scattered and fried

Well, I am sufficiently toasted, and I don't mean the fun kind that involves bubbly drinks. I just mean effing tired. In an effort to get even closer to my bed, I'm going to keep this short with a snippet from my commute because that's the most accessible experience from today, and it's vaguely more interesting than writing about dinner or watching the end of Sneakers. Although I did realize that Robert Redford and Brad Pitt sound almost identical if you close your eyes and listen. Breaking news! Okay, enough with the nonsense. It's time for the real nonsense:

when the doors clatter
open it's like a scatter
drill from marching band

picture: one of my good friends and her naughty cattle dog who likes to lay all over her and chew on her neck, Bluemont, VA, August 2010, digital 

going nowhere

What a ridiculous day it's been. Here's a little taste, complete with run-on sentences: A friend from work has a second job in a private practice, which used to be located in the same office as our clinic (it's complicated). The private practice recently moved to a building down the block. Convenient for our friendship! But our usual in-between-clients merriment (or venting) now involves a commute. We hung out in her new space during a 35 minute lull, and I saved about 10 minutes for transportation time. It's literally 1/3 of the way down the block, so a 4 minute walk at most and then 2 elevator rides, both coincidentally to/from the 8th floor. No big deal, right? Until the elevator takes 4 minutes to arrive because only 1 of them is working, and then it goes up instead of down, and then on the way down it stops at every floor. In lieu of cursing the whole ride down or continuing to panic, I got out at the 7th floor and ran down 7 flights of stairs. Then I ran over to the clinic building and nearly cheered out loud when the elevator came almost immediately because it is notoriously slow. Running, by the way, was a huge mistake. The pain I experienced confirms that my busted tailbone is very much still busted. Lucky for me this same friend also has a sensitive rear and let me borrow her "infinity cushion" aka donut until my very own donut arrives in the mail. Ah the joys of butt pain. And now for the short form:

waiting for my ride
tick tock is all i hear til
ding! on every floor

picture: the doors to the elevator shaft on one of the abandoned listening towers at Teufelsburg, outside of Berlin, Germany, September 2010, film, Canon Tlb 

walk this way

I have the exercise memory of a goldfish. Worse: a gnat. I don't really know what kind of memory gnats even have, but if it's anything like their purported attention spans, then it's an accurate comparison. All of that to say, I am feeling antsy and annoyed at my current running moratorium thanks to my fancy free decision from yesterday. I went for a walk to our food coop this morning to get some fresh air and every step hurt, especially ones that involved any quick movements (e.g., trying to avoid giant ankle-sucking pools of brown slush). So it doesn't look there will be any running in my immediate future. As I've been told by several people, this will get better (thanks for the reminders). I just have to avoid driving Charrow crazy in the meantime with the whining and the constant favors (bending over to pick things up causes the most discomfort, even when done with proper form). It already feels like I haven't run in weeks, which is ridiculous because it's been 3 DAYS. Apparently I live in an exercise time warp. Here's a short take on what it's like to go through the subway system when you're in pain, but there's nothing apparently wrong with your body. People get so huffy! And I'm often one of them. oops.

i want to carry
a sign that says don't assume
you know why i'm slow*

*this is something I am guilty of all the time: seeing someone ambling for no apparent reason and assuming they are self-centered assholes when in fact I have absolutely no idea what they might be dealing with.

picture: view from an S-Bahn platform, Berlin, Germany, October 2010, film, Canon Tlb 

hurry up and wait

Well, the sidewalks are covered in salt and people have swarmed the grocery stores, or so I've been told because I avoided the madness. We had dinner with our downstairs friend, which makes two nights a row of socializing. That's basically my quota for the month, so I'm going to get straight to the haiku about this evenings commute, and then it's faceplant city (aka crazy friday night bed time).

she strolled downstairs hunched
over her phone playing games*
i almost kicked her

*really it was 1 game, but pluralizing is a trick to cut out the syllable for the article. instead of kicking her, I said "seriously" in my supremely pissy tone because she was taking up half the staircase in the middle of Friday evening rush hour. Fine, be a phone zombie and enjoy yourself, but MOVE OVER.

picture: stairs of a brownstone somewhere in Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY, summer 2012, film, Canon Tlb 

another candle on the cake

It's Charrow's birthday, so we went out for dinner at Momo Sushi Shack. We had to practice some serious restraint to not order the world (small plates). Just walked in the door from taking the dog around the block for his evening sniffs and leg lifts. In light of the hour, here is a short version of my commute home from dinner:

sometimes you just have
to part the sea of amblers
with a stiff elbow*

*and a sorry-not-sorry apology because they were dawdling in front of the staircase, and I could see my train arriving on the platform

picture: a cheeky horse at the barn where my mom boards her horse, Californa, MD, September 2010, digital 

wide open spaces

A quick snippet from today's commute because we are in packing mania for our trip down to VA/MD. Sometimes I get tired of being crammed into the sardine can that is the 6pm train, so I imagine an empty subway car filled with bright sunlight. I can feel myself immediately begin to breathe a little deeper and slower. Sometimes I slowly repopulate the car in my imagination before I come back to reality because it can be overwhelming to reach that calm space only to open my eyes to people standing inches from my face. Now for short form:

doors open, people
pile in and disappear
as i close my eyes

picture: Duisburg Hauptbahnhof (central station), western Germany, September 2010, film, Canon Tlb 

process

Sometimes you have to give up on the complicated post and go with the short one about the process. Here's a haiku about writing haikus on my subway commute: 

counting syllables* 

jostled by zombies on phones 

did i miss my stop? 

*this happens with my fingers while mouthing the words, so it's hard to say what people think I'm doing. lucky for me, they're usually too distracted by the glow of their devices or [insert crazy shit that happens on the NYC subway] to bother with something as bland as counting with your hands. 

(picture taken during a birthday voyage on the East River Ferry, August 2012, film, Agfa Optima rangefinder camera)