Lacking Alacrity

Low on energy, riddled with self-doubt, and plagued by bad memories, I slogged through another day of trying to create order in chaos. Then I got the following missive from my friends at simplehuman:

"Dear Ms. San Martin,

Thank you for your inquiry and we apologize for any difficulties you are experiencing with your can.

...

"

After work, I dug up all the crabgrass that had taken root in the garden. Little red beetles angrily scurried out of my hands' way. Now you can tell the dill from the thyme, so that's something. The cherry tomatoes and the regular tomatoes are going nuts. We've got to do something with those Hungarian yellow-wax peppers. I love my home; I love our yard. I love my life.

I've been working on letting go of work stuff a little bit more. I work with a lot of people who've been there for 25 years, more: some, 50 years and more. How do they do that? What's the "there" there? -- that place they can get to that allows them to deal with stress and know it's not that important? Is there something in between just punching a time-card and killing yourself just to get through the day's work? I hope so. How does one for whom failure is not an option, succeed?

These are the things I pondered today before growing sick of thinking about them. After a while it was just about the crabgrass, and getting it out of there.

"Dear Ms. San Martin..."

Things I encountered...

Whilst struggling through a midsummer jogwalk on Sunday 7.9.06:

1. 5:47 p.m. ET, corner of Mass Ave. and Beech Street: A homeless man, accompanied by a well-meaning non-homeless man in a churchyard, reading through what looked like a menu, but must have been a release-form. The homeless man's left eye, turned toward me, was swollen beyond belief.

(Soon I discovered that this rock thing was true. Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil. Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet. All of a sudden, I found myself in love with the world -- So there was only one thing that I could do: Was ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long.)

2. 6:02 p.m. ET, corner of Mass Ave. and Somerville Ave.: Two too-much-for-tank-tops girls, giggling, careening onto Somerville Avenue in someone else's minivan.

(Hey DJ! Stars, tonight I'm seeing stars. Tonight, I'm seeing stars…)

3. 6:04 p.m. ET, Porter Square: A young couple jaywalking their tiny eggshell baby-bundle across Mass Ave.

(I can sense it. Something important is about to happen. It's coming up. It takes courage, to enjoy it...)

4. 6:11 p.m. ET corner of Mass Ave. and Beech Street: This same homeless man, whose face is now turned toward the Avenue, has large eggs for eyes. His cheeks are puffed out like apples. He is a cartoon-man. Another do-gooder, complete with Styrofoam cup filled with bad coffee, looks on with concern at the yellow liquid slowly sinking out of sight in the large syringe attached to the homeless man’s remaining good vein, in his hand. Apparently, he’s having tonight’s special, which is the methadone.

(We’re calling out around the world, are you ready for a brand new beat? Summer’s here and the time is right. For dancing in the streets. We’re dancing in Chicago. Down in New Orleans. In New York City.)

5. 6:19 p.m. ET, corner of Mass Ave. and Rindge Avenue: Someone's to-do list, written by hand for some reason onto a large Avery label, and stuck on a brick wall by the bus stop:
1. Get in touch with UMass
2. Fix Lucy’s brakes
3. Regroup for Shogun

This last intrigues me, and also the fact that no-one has added to the list since its posting. It seems almost to invite smart-assed comments. But maybe people already have a full list. That’s the problem with lists, though, innit? They just trail off…

(Jesus built my hotrod. It's a love affair, mainly between me and Jesus.)