. For thinking about and working to do all things. Including this goddamned blog.

The ladyfriend over at Tangential is totally on top of the mushrooming social, political, and above all human consequences and responses of Hurricane Katrina. We spent hours crying and watching the news together on Friday. Watching Aaron Broussard, President of Jefferson Parrish, break down into sobs when he tells the story of the parish's emergency manager, calling to tell his nursinghome-bound mother they were coming to save her day after day, only to have her drown after five days of waiting. Watching Kanye West's deadpan delivery of a statement that everyone was thinking but no one was saying. Fuck, even Matt Damon is spouting negative shit about Bush.

Something is happening here, people. I hope you're paying attention because shit is bigger than the pathetic and miniscule discomforts of my life.