generator tender_square i am in the city streets with two characters from a popular woman’s television series. we are trying to enter a bank for an appointment. the first character, the upbeat people pleaser, walks the steps up the main entrance, while the second character, the cynical harpy, stays by the street level door insisting it’s the way in. upbeat is on her cell phone calling someone at the facility. a man comes to the door upbeat stands at and lets us all in. he’s an attractive, dark-haired man who’s responsible for the facility. the “bank” is a generator, multiple ones, for the city’s telephone infrastructure. there are staircases that allow us to get a better vantage point and see the depths of how far this equipment goes into the ground--all the huge metal pieces are black. upbeat and harpy climb a staircase and look down over the railing. i refuse to do it. the man at the computer asks me why. he pulls up a series of written dreams and projects them across a screen. they’ve been produced on a typewriter and there are pencil edits across them. they flash quickly but i get a gist about them. “because in all my dreams i’m falling,” i tell the man. “my dreams look like that,” i point to the screen behind him, the one illuminating the dim room, in an effort to impress him. the space changes into a rustic and crumbling house, the kind where paint is chipping and in a designed way, like pre-ripped jeans. harpy and upbeat and i are seated at a table. a third character from the show joins us: the writer who dresses more adventurously than her personality is, the one who’s growth has been stunted for decades. food is brought out, super tiny servings in sealed designer plastic containers. harpy complains that we’ve been stiffed with the bill, where are the others? i tell her to relax, they’ll be back. she points to three full plates. i realize i am being given three options as to the kind of woman i can be, and none of them are satisfying, all of them are commodified. 230823 what's it to you? who go blather from