Ten minutes ago, at 6:29 AM, just as I was unhooking April’s lacy frilly white brassiere in my dreams, a horn honked from the street below and into my open window, again, and then again. Someone’s an ass, and good morning. 

Whenever traffic wakes me up, I think about switching to a different room in the rez hotel. My room has a view of the dumpsters, but I’d rather have a window overlooking the street, so I could reply to the honks with eggs or tin cans.

Do I want my vengeance enough to talk to Mr Patel about changing rooms? Maybe. Do I want vengeance enough to pack up this mess and schlep it all to some other room, where my neighbors behind either wall might be louder than the neighbors I have now? Nah.

♦ ♦ ♦

When something pops into my mind while I’m away from home, I write a quick note to myself, to remind me to write about it later. It’s the only way this zine could exist.

Here’s a note, found in my windbreaker pocket this morning. It’s my handwriting, on a piece of letterhead from where I work, so I must’ve written it at the office. It’s legible, so there’s no mistaking what it says, and it says:

Whale caroms.

Don’t ask me what it means, cuz I do not know.

♦ ♦ ♦

Kallie asked me to help her get packed for her vacation, so my afternoon and early evening was with her. Not that I have any muscles or rippling biceps or anything, but she has a bad back, and can easily wrench it if she lifts something wrong, so like Mighty Mouse, there I came to save the day.

BARTed to Kallie’s house, and her flatmate, Janey or Jilly or something like that, opened the door but then thankfully disappeared. Kallie gave me a hug, and we lunched at Happy Palace, same place where we ate last month, and this time we both had the squid — chewy, yummy, but it’s on the plate alone.

Everything else — we had fancy fried rice and oysters — is ordered separately, so the tab was twenty bucks for the two of us, not counting the tip. Wowzers. I’ll stay with the Sincere Cafe, where a $5 lunch is so big I sometimes can’t finish it.

Back at Kallie’s house, I hoisted a few things — her sleeping bag, a blanket, a load of laundry — and carried everything to her van. She showed me her vacation’s worth of weed, which was more marijuana than I’ve ever seen in one place that wasn’t a movie about a drug bust.

She offered to share a bowl, but again I declined. She keeps offering me drugs, and I keep declining. I’m not a teetotaler, but anything that muddles the mind is a rare treat for me, not a habit. Can’t find the words when I’m high or otherwise impaired, and being wordless strikes close to the heart of me.

It was nice seeing Kallie, though, and then she was gone. Hope she has a nice vacation. And secretly, I’m hoping for a post card.

Pathetic Life
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