Awakening Mad

"I want you to have a CAT scan of your belly,"

I get up this morning early, at 4:30am and start working. Blogging, emailing, everything except jumping directly on IRC. I'm weaning myself off it, although last night I bought mIRC, the program for $20.00. I knew I would be using it from now on, so why not make some once poor developer rich. No sooner do I pay for the stupid thing does it give a 50% discount. Great. I'll miss the deals, even when it's in the software.

I pack my gear and take off, heading to Dr. A.'s office. Yeah, I made it there and we talk about my health. Everything is going good, except....

"Yeah, I think you might have growths in your belly," Dr. A. says. "Your potassium blah blah blah. Your supple- ments, blah blah blah." I just got the growths in the belly stuff. I was doing sit ups today too. I'm thinking of growths...what the fuck are growths? The Doc explains everything to me. He doesn't see any problems. This is a cautionary move. Growths?? Sounds cancerous, and there you get catastrophizing from, and I missed Dr. D's session yesterday. I could have used it.

I head to the Post Office on Ninth Avenue to pay for my cable Internet. It's a nice day, the sun is out doing its job. The plumage is out....plumage. Just in case you've missed it from my older posts, plumage are women dressed suggestively, and lordy was the plumage OUT! I walked across town and back. Now how's that for exercise. I was thinking about going to see the new Star Trek movie, but I had promised my brother that I would be at Starbucks to work on the Grant Proposal. I've gotten a newsletter stating that we will only have one hundred and twenty days to get the Proposal to them once we receive the Request For Proposal (RFP). That means that we have to get to work.

I go to the library. It's been a long time since I was in the hallowed halls of the Business Library. I headed to the bathroom to take a leak, and stopped at the sinks. A number of them running down the side of the wall, then making a left for two more. A tall, wrap around mirror reflects everything back at you. I stand, looking at myself in the mirror. It's funny how far life can bring you. I remember looking into this same mirror for the security guards behind me because I was washing up in the waterbasin. Wash as much as I could, my face, my underarms, the back of my neck, brush my teeth. I would go into a stall with a wet washcloth to take care of other areas of my body that I could not expose standing in front of the mirror.

I laughed at the dirty looks that I got from the patrons. This was survival. To smell offensively in the library was asking for ejection. The only problem with this Nirvana was if the security guards walk into the bathroom. I learned their moves after a few days. Early in the morning, when they open up, the Skeks bum-rush the bathroom to wash up. That's when the security guards make their move, cleaning out the bathroom of skeks, throwing out some, warning others. The funny thing is that if Skeks were smart enough they would hold back until after the first, and then a second sweep of the bathroom, some fifteen to twenty minutes, AND THEN go in to use the facilities. Security has it's hands filled with the Skeksies that they had cleared out. This leaves you with time to wash your ass.

I shake my head. Skeks are so fucking stupid that they fall for the same trap over and over again until they are banished from the library. Dumb fucks.

I went to my old seat next to Electra. She is still there, her life not changing in the least. She is not going anywhere, her life has gotten stuck in the thick mire of homelessness. Her entire lack of a future runs chills down my spine. I go up to the seat next to hers and find her asleep. I freeze. I don't want to wake her with my sitting down next to her. I slink off. I remember too, trying to sleep in Pennsylvania Station with her, going from here to there, forced to stay awake through much of the night. It made for a harsh day the next morning, when you are dead beat and in a quiet, air conditioned library with comfortable seats. I used to black out all the time and be awakened by the security guards. No sleeping in the library.

But Electra has her moves down to a science. She sleeps in such a way that her hands are propping up her head, making it look like she is reading the paper on the desk in front of her. She is fast asleep and the security guards stroll right past her. As for me, I was dreadfully obvious. I would fall asleep in the chair with my head thrown back, mouth open, snoring. I was awakened often, sometimes by other patrons to tell me that I was snoring. What the fuck??

I found a table and got online, only to be IMed by my brother. He is in the 40th Street library and will be able to meet me at Starbucks in fifteen minutes. It's time for me to get to work. I close down my laptop and leave memory lane. I pay down a little on that library book that I left behind in Duane Reade and this cocksucker picked it up and contacted me on Facebook only to keep the damn thing. I asked him a simple thing to do. Drop it in the nearest library for me PLEASE. Or drop it in a mailbox. One or the other. He did neither. Neither does he answer my emails. Son of a beeyatch. I dropped ten dollars on it. It was $22.00. I'll catch up with the rest of it in time.

I head to Starbucks.

There's work to do.

Hobobob