Sin of the week, 2/3/08

I saw him again today. This time he was crossing the street in front of my building. He didn't see me, and I confess I am glad he didn't. If three seconds of eye contact in a coffee shop can ruin a Saturday morning for me, then why permit Sunday to be similarly trashed? No, thanks.

I regret to inform you that I have no spectacular crimes to report this week. I know, I know. I am failing at the business of being openly and nakedly disgusting. But do not despair. I feel pretty sure I'll be exposed to new opportunities for success (or failure) in the coming weeks.

I have the growing impression that the ground is shifting under my feet. Either I am changing, or something else is changing in direct relation to me. One symptom of this change is that lately everywhere I go and whatever I do, I am awash in memory. People and events I have not thought of in years are turning up everywhere. I was walking back from the gym the other night and I passed a bakery. The whole block smelled of cinnamon and butter, and I suddenly I was on Hillsborough St. and I was 26 years old and my boyfriend and I were standing under a vent smelling butter and cinnamon and we had $8 between us and where could we get two hamburgers for $8? We had nothing, not even each other for much longer, but it was a good time.

Another day it was an unseasonable 50 degrees in Manhattan and I opened the windows to get the smell of bleach out from the scrubbing mania I had recently fallen into, and then I was nine and sitting on the front steps with my parents drinking tea at dusk and they were talking of putting me in Catholic school to prevent me from knowing any boys. I had tea and it was a warm summer night and the breeze was blowing and I did not mind one way or another whether I wore the plaid skirt and the knee socks or went to school with boys because boys did not interest me at all. I was happy.

And so these scenes I feel sure I would never have remembered again keep wandering in and interrupting otherwise normal days because something, I know not what, is working on me. I could not say whether the change is for good or ill, but I have to hope the former.

And of course, I readily see that I have no choice but to change, adapt, adjust, whatever one might call it. The way it is going, the way it will certainly go unless something changes... it cannot be. Whatever you say about my life as it is, that it is fun and interesting and full of adventure and so forth, it is unsustainable at best and seriously disordered at worst.

For no particular reason, a picture of sunrise the other day:



Oh, ok. I lied to my boss again this week (and I am not sorry; the lie needed telling) and one of my students appealed a grade and I let it go to the provost without even reading the paperwork. Because I don't really care. Perhaps I could work on the whole compassion and integrity thing. (Maybe).

See you tomorrow.