Lunch Break

It is the little details that are so interesting to me, the small scale theater glimpsed out of the corner of my eyes. I took my lunch break in a room on the third floor of the Ramada Inn this afternoon. The air conditioner was white noise behind me as I watched the final round of a golf tournament on the TV. My shoes were off revealing my holey socks wrapped around my feet which were propped up and resting on the bed. I was feeling guilty pleasure nibbling on a McDonald's hamburger (which didn't quite taste the same with the thick aroma of hotel air freshener hanging in the air). Out of the corner of my eye, outside in the parking lot below, I saw the front desk girl taking out the garbage.
I was stunned that she had left her post talking on the phone in the cool comfortable lobby, to empty the trash. But there she was, her cell phone pressed to her ear with one hand, and a dripping bag of garbage in the other. I was amazed that this pretty petite blond girl was doing physical labor in such a snazzy outfit, (pin-striped black pants and a blue button up blouse). I would have forgotten about the whole episode after 2 minutes if it weren't for the added drama. As the front desk girl was frolicking over the asphalt with her cell phone and her garbage bag, a half naked college guy was sitting in his lawn chair tanning across the street and was throwing some awfully sly looks towards Desk Girl.
Sun Bathing is very hard to sell as a constructive activity, unless a blonde girl on a cell phone walks by, then it becomes a mating ritual. Anyway, the college stud had repositioned himself in his chair so that he could get the best possible view of Desk Girl and she could get the best view of him. His eye brows were contorting all over his forehead as he experimented with a variety of facial expressions. I thought that surely Desk Girl was as repulsed as I was by Naked Boy but she showed no signs of repulsion. Actually, she turned into quite the performer, pretending that the dumpster lid was to heavy to lift, and that her helpless feminine body was ill equipped to do such dirty work. She threw back her head and laughed into her cell phone demonstrating how fun and happy she was while simultaneously revealing the bounce and vigor of her healthy blond hair. She was digging every minute of attention she was getting. She never made eye contact with Naked Boy and eventually skipped back across the blacktop and disappeared back into the hotel. My eyes darted back to Naked Boy who was in the process of ending his fantasies and resuming his career as a sun bather. I took another bite of hamburger, and resumed watching the golf tournament on TV.

Garden Party

My computer desk is in the kitchen. It holds my computer off the ground. My office chair, whose ribs are showing, holds me off the ground. Next to my chair and my computer desk are two great windows of single pane glass which are always open letting in fresh air. It is past the open windows just feet away from where i sit that i am growing a windowbox garden of interesting people. They are lovely creatures who play jazz music in the late evenings and yawn and stretch in the morning. They breath in the sunshine and breath out stimulating conversation. If thier bodies were not vines that waved in the breeze and thier feet were not strong roots that held them in place, they might leave the window box and get jobs. I can't imagine the garden people in legless suits holding a cell phone to thier ears waiting on the street corner for a bus.

Day Dreaming

There was half a pot of coffee left over from yesterday waiting for me when i woke up. It was stale and slightly burnt but i didn't want to waste it so i heated up a mug of it in the microwave, adding some tap water to dilute the taste of burning. I grabbed my mug, the one with the chipped handle, and reclined in my chair listening to the news before i went off to work. When the clock read 8:47 i put on a new pair of black socks and slipped on my van tennis shoes and shuffled out the door. My response to the grey drizzling skies outside was to put on my hood. The trees walked to work with me and the warm summer rain made everything fragrant and heavy. I fingered my pocket knife which was concealed in my pocket. Hooded and clad in black, (remeber the new black dress socks) I was a an adventurer looking for any exuse to unsheath my sword, which in reality was a 1inch blade of cheap low grade steal. The opportunity never arose so i just flicked the blade in and out. I walked tall and proud on the sidewalk as commuters passed me in thier cars on the way to thier days at work... i wondered to myself what kind of fantasies were going on in thier heads, what dreams would get them through thier day?