Magnolia @ Central

I am in a library, because I have no internet access. This happens sometimes.

 

There was a note left at the computer I am using. It says "5-5-05 sitting across from you here at the library I have to tell you that I find you attractive!! I have been here in Orlando for 9 months today and am looking to meet a lady that looks like you! Could you email me Richard-----@----whatever."

 

It's in the air and sky and rain and clouds and bullshit between gasps we take.

 

My apartment is less full of boxes and clutter than it was yesterday. I slowly cut through it. This afternoon, my speakers sputtered back into activity. "Cassius Clay was hit more than Sonny Liston", they said.

 

It feels dumb to type long emails addressed to an electronic journal with people sitting two feet to either side of me and everyone outside walking inthe sprinkles on the way to becoming more buzzed, especially when I am paranoid about everyone looking at my shoulders or over them.

 

I am more hunched than ever. I will be a hunchback old person, like the lady in East Shelby I delivered medicine to. Who had seven cats. Or maybe it was West Shelby. How would I know? Shelby sucks.

 

I have a huge truck, because my car is in the shop this week. It is a massive Ford F-850, or something. I hate huge trucks. I knew this before driving a big truck. I accidentally run over curbs, shrubs and small children. I have no turning radius. I look down at the toll booth people. It is wrong.

 

I want my stupid unsexy littlemedium-sized car back.

 

Also, I guarantee that I am the only driver of the Ford F-series who shamelessly cranks the "We Have the Facts & We're Voting Yes!". (It has relevance again. Always in periods of major geographic shock...)

 

My cable did not get shut off yet. They attempted to discontinue my cable, but accidentally shut off my landlord's cable. Now I think that they have restored my landlord's cable, but my cable is still working. I am keeping my fingers crossed that I will attain free cable at two apartments in a row.

 

I will waste my life away watching television as long as it is free.

 

I am living downtown. In the city. It is a good area for walking. Nice downtown residential areas and rural countrysides are good for walks. I refuse to live in places where I cannot take walks, even though I never take a walk. I do bicycle, though. I may do a lot of bicycling this weekend.

 

I might have a crush on a girl at work. If it turns out that I do, I think it will be my first in a decade or more. I will let you know, because I'm not sure yet. I might just be daring myself to be 2% friendlier to this person and say to myself that I am flirting, and I should go on with my bad self. I even established eye contact on the way out the door today. And smiled! I mean grinned! And not a scary stalker grin! A genuine grin!

 

I think that I am faking it all, though.

 

I feel like I should have a group of four to five friends, and that we should be going to a low-key bar to have a sandwich and a few drinks, and then one of them would find a sombrero and wear it as we walked down the sidewalk. His name would be Xavier, and we would all call him Zavvy for short, and he would be crazy all the time and yelling stuff at no one. And then there would be Ferdinand who would enjoy patting people on the shoulders and tapping their bellies with the back of his hand, to get their attention. And then there would be Will and he would have mod glasses and be smart and classy and idealistic, and there would be me, and I would be the pathetic one thinking up imaginary friends in a library on a Thursday evening.

 

Maybe I should get a book and actually read it.

 

But I am graduated, so I might be done with all of that.

 

Computer clusters like this remind me of college. I keep feeling around my chair with my feet to keep tabs on my backpack. I don't have a backpack.

 

I never came up with a fourth or fifth friend.

 

Today I was thinking that I would move back to my hometown if it were a different sort of town, with different sorts of people. Kind of like Ed, which is a television show that you might have seen, where a guy moves back to his hometown. It is a vanishing thought, because the hope for continuing redemptions is so neat, but not so tangible or filling.

 

I would eat a burrito. I would drink a beer. I would tap the ceramic tile in my apartment, and listen for voids. I would inspect for gaps around my closed doors and windows, where all of my conditioned air escapes, unfulfilled.

 

I would continue to unpack and throw away and minimize.

 

I am leaving this library, but I am keeping the card, just in case.