Misjudging
Sep. 6th, 2004 08:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraI threw a stick in the water for Milo yesterday. He missed it. Swam in too deep, could not be convinced that his eye had misjudged my toss; spent 15 minutes paddling out beyond the wave break, searching for the damned thing. I suppose that’s where the adjective “dogged” comes from. I’ve got to get rich so I can buy Milo a ranch. And a herd of cattle.
____ ________ was just opening up as we trotted back to the van. We stopped to chat. “How’s hot sauce?” he asked.
“August was good. August was very good. And I knew September wasn’t going to be as good but I was unprepared for how sudden that ‘wasn’t’ would come. I flipped out a little.”
____ nodded sagely. “Thank God for Prozac and alcohol. That’s all that got me through last year.”
“Really?” I said.
“Really. I started having panic attacks alone in the store. My left arm would go numb. I thought I was having angina. Or maybe building up to a stroke.”
“Really?” I said again. I was deeply interested. My personal pathology alone in my store is more psychological. I feel deeply repulsive. Literally. I radiate energy like the negative diode of a magnet or maybe I’m swathed in a mini, isotropically charged Van Allen belt.
“You’re nuts,” Ben – to whom I confide this fantasy – tells me.
“Maybe Mrs. Laurie put a curse on me. Do you think I should steal some holy water from the Mission, do a little exorcism? Or do you need a professional for that? You think Rabbi Bruce would be up for it?”
“Listen to me -- the store is doing very well considering that it is only in its second year of business,” says Ben. Actually he snarls the sentence as though there’s a period between each word. “I think we should try to sell the store. You obviously have the wrong kind of personality for retail.”
Who doesn’t? I’m thinking now, talking to ____. I have a vision: a nation held together by an entrepreneurial economy, each of those small businesses floating on SRI's.
Then last night dreamed that Jeanna was stalking a soldier. She’d misjudged good manners for romantic interest. I was staying with her, in a ramshackle house with many rooms. “Can you go for a long walk or something?” she hissed and I said, “Sure, honey,” knowing full well that when I returned, her heart would be broken.
____ ________ was just opening up as we trotted back to the van. We stopped to chat. “How’s hot sauce?” he asked.
“August was good. August was very good. And I knew September wasn’t going to be as good but I was unprepared for how sudden that ‘wasn’t’ would come. I flipped out a little.”
____ nodded sagely. “Thank God for Prozac and alcohol. That’s all that got me through last year.”
“Really?” I said.
“Really. I started having panic attacks alone in the store. My left arm would go numb. I thought I was having angina. Or maybe building up to a stroke.”
“Really?” I said again. I was deeply interested. My personal pathology alone in my store is more psychological. I feel deeply repulsive. Literally. I radiate energy like the negative diode of a magnet or maybe I’m swathed in a mini, isotropically charged Van Allen belt.
“You’re nuts,” Ben – to whom I confide this fantasy – tells me.
“Maybe Mrs. Laurie put a curse on me. Do you think I should steal some holy water from the Mission, do a little exorcism? Or do you need a professional for that? You think Rabbi Bruce would be up for it?”
“Listen to me -- the store is doing very well considering that it is only in its second year of business,” says Ben. Actually he snarls the sentence as though there’s a period between each word. “I think we should try to sell the store. You obviously have the wrong kind of personality for retail.”
Who doesn’t? I’m thinking now, talking to ____. I have a vision: a nation held together by an entrepreneurial economy, each of those small businesses floating on SRI's.
Then last night dreamed that Jeanna was stalking a soldier. She’d misjudged good manners for romantic interest. I was staying with her, in a ramshackle house with many rooms. “Can you go for a long walk or something?” she hissed and I said, “Sure, honey,” knowing full well that when I returned, her heart would be broken.
