Midnight Walk Home

Seven beers, and I'm drunk. Not stumbling, falling down, slurring my words and making bad decisions drunk, but certainly well into what Robert Anton Wilson called "instructive and entertaining states of consciousness."

The trees along 2nd Street seem to have a harmony to their branching structure that is deeply pleasing, and the yellow of the street lights gives them an otherworldly glow: everything connected, peaceful and calm.

"Alcohol is amazing," I say to Katie.

A Nice Gesture

"Listen," I say to my boss. "I know we're under a lot of deadline pressure, and I don't want to take a vacation day if it's going to cause problems, so I'd be willing to come in tomorrow, if you need."

What I don't say is that I want to make sure that I still have a job when I get back.

"Oh, I don't think that's necessary," he replies mildly.

Friendly

His voice is huge, filling up the office.

"I ran about two, two and a half miles this morning, but I really hit my stride about half way through, though," he says, standing over my desk.

When she comes out of her office, he turns, including her in the conversation, saying, "Oh, I was just talking about running this morning."

"I heard," she says.

Innumeracy

She's saying words, and I'm pretty sure she's speaking English, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what the numbers she's talking about are supposed to mean. They lie there on the page, dollars and numbers of people doing things, but they seem abstract, unreal, just arbitrary squiggles.

Words have been magic to me since before I knew how to read, but numbers seem like something somebody made up. I force myself to focus, knowing that I must make these seemingly lifeless numbers dance, even though I don't know the tune. 

Are You Sure?

Is it a toothache? Not exactly a toothache, more like a pulled muscle in my jaw, or an ear infection.

"It feels like a swelling, right behind where my wisdom teeth used to be," I explain to Katie.

"Well, it's probably not cancer," Katie replies.

Eleanor Rigby Talks to Machines

Items in hand I stood, waiting for one of the self-checkout stations to free up so I could pay and finish cooking dinner. I'd forgotten butter for corn-on-the-cob, which, you might as well not even bother without butter, in my opinion, and my mind was already back at home, not thinking about where I was or what I was doing at all.

So when the small older woman in front of me in line spoke to me, at first I didn't hear what she said, and asked her to repeat herself.

"You come to the grocery store when you're lonely, and you get the machines to talk to you," she said, a strained smile on her face.

That First Simile Seems a Little Strong to Me, Too, But I Just Sorta Went With It

The baby is strapped to her father's chest like a suicide bomber's vest. Her hair is long and wispy, fly-away in all directions, but her eyes are sharp and focused, and she is all about Katie.

Katie is happy to oblige, and she sits across the bus aisle the whole ride, playing peek-a-boo with the little girl, who  alternates giggling with burying her face in her father's chest.

The father rubs his daughter's head and pats her like a puppy, and she looks up into his face with a smile of toothless, beatific joy.