the quick glance

1.)
Joy blew out the flame on her Sterno and settled into her saggy futon to enjoy her can of beans. She always felt like a bit of a hobo on bean night. 'A bottle of Thunderbird in a paper bag would make this night perfect' she said to herself. She felt that cold, empty feeling, wishing for a second that she did indeed have a bottle of Thunderbird.

Fred Rogers wasn't rolling too bad tonight. The extra aluminum foil she had put on her antenna seemed to really help pull in 'QED. Speedy Delivery came on and she laughed so hard beans flew out of her mouth. Joy finished her meal and quietly sang along to 'won't you be my neighbor?'

A single tear ran down her face as she finished the song. A good neighbor was all she ever wanted to be. She wanted to be everyone's neighbor.

Joy threw the can away and shook the Sterno to make sure she had enough fuel for the next meal. She turned off the TV. A loud 'click' and the picture shrunk smaller and smaller than made a quiet 'pop' noise. It was an old 19" with a rotary dial that she dumpster dove for. It was someone else's garbage but to her it was golden.

She gathered up what little change she had from her various hiding places throughout the flat and organized them into neat piles by coin type on her nightstand/kitchen table/countertop. She pulled the crumpled wad of bills from her pocket, flattened them out and counted up her funds. $9.55 would be enough to get food for at least 4 or 5 days if she stretched it.

Joy walked over to her mirror, found on another dumpster dive, and looked at herself. A beautiful 25 year old woman with long blond hair, perfect porcelain skin, eyes from heaven, and a knockout smile looked back.

She brushed her matted blond hair with a brush half broken and continued to see the past.

Joy took put her money in her right front pocket, the change pocket, for safety.

She clipped her Walkman to her belt, put her headphones on, and slid in her Bel-Biv-Divoe tape. She had dozens of tapes in her flat but always found her self listening to Bel-Biv-Divoe. It reminded her of prom and being crowned queen.

Joy walked the back way to Giant Eagle. Ever since the clubs opened, there were always assholes making comments to her on the main street. She could still be a good neighbor in the back alleys.

She smiled with her mouth closed as the woman rang her out. "Is this it?" the cashier always asked Joy, as if she expected Joy to one day walk in with a hundred or an EBT card and buy pounds of shrimp and steak and milk and everything else rich people by.

"That's all today, Joyce" Joy said through pursed lips. Joy didn't hate Joyce. She was a good neighbor to everyone, Joy was. Joyce just got a little nosy sometimes.

$9.55 bought Joy 4 cans of Cambell's Chunky soup. 4 Cans of baked beans. And an 8 pack of generic hot dogs. That was enough food for 4 days, and 4 days was enough time for Joy to find a job, even an odd one.

She would never take hand outs. Never put her head down. She was a good neighbor, she added to the community. She couldn't name a specific instance when she picked up trash because she did it so often, it was instinct. She occasionally volunteered at the shelters she was eligible to eat at.

"Have a nice night, Joy" leaked through Joy's headphones as 'B.B.D. (I Thought It Was Me)?' whirred on.

"You too, Joyce." Joy kept her head up and walked out into the night.

2.)

The night air burned her lungs a bit, woke her up, and made her feel alive. 'People bitch about the cold!' she said to her neighbors 'I embrace it!' She took deep breaths to match her long strides. Walked right past the alley headed for Carson St, to see her neighbors.

She trucked past 16th street. On the corner of 17th and Carson, she happened exchange a quick glance, a chance glance, that lasted an eternity for Joy.

A kid, no, a man, a man sitting on his skateboard, his face young but his eyes weary from life, exchanged quick glances with Joy.

She smiled slightly in this instant and blinked and saw an eternity.

"How are you doing tonight, beautiful?" he said, and then her life changed from that of rags to theirs of riches. He had a job, insurance, a house, a car, a life, a future. He picked her up, made her feel beautiful again, and spun her around and around without ever letting her touch the ground. She was able to be more than a good neighbor, she got to be a great neighbor, spending her time attending to various charities, helping children, helping friends, families, animals, neighbors. She didn't have to worry about herself because he did; she only had to be a great neighbor.

Her eyes opened and her right foot fell to the pavement followed by the left foot instinctively carrying her forward.

The glance ended and so did her dream.

Giant Eagle

When he came to he was staring at the non-alcoholic beer and the mixers. It took him a second to get his bearings. His hands were tightly grasping the stale orange handle of a shopping cart that was presumably his. He was leaning with approximately 65% of his body weight on the cart. He was staring at the non-alcoholic beer and the mixers, and past that the dairy aisle.

The trip through the supermarket was mentally walked through in reverse mentally by the man in less than an instant. Kind of chose your own adventure, where you're trying to recall the last 15 minutes of your life.

This was happening more and more often and during the instantaneous recollection of what brought him to staring at the non-alcoholic beer and the mixers he felt a little worried.

He had just looked at the new issue of Thrasher magazine and got a sense of deja-vu, half way through realizing he had leafed through the exact same magazine only days earlier.

Before that, a trip up the cleaning aisle for some dran-o for the fucking toilet that had clogged again that morning via the paper aisle for some tee-pee and tissue paper, all generic, all on sale. Half-gallon of milk and some O.J., Orange Juice on sale, milk was not. Two birthday cards for two birthday boys and before that some fruit from produce.

Bananas. Bananas contain alot of B vitamins and potassium and help keep the liver functioning when you drink a ton of booze.

He heard the clack clack clack clack clackclackclack clickety clack again in his ears as loud as it had been minutes earlier and the muted small talk of the strangers in motion and he felt like he was going to lose it again, the same feeling of being on edge he had while in produce.

3-300 seconds had gone by and he was still staring at the goddamn non-alcoholic beers and the mixers and wondering why the last five minutes of his life had disappeared as soon as he laid eyes on the O'douls, the O'douls in particular.

'The booze?' he thought,' is this some kind of trigger, my brain is so hard-wired to it, that any kind of stimulus puts me into a daze?'

It had been four days since he had a drink and yet here he was, pavlov's dog, losing his mind over the non-alcoholic beer and the mixers.

Neon lights always got him excited.

He pushed his cart back into the sea of anonymity, checked out, and prepared for the next day, same as every other.

Slowest Printer Ever!

I'm printing out a copy of my novel for submission to Six Gallery Press. They're an indie publishing house here in the burgh. I think if I have a shot with anyone at this point it's with them.

It's kind of disheartening to send out 25 query letters to 25 literary agents and receive 25 rejection letters back. I see why people give up on their hopes and dreams. I'm pretty sure I will never realize my dream of being a writer, making a living off of it, writing what makes me happy (not Technical fucking Manuals).

I feel like I need a change, a spark, something to get the fuck out of this day to day mundacity of work, drink, work, drink, skateboard. I'm rapidly careening toward a life of white picket fences and couples only dinner parties and I don't know what that's going to be like. Sick of it all. Death or Glory? Fuck. The desire that once burned inside, forcing me to try and seek greatness, has dwindled.

So this is the New Year....

2008 was rung in with 320 glasses of Gin N Tonic. Well. I don't know why they call it well. I guess it's legit if they're saying that as in 'tastes like it was pulled from a well' not well meaning good. I puked about 10 times throughout the course of the day. My body was that offended by being fed so much crap it forced an all day purge. Not even Dabney Coleman could help me. He's my imaginary friend. That's my new years resolutin - to have Dabney Coleman as an imaginary friend. I'm pretty F-ing stoked. It's going to be like Cloak & Dagger except I work in a fucking office. So like Cloak & Dagger but the complete opposite.

So what of the new year? What of the old year?

2007 came and went. I can't believe it's 2008. Fucking craziness.

I traveled alot this year. Florida thrice. London twice. Beijing twice. Travelling is not the same as it used to be when there's someone at home waiting. I guess it's lost its' luster. All part of growing up and growing old, settling down and settling in.

I'm changing jobs in April. That is, if they don't lay me off first. Those motherfuckers. I dunno. They dude who's replacing me is starting on Jan the 14th. As long as we get the Vegas monorail contract, things look good for getting back into Mechanical Design. I think going in that direction is the smartest move for me right now. I can't stand manual writing and training anymore. It's driving me fucking nuts. I might have one more trip to Taiwan in April. Boo hoo.

I just realized that blogging is making me depressed.