Slow Days

It was a long day.

Last night I took half an Ambien, but it didn't put me to sleep for an hour or two, might as well have saved the whole pill for tonight. Only three and a half left, with doubts about getting a prescription refill. It helped today, though, because I was able to sleep until 11:30 and had to leave for work at 12. Only half an hour to kill. I didn't want to be up in the morning because it's fall break and there's nothing to do. It probably doesn't matter that it's fall break though.

It was cold walking to the gym, and even though I wore a scarf and jacket, my hands and legs were freezing and everything else was just too warm. I hate how my body heat refuses to dissipate according to where I wish it would. They were finally paving Adelbert, large steam rollers and dump trucks, fresh tar wafting in the cold city air. Work was a swell waste of time, Jenn was there so I was able to talk to her a bit. It's hard though, chatting from across the room, one desk to another. So many words get lost between.

The lady who gets the shakes her way came, calling before to check how late we were open. She can't seem to remember. It's 4:30 missy, on the weekends. I get this awkward feeling these days when she comes, she kind of looks at me as I make her shake, looks at me as I try to remember what she gets. Doesn't really say anything except 'yup' when I double check an ingredient with her. She used to have that Burberry hat, I liked it. Now she only wears dark sweatshirts, and she feels cold towards me. Not indignant, resentful. Resentful that she has to fork over $7.50 for her shake. I only make it the way you like it: vanilla soy milk, one heaping scoop of blueberries, two scoops of burn-fat, three scoops of green tea, three scoops of protein, two cap fulls of flax seed oil. Flax seed oil is worse than most oils, it will never wash out of the fridge, never comes off the bottle.

Still have to do inventory, still not able to enter the time after closing that I work. Frustrating, but I made $8.00 in tips. Maybe it was $7.00. It's only an hour and a half per week. Six hours a month. $50.00. Change that won't change my present circumstance. What the fuck, $50.00 would let me buy a whole three grams of drugs online, shipped priority to my doorstep. That would last me a week, a warm decadent over-stuffed numb pristine week. Oh, well. My tips can cover that.

As I walked out the door Shannon said, "A little overdressed..." and I tried to smile and nod but those gestures always get lost between closing doorways.

At home my dad wouldn't be arriving for an hour. Killed that. We went to Shaker Square and as we drove through I noticed a restaurant named Sergios. Had the same logo as the Sergios that's two blocks away from my apartment. I asked my dad if it was part of a chain. He didn't seem sure. We ended up parking and walked past Sergios. He walked in. I didn't know that we were going to eat there. Turns out it has a Brazilian menu, I always thought it was Italian. I ordered one of the few vegetarian items which was a nice surprise. It had beans and rice, crisped spinach and a salsa, green beans and cauliflower, onion rings and carrots. Because it was our first time there, the waiter even gave us free fried avocado slices as an appetizer. While we were waiting for the check, I told me dad about the Brazilian student I had met at work today. He had a little uni brow, spoke English with pauses, and liked the blueberry shake. I accidentally poured too much sugar into it, I wonder if it was too sweet for him.

My dad dropped me off before he went dancing, right in front of the dumpster. It was Erika's birthday and I needed to call her, so I went outside and smoked a cigarette on the uppermost stairwell. The man who works at the art museum was smoking a cigarette there too, so I talked to him for a while. He had a parka jacket on, and I was wearing my black sweatshirt underneath my black corduroy jacket with no buttons. We talked a little bit about money and living in Indian monasteries for $2.00 a day, shifting men's fashions (schism between Old Navy and H&M) and how to make a good breathing pair of boots out of squirrel skins. You probably sweat a cup of water from your feet a day, and probably don't sweat two gallons when you sleep in your bed at night.

Emily eventually called, we talked briefly then I told her I had to go. I smoked another cigarette and called Erika. She lost her signal or her phone died, can't decide which was most likely. She and Chelsea were going to the haunted house we had all gone to together two years ago. My life has grown and shrunk a whole little bit since then, I'm not sure of what to make of it still.

My dad has gotten back now.