From the Annals of Yellow-Haired Charlotte Bukowski

The boys are throwing stones at the frogs; the frogs are dying in earnest...

But one of the reasons I know the Iran War is not WWIII—other than D's horary astrological chart—is that The Daily Mail only trumpeted Iran War headlines for three days.

Now DM's headlines are back to the news the American public actually cares about: mothers of three who poison their husbands, toddlers who die in backyard pools and come back to life five hours later, Kristen Bell's three-way marriage.

Can the Ayotollah's assassination really compare to Nick Reiner's life in prison?

I don't think so.

###

Meanwhile, I am working at two Schlock offices. One's in a strip mall in Middletown, the other's in a strip mall in Montgomery.

Middletown is just filled with hideous strip malls. I take periodic breaks to wander around this one, snapping photographs. This is my job, right? This is why the Universe plopped me down into this particular time/space continuum. I'm an archivist!







I'm particularly intrigued by the check-cashing place. It is right next door to Schlock, making this strip mall a veritable buffet of predatory financial services. (Schlock makes a sizeable portion of its revenues not from preparing taxes but from loan-sharking against anticipated tax refunds with exorbitant fees & interest rates.)

###

The people who work at the Middletown Schlock office are uniformly awful, rude, and completely disinterested in me. I pretend I'm Charlotte Bukowski and remind myself that I wouldn't recognize these people if I bumped into them on the street.

There is only one strip mall in Montgomery. Is that the reason why the people in that Schlock office are so much nicer? Maybe.

But one of my survival strategies is to tell myself I could walk out in the middle of a shift and never, ever have to think about Schlock again. Schlock has no hold on me. Schlock has no roots in my life. Schlock is only a revenue source.

###

I feel like such a drone, I've been isolating myself. Human contact, reaching out to friends, would actually make me feel better. But what do I have to offer?

"NEVER shall a young man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-coloured
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.'
"But I can get a hair-dye
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young men in despair
May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair.'
"I heard an old religious man
But yesternight declare
That he had found a text to prove
That only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair."