welcome any change. three things.

That cloud looks like an upside-down cone over south-city. At its edges are sheets of rain that say that while it's not raining here, it's raining like a waterfall just over there. And we're in for it. This one looks like a global warming kind of storm the likes of which we have only recently become familiar with. This is a storm I'm going to have to beat home so as to not get into a car accident amidst thousands of motorists who all have on their mind that this might be Armageddon and it's all our fault. If I can just make it home this last time, I swear I'll never drive my car again. And the urgency makes it seem unbelievable that we can ever walk around as if the world weren't coming to an immediate end. That's God in the clouds, and he's hanging out with the Devil. They worked together before and have been planning a one-day reunion for the rapture. On this day they're doing the same job. One wears a steadfast and righteously dutiful expression on his face. The other's expression's the same, 'cept he's kinda showing off. Fifteen minutes later I'm home and the local weatherman's graphic shows a shining sun behind a few small clouds and droplets of lingering rain. Underneath the fear of total apocalypse is a hope that something is going to change without our having to make it happen. Humanity makes a collective wish for all that revelation stuff to finally happen.

I'm weaving through potholes and we're discussing the effects of living in a world full of stupid people who like stupid things. If you don't believe this is how it is, you've never seen a show called The Real World. On this show are some people who live in a house. There's a room in this house marked only with the word “Invite.” This room is reserved for whoever has gotten lucky on any given night. To be fair, these people are chosen to be on this show because they are stupid, and therefore do not represent an accurate sample of our population. But then, the show has been on and been popular for how many years? If life imitates art (and here art means any fucking show on Mtv) then there are millions of people out there who think it's okay to say things like “Don't take it personal,” and to address strangers as “Sexy ass girl!” The effect that this has on me is of no concern to anyone. To say how this makes me feel would be self-indulgent. Nothing is more important to people than to say how they feel – even when no one cares and no one is listening. Caring and listening are not required of an audience for a personal rant. I'm weaving through potholes and saying that it makes me sad and angry. And god help me if I have to live like this for the rest of my life. It's a bad dream. I'll wake up and Fergie won't have set the bar for emotional depth. But then maybe it's all real and the last place of refuge will be in one or two circles scattered around the planet where people still think Jack Kerouac was kind of full of shit. Maybe it's a matter of getting used to it all. And maybe I'll designate one room in my new apartment as the “Invite” room.

It was on this word-processor that I wrote five five-paragraph essays the summer before my Junior year of high school for the upcoming fall-term's geology class. There are snapshots from that time and they all smell like this room with red carpet and like the keys whose clicking has probably gotten louder in the eleven years that have passed since I stapled those twenty-five sheets together: Cutting grass in long-sleeves, retreating to the dark and cold basement and dying with a can of Pepsi on the fold out sofa. Sitting in class admiring my new Doc Martens with one foot propped on my knee and feeling like this was the most freedom I'd ever been allowed in school or in any setting up 'til this point. Waking up at two in the afternoon, horrified that the leaves on the ground seemed to match the life-cycle of this Saturday and of my shortening time. Smelling those books in the library and sensing their heft. Wishing I had gotten an earlier start. Snapshots are nuisances and they are a curse. I've gotten better at not remembering those things. Those words that people say when they think it won't matter have much better places to hang out than in my brain.

eighteen minutes and counting. three things.

“In the box that you're sitting on top of are all of my belts from martial arts. That's why I was just standing there letting him yell at me. I wish he would take a swing.” This is two hours and several drinks after all hell breaks loose outside as I'm flipping stools. When you kick the drunks out, they just take all their newly unleashed stupidity along with them. Watching them go at it through the floor-to-ceiling windows is like seeing some awful episode of cops on a big-screen. There's the belief that people have regarding fights that the more people there are standing around to stop it, the more likely it is to stop before anyone gets hurt. There is also a belief that the person “holding back” one of the two fighting parties is actually holding back one of the two fighting parties. The words, “let me attem” or “ooh, I'm' so mad” always occur to me. The reality is that the more people involved in the whole scuffle actually count simply as more people standing in a circle just outside of harm's way and trying to shape their faces into an expression of concern and of being prepared at any time to intervene, but only if necessary. It's sad in theory that this kind of shit-flinging is happening between two adults, 27 and 29 years old. Only in theory, tho. I'm flipping all the stools upward for the night. I'm wondering if I can pour out the last of these drinks. I'm thinking this cooler is leaking and should probably be checked out. And that this is not my bar.

Sitting on a stool (so as to be higher than everyone else) is a tubby “chef.” Around him sit a circle of people whom he fears secretly, but who (as part of their jobs) suck his member and do so with varying degrees of fervor and success. They're talking about wine, a few of them, as everyone tastes a new Red. “Erin came up with a good word to describe this,” says our sommelier. “Yeah, I think this one tastes leathery.” “Ooh, that's good,” says her co-worker and boyfriend. There's no way of knowing how far you can roll your eyes back into your skull (and make sure no one sees it) until you're confronted with someone who says this wine tastes leathery, or that this wine has a real “bass note,” or until you hear someone who claims to have ever drank the stuff describe Moscatto as being “like Peach Schnapps, but not.” I want to be there on the last day of sommelier training when they tell you that the big secret you'll take with you and will enable you to blow countless plumes of smoky bullshit up countless restaurant owners' sphincters is that it's all a word game, and the drippier and more abstract the better. If ever I assemble a list of wines, it will be progressive with respect to alcoholic content, rounding out with my highly recommended “Fortified” assortment.

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