Trust me, I'm a professional

What the hell is up with all these people wanting me to do actual WORK the week before Christmas?

Unfortunately, the quality of work turned in to those who run the word mills was set at 8 a.m. Monday morning, during an interview for a profile of a local sandwich shop.

This particular sandwich shop is open till 4 a.m. on weekends, nestled as it is among abso-fucking-lutely horrendous clubs with words like "monkey" and "sharks" and "shaft" and "beaver" in their names. The owner regaled me with a tale of a customer who, in a misguided, alcohol-fueled, late-night attempt to draw in more patrons, lifted up her skirt in the middle of the sandwich shop, removed her unmentionables, and placed them on the banana tree on the counter.

The owner, being the respectable AARP member he is, couched the tale in euphemisms and giggled whispers. We laughed. He then began telling me about an annual competitive-eating contest the restaurant stages to raise money for a worthy charity--none of which has anything to do with drunken whores hanging panties on banana trees.

"Did you like that segue?" he asked. "From the banana tree to..."

In a display of unjournalistic rudeness, I finished the sentence for him, eyebrows raised, smirk on my face. "To pickle-eating?"

I reached into the air to grab the words as they left my mouth, to no avail.

His eyes widened, he began laughing nervously..."no, no, don't go there..." Which, of course, I already had. And while that would have been the time to apologize profusely and blush in mock demureness, that is not what I did.

Instead, I offered, "And this is just on coffee--you should see me after a couple of drinks!"

The journalism profession is filled with courageous individuals who expose government coverups, report from war zones, ferret out corporate corruption. Today, I say to them, "Yeah, but have you ever tried to salvage an interview after making an oral sex joke?"

warning: introspection ahead

This morning I heard a poem on Writer's Almanac that sums up so much of what I feel like I'm going through, and what I'm hearing so much of from my friends.

There's more to it, but this is the part that nearly had me driving into the back of parked cars on my way to work this morning. It's called "The Necessary Brevity of Pleasures," and it's by by Samuel Hazo.

Prolonged, they slacken into pain
or sadness in accordance with the law
of apples.
One apple satisfies.
Two apples cloy.
Three apples
glut.
Call it a tug-of-war between enough and more
than enough, between sufficiency
and greed, between the stay-at-homers
and globe-trotting see-the-worlders.
Like lovers seeking heaven in excess,
the hopelessly insatiable forget
how passion sharpens appetites
that gross indulgence numbs.
Result?
The haves have not
what all the have-nots have
since much of having is the need
to have.

It gets at what I've been struggling with for the past two years, on and off (mostly on). All-consuming fire vs. numbing ice. Too much vs. not enough. The unsustainability of passion, vs. a total absence thereof.

I spent much of the last weekend remembering what I had forgotten, all the things I really liked about my previous life, when I was Good. There was a lot to like. Stability, peace, calmness. But when you're being Bad, it's no surprise when things go wrong and tears flow and hearts break. When you're Good and things go wrong anyway, it hurts much more.

hitting the wall

It's been another crazy busy week, so today I took what some people might call a mental health day. I called it a "fuck you, I'm exhausted and I have too much to do to put up with your bullshit" day.

After 14 hours of sleep, I felt better. The weather suddenly turned from rivers-of-sweat hot to winter's-coming cold this week, and today's the first day my body caught up and quit shivering. I got out of bed at the crack of noon, had some coffee, took a nice hot shower, and then went to the paint store and charged $100 worth of paint and supplies to my ex-husband's account.

"Hi, you know KD? I'm the mother of his dogs, and I'll need to put all this on his account."

That made me feel much better. I figure in the grand scheme of things, he's still about $14,584 down, not counting the ongoing maintenance for the dogs, but I'll take the small victories.

Then Lizzie called and we decided to go to this new cupcake store. I know cupcake stores are all the rage in way-hipper places than Indianapolis, but frankly, I'm skeptical. Yes, the red velvet cupcake was tasty, and the gelato looked heavenly, but seriously? The decor looked like a 14-year-old girl decorated it. Pink and flowers and shabby-chic everywhere. And 5 bucks for two regular-sized cupcakes? I'd get more enjoyment from a bottle of 3-buck-chuck.

The constant stream of private-school kids getting their afternoon sugar fix courtesy of the nanny almost made me lose my cream-cheese frosting. Lizzie and I reminisced about how in our day, an after-school snack consisted of making yourself a bowl of cereal at home, not $2.50 cupcakes.

So now I've watered my grass seed, and almost dialed 911 when a thug picked up a bottle on the sidewalk and broke it and started walking toward a group of people, yelling. Apparently his intended stab-ee took off, so he calmed down. Police action averted. Dammit.

Now all I have left to do is write a column that was due Wednesday, so I can head to southern Indiana and paint the trim on the farmhouse. And I don't have a topic. Lizzie and I brainstormed.

"What have you done this week?" she asked.

I considered the possibilities. I whored around in Broad Ripple. Can't write about that. I listened to someone pour his heart out over an affair he's having. Nix that. I could write about the shooting behind my house, but I want new people to move INTO my 'hood, not OUT of it, so I don't really want to go there.

I had an interesting conversation with Deputy Joe Wednesday night about all sorts of pertinent matters, but if he reads a published recounting of our conversation, he'll probably never invite me over for, um, a nitecap ever again, and I sure as hell don't want to alienate the only reliable member of my stable.

"Have you done anything artsy-fartsy?"

I haven't.

"Wow, you're screwed."

Yep.