Shirtless Flautas

I work in an office, in an old barracks structure, a World War II relic. The ticket office where I work is a place of extreme temperature. In the morning, it is cold. There is a space heater against one wall. In the afternoon it heats up. The walls are covered in green carpet and we use velcro to fasten flyers and posters to the walls.

I have a love/hate relationship with office life. On the one hand I like getting a paycheck, even if it is once a month. On the other, I'm not good with routine. And yet I crave it. Obviously I'm crazy.

Outside the window a group of young men without shirts just ran by. I hear it's called "jogging."

I have a craving for a Monte Cristo sandwich. But instead I'll probably go home in an hour and eat refrigerated flautas from Costco.

Results of meeting with my teacher: in one month I will have a one-act to showcase. (Sounds like a Price is Right term, showcase) with the possible hope and near imminent possibility of a staged reading at a real theatre downtown. Her office was incredible, exactly perfect. Off the street, conference room, light and airy office with a real door that closed and probably locked. It was wonderful. Left me with a definite opinion and that was positive.

My knee is healing well, thanks for asking.

But this morning I cut my finger on a cat food can. Cuz I hang with little old ladies. Dag yo.

I want to go to a fancy restaurant and order the herb crusted filet mignon and the garlic mashed potatoes. Maybe I'll have a popsicle for dessert. I hear you can make them out of wine?

Zero the Hero

I might just have an idea for a one-act. Lifted directly from a story on the Travel Channel, with certain modifications ... Tomorrow I'll be meeting with the woman who is leading the playwriting workshop. Bright and early. She was my teacher at the university about five years ago, so I have a pretty good idea what to expect. At work today I abused my privileges and printed out some of my short plays to catch her up. It's disheartening how little "catching-up" she'll have to do. In five years I re-worked a one-act I already won an award for, re-worked one ten-minute play I thought I'd finished, and wrote a couple new ten-minute plays. Then I got into avant-garde theatre and made a mess of things. Lines like, "Now no one can play with the dog baby," "I bounced for science," and "International waters be damned!" haven't helped my marketability.

When I called this woman on the phone last night, I said "The only feedback I get is rejection letters." And it's true. I don't know anyone else who does this. And she said, "They say the average American has nine friends." I said, "Do they count pets?"

Not to get off track, but I don't have nine friends. Not even imaginary. I invented Esmeralda to help me play water polo. Is water polo the same thing as wet dodge ball? Because it sure seemed that way.

I should probably learn something about grammar. I learned enough to forget and now I need it again. More than I need calculus. Calculus has never come up, not once, in the last ten years. Now algebra, that's pretty frelling useful. And the fact that zero times any other number is still zero, that's bailed me out on occasion. Like on those commercials when they say, now our internet service is ten times faster! And you say, wha? It's still dial-up, how can it be ten times faster? And then you say, Eureka! Voila! Zero times ten is still zero! Thank you junior high school math teacher! That's making a difference!

Tripping the Light Fantastic

I have ice on my knee. Ice in a knock-off brand Ziploc bag, wrapped in a paper towel, pressed firmly to my knee. Because I'm a klutz. Because walking down the hallway -- something I do daily -- I tripped over a network cable and barely escaped serious and dire injury. But never fear. I am fine. Only slightly broken.

If enough people can be gathered, I will be joining a playwriting workshop for the month of April. It will be our goal to write a one-act play to workshop and possibly do a staged-reading. Normally I am lazy and anti-social. Someone must have slipped something into my food. Could it be steroids? Oxycontin? Some sort of laxative? How can I tell if I've been poisoned? Can I hire an official taster?

Needed: Official Taster. Detect toxins and/or hazardous substances in the designated comestibles. Requires can-do attitude! Must supply own latex gloves.

The Brand X bag has begun to leak. It must be dealt with. Will this teach me to pay the extra thirty cents per box? Stay tuned.

Breakfast of Champions

I ate too many donuts.

There are things to do today. There is work and cleaning and helping boost the economy (by buying books) but I want none of it. The sun is shining and the sky is blue and I'm thinking of drinking a Diet Dr. Pepper to get the morning underway and off. Of course it's not morning, it's afternoon. But I wasted my morning by eating breakfast in a real restaurant and then window-shopping at K-Mart and Borders.

The occasion for eating in a real honest-to-goodness restaurant is this: friends moving, friends getting married, friends buying a house … Q.E.D. not seeing them ever again. Is breakfast appropriate for that sort of situation? We flirted with the idea of bowling, but it was too late, and I was too tired.

And since when I got home I had just a little bit of room left in my insides, I opened the white and red and green cardboard box and ate a Krispy Kreme donut, chocolate stuffed with cream, and now I'm rotund once more.

Yesterday I went to see a play in Los Angeles. I found a wonderful website where I bought a half priced ticket and then drove down to partake, only getting mildly lost.

Sunday is my rest day. I should go to work and make databases and be productive but I don't feel like it. Not yet. I did most of what I needed to do on Cesar Chavez Day, Friday, when I bought new tires, took in the recycling, worked on my holiday for 3 hours, window shopped at Walgreens, cleaned the bathroom and did dishes and picked up the living room, and then I read "Breakfast at Tiffany's."

So now I feel justified in my day of rest. Please let me have it. Please?