Running to Stand Still

"And your focus begins...now!" The muscular gentleman with the intense, fanatical gaze on the screen begins a sequence of jumps and squats and picking up heavy things and putting them back down again, while I struggle to keep up.

My heart pounds, skin drips sweat, as I bend over and stand up again, over and over, running in place and lifting weights, "crunching abs" and "flexing the core."

I am losing weight, fighting time, exhausted, muscles burning, but I take some consolation in the knowledge that, no matter what, at some point, the video is going to stop.

Down to Earth

"You'll get an email, confirming your order, which goes to you and Gary," she says, explaining the supply process for the office to which I really ought to be paying attention, but this chair I'm sitting in is fascinating me.

It's orange plastic on a black metal frame, wide base both front-to-back and side-to-side, and it's very stable, like freakishly so. I'm used to tipping back in my chair, balancing on the two back legs, mitigating the boredom of everyday work (or school when I did it as a kid) with the occasional gut-dropping panic of almost falling back, and affecting a certain nonchalance with my unconventional sitting style.

But this chair, it won't tip back except with the application of quite a bit of force, and then it immediately tips back down to earth four-legs-square in a most irritating fashion, no matter what I seem to do, ruining the whole effect.

Prideful Knifework

Cilantro, green and fragrant, chopped fine, and then pungent onions and jalapeño, ditto. The clip of metal on wood, chopping away, and her keys in the lock as she arrives home.

"You never chop as hard as when you're making guacamole," she says, coming into the kitchen. "You take such pride in your work."

All We Like Sheep Have Gone Astray

"He's actually a long-haired German Shepherd," she replies, "and I'm training him to be a good citizen so he can visit sick people in the hospital."

"Working dogs need jobs," I say, trotting out my standard phrase as we continue across the street..

"Yes," she says, nodding agreement, "but he really likes to herd, anything that runs, really, so we sometimes get yelled at by parents in the park."

I imagine this 110 pound furry giant, a catcher-in-the-rye in Prospect Park, body checking toddlers and nipping gently at young children as they streak through the meadow in maddening abandon, driving a dog to distraction in the traditional way that all lambs do in the spring.

Not Even Close

Shannon seems to regret having started a conversation with us as much as we regret her continuing it, but she can't quite figure out how to extract herself, probably due to the fact that she's just this side of blackout drunk.

"You guys should really have kids," she says, having known us for less than five minutes. "I mean just bite the bullet and realize that you're almost 40...."

Katie interrupts, smiling at me (I always like being mistaken for younger): "Well actually, he's over 40."

Street Portrait

He's huge, even bigger next to the two slight women he's accompanying, but he's one of those triangular guys who tapers down from broad shoulders to these skinny little legs squeezed into skinny jeans. His mullet is a work of art, fluffed and expertly coiffed above, trailing down from dark black to bleached orange at the tips which fan across his broad, sweatshirt covered back. Out from underneath the sweatshirt peek the tails of a Hawaiian shirt, and, for all his obvious muscle, he walks a bit like a duck, which undercuts his good looks and muscularity.

He and his companions discuss (in, perhaps, Portugese?) something of some import, judging by his tone, but he sounds like he's storing all his words in his cheeks, and the words sound like they're pushing out through the rest of his words to get out, all thick and glutenous, but he seems to speak cautiously and with consideration, not at all the musclehead he appears, as he duckwalks down the street.

Beltane

After yesterday's deluge, I feel waterlogged and beaten down, like a newborn plant, sprouting fresh from thawing earth, that just got the shit kicked out of it by a storm.

So I have to psyche myself up to go outside, despite everyone coming in from lunch saying how glorious and mild it is outside.

When I finally do make it out, it is everything I'd been told, and I practically float through the sunshine, soaking in light and air that seems to be breathing me, rather than the other way around.

The smokers in the courtyard eye my smiling visage warily, but they're out there for the same reason I am, reveling in a beautiful day, sucking in smoke with gusto, flicking their butts to the pavement with a little extra verve, a little more pep.