work Mandy I work at Family Pharmacy. I'm at work right now. Yep. 030627 ... belly fire it's like drowning where's my life preserver? help me, my legs are twisted in the weeds where's the lifeguard? treading water is getting me nowhere what's the use in getting stronger when there's no escape? my skills are useless...only weighing me down 030707 ... PIebald eat to work. sleep to work. work. work. work. work. 040810 ... uow krow 040810 ... gja is telling you It 2.30am in the morning. Pri is still working. Ive told her she can go home - she doesnt have to be here - nothing is that important. She says she is on a roll. I dont want to stop her. She thinks Im working. I dont want it to feel like she is impressing me. Please go - I dont want to discourage you. Help me please - I am the worlds worst boss. 070810 ... . teams are better but only with no boss, just logical tuned in robots, united by concentartion orgasm. (a bit like Cocoon but in working groups) 070810 ... ever dumbening http://tinyurl.com/yw3ycq 080204 ... belly fire I dread the day I will leave this place. Surely it has been my haven over the last two years. I have discovered myself here, excavated a part of myself that I didn't know I harboured deep within. I pray not to lose myself as I take my leave to discover yet another part of myself. Though I have not left, I long for my return. 090402 ... epitome of incomprehensibility In pop songs, "work" can be a lot of things. Sex. Dancing. Sexy dancing. In Britney Spears' "Work, Bitch", despite the s'posed-to-be sexy dancing, "work" follows more typical idiomatic English: work is earning money, or exercise (working out). Or a bit of both. The beat sounds like it's the kind of song you'd listen to when going to the gym. Of course, the song itself is terrible, the style doesn't work well for Spears, and I have no idea why she's affecting a Caribbean accent. I know why I ended up here, though. Looking up Lady Gaga's "Beautiful, Dirty, Rich" brought me down a rabbit hole of catchy but annoying pop songs. It must be the choir concert I did earlier this evening. Too much Mozart drives me to Top 40 nostalgia. Nopemobile to Vesperae Solennis, yes'm to tired technopop. All work and no play makes "You want a hot body? Want to drive a Maserati? You better work, bitch" into the ineluctable modality of the audible, and that is just sad. Besides, I've hit a blank with character names. I need a Spanish last name that fits with a character and it has to be pregnant with allusion. It needs to give birth to pretty allusion babies, perhaps about music, and I thought of giving her the last name "Nono" after Luigi Nono but that'd just sound silly. And I thought of Marquez or Anzaldua but that's just lazy. 170506 ... e_o_i Of course Luigi Nono was Italian and not Spanish. 170506 ... e_o_i Yeah, so now I'm listening to the first part of Luigi Nono's Prometeo (Prometheus Suite). Work, bitch? 170506 ... kerry i’m at baggage claim E waiting for the 37 bus in my stupid orange vest no i don’t work for the airport, maybe baggage claim B is over there i dunno the woman at the coffee stand gives me a discount now though it’s only $1.75 and she asks in her round ambiguous accent what is that tattoo on my arm? i tell her it’s a comet from a book my dad read to me as a kid. she has a little boy--what’s the name of the book? there’s never milk only cream, and i hate cream in my coffee but i like her, her face calm and still like a pond at night, how she floats gracefully behind the cases of hot pretzels and danishes. when i’d tell someone to shut up in the middle of the day bc i work graveyards at a shelter they’d look at me like i’m mother theresa and maybe even thank me. a little part of me kind of glows and feels warm and wants to say you’re welcome, but there’s another maybe bigger part that says don’t martyr me, i just didn’t want to work for that bigot anymore, i didn’t want to obey senseless rules, i didn’t want to work for someone i loathed so much that i almost didn’t want his money. it felt dirty somehow. i made a playlist for my walk to work to prepare, stuff like the_gories and the_stooges and other toothy snarly music, and thank god for the camaraderie of evening shifts (night workers are always more fun than daytime staff) and eating edibles in the bathroom and no boss no supervision, but it’s not like we really needed it. i prefer the shelter. It’s 11pm, good morning shiny black streets and quiet conifers! good morning V, i mean good evening--has anything crazy happened? are the beds full, is the laundry done, did polly come back? i bet she’s in jail. maybe i’ll see her tomorrow. i’d fold clothes, tiptoe around in my socks, i’d draw write change pissy beds hand out ibuprofen and diapers, so sorry we don’t have any pants your size... it was just a dream, and no you can’t go out for a smoke until 5:30. but you can sit and talk to me. the night D arrived in her purple dress i was sitting by a space heater reading the Plague. she said, i like Camus too. i found out later when I was dressing the infected wound on her calf in the bathroom that she used to be a journalist. fine, JUST ONE. but we have to be quiet, and if you tell anyone then i’m in deep-- in november a woman from idaho stood barefoot and cried (the first night is always the hardest, sleepless) and said, You talk to me like a person, like i’m a normal-anybody-person, god bless you. why the hell wouldn’t i talk to you in any other way? i’m cringing inside. i don’t say that--i offer her a cup of tea. it Could Happen to Anybody. we say that to each other All the Time. i miss KJ who always forgot my name but knew i like bugs, gave me a spider barrette and dragonfly earrings and stories about traveling as a girl through Mexico. i gave her my old rebecca west book on my last_shift. i wonder if she still has both feet? i have a strong stomach but wrapping KJ’s crusty dead toes was the only time i wanted to vomit. she gave me the address for her PO box but i never wrote to her. i didn’t know what to say. i miss raye who gave me vintage levi’s, knelt down the first time i wore them to work and cuffed them, said this is how you wear ‘em hun, then came back saying, barb thinks it looks silly, and uncuffed them. (they’re too short for me anyway) (but I don’t care) and everyone else hated her, she was eventually banned but we cared for each other. she would stand with me while i washed dishes in bleach water--8am, so sleepy, chapped hands, stained hoodie--and tell me about her daughter and the basenjis she used to raise. i like people who love animals. you sure do drink a lot of coffee your hair looks so pretty when it’s down, why don’t you wear it like that more often? do you have a man? where you from? not here it sounds like mostly i miss barb. one night she kept having night terrors and everyone was pissed, they couldn’t sleep, so we moved her mattress into the bathroom. i think she was coming down from something too. i sat on the bathroom floor with her and stroked her stringy yellow hair until she fell asleep. she’s old enough to be my grandmother. god i really miss barb her second night it happened, what I dread. she looked into my eyes--we didn’t know each other then, i didn’t know what her eyes could say to me--and i was thinking what if she’s afraid? i couldn’t talk. and then when i could speak again i nearly melted to the floor from relief and embarrassment. watching her go back to the sleeping room i thought, who is this person?? i thanked her, months later, sitting outside secret huddled in the cold dark. she said it’s ok honey, don’t thank me. i told her how humiliated i would’ve been--anyone besides her, how lucky i was--we could talk to each other that way by then. i told her i was leaving soon and i would miss her so much. i think most of the time we don’t know it’s the last time we’ll ever talk to someone or know where they are or have any way to find out, and when you do know, it is so painful, like watching a beautiful house burn to the ground This is my stop! 16th street, by the fruit stand. there was a card on the sidewalk, 6 of diamonds. red. no one will win that game… or depends on the game i guess. 210730 ... tender_square amanda gifted me two velour-covered books for christmas: "grateful journal" and "enjoyment journal." i had thought about getting myself a daily book in this vein, but i already do pages every day, which feels redundant though it's for a different purpose. initially and internally, i felt like these books were homework. i could only think about failing to show up for them each day and following the small prompts. but i realized that amanda gave these to me because she cares, because i'm going through a difficult time that is the beginning of another journey, a journey i have the power to define and create. she's asking me to reflect on what i want and how i will make it happen. she's helping me hold myself accountable. 221228 what's it to you? who go blather from