Non-Stop Round-The-Town Action these days, as I hunt for employment and housing. This morning, I laughed when the caf� girl commented, You always look so put together. Your closet must be so organized!
. . .
Yesterday involved room-hunting on a lonely far-flung stretch of town. Looking out at gray sky and El Pollo Supremo, I think, No. Not at all this room, despite the orange carpeting. The gray couple looks at my face, their avid eyes only seeing dollar signs as they place a rental agreement in my lap. 1. You may. . . 2. You may not . . . 3. You will . . .
. . .
If I'm hired, I'll become a p/t file-hunter, rifling through police reports and accident photos while figuring out how the lawyers like their coffee. Cream or soymilk? Sugar or . . .
Maybe I can pretend to be a private eye - the ideal job, I suppose, for the nascent writer like me. Think about it: peeling skin after skin of story, to get to the crux, the synopsis, the why-and-how.
. . .
In front of Anthropologie�s window display of tag-heavy summer threads sprawls a barefoot black woman, binding and unbinding her hair. Her feet are dusty. (For her, I think, there is no bathtub in which to rest her feet. )
. . .
Stranded in an oasis of Day-Glo alarm clocks, bird-shaped paper clips, and multicolored file folders with Joe, we are aided by the redhaired Russian Office Fairy on the 3rd floor. Behind her big blue owl eyes lies a brain built like a Rolodex; phone numbers and international addresses roll off her tongue with ease.
. . .
My 2-dollar black utilitarian boots are doing me very well, thank you, Daniel, a.k.a. Captain Grammar. I stomp up and down grass and cement hills with a woodsman�s ease.
Sometimes I imagine myself as giant, literary or literally; in my satchel is a bundle of tales tall and raucous. Sometimes I am Tough Girl, fist-ready to kick some sexist ass or wink-cocked for any lovely femme or tall delicate boy. Today, I think cowgirl, the world a giant bull to be roped, dragged down bellowing, bucking wild, to the earth, temporary conquest for this girl with her eyes on a prize that has yet to be known.
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