home-schooling

here i am home in the middle of the day. puzzle that one out, will you? i'm not fired; in fact, i'll be heading back uptown soon enough. being able to leave for a bit is still refreshing. yesterday, when i was in the same situation, i got to go to the library and rent three movies and borrow carrie fisher's new book.

after such a low-key weekend, it feels appropriate to have a low-key early week. but enough is enough. i want to get my mind working. a workshop, something. officially No Class For Me, for this semester anyway, so i need an alternative. as awesome as the Emmys were (better than the oscars!) & as much fun as i had laughing at Miss America, television can't be my prime playmate when ben's too busy. besides, i need something that will get me out into the city a little, in the hopes that someday i'll feel like i can own more of it than my immediate proximity and the subway line i take to and from work.

i've been searching craigslist. the trouble is, it's all too expensive. people in this crazy city live like they're rich even if they're not. i guess it's the same kind of pervasive, cheerful denial that keeps the bush administration strong. eventually it could even get you where you wanted to go -- fifth avenue or the white house -- unless the fast track unceremoniously ejects you and you land next to becky sharp. & you have to start working your way up again. er. what was i talking about? mixing metaphors is a dangerous business.

on second thought, i still enjoy the mental picture of george w. landing with a thud next to a defiant, scheming early 19th century social climber. picture them underground in a small, dark, echoing cell. w. rubs his wrinkly forehead as becky sharp paces, muttering to herself about how's she going to get either her husband or her respectability back. w. gives up trying to figure out who she is and, thinking, "if only i'd foregone that damn war! alternatively, if only i hadn't stopped drinking!," passes out.
when he wakes up, he's taken a page from carrie fisher, had a one-night stand with a notorious hollywood womanizer and wound up in tijuana with a tattoo artist and buckets of OxyContin. happy 05, georgie. now stop showing up in new york, centralizing the city's police force on the street right in front of my office and closing my subway stop!

for the first time in my life, i have means, and now i have to learn to live within them. means on my left side, means on my right, me keeping a fond arm around each. it's been relatively easy so far, considering i don't spend much, but i'm waiting, just waiting, for the tigers to jump out at me, the kind of tigers that snarl and hiss at you until you throw handfuls of money at them. then they slink away. you know, like lobbyists.

even i don't know what i'm talking about anymore. back to work.