spark

It's funny, the connections we form with certain people, the lack of those that are never formed with others. How does one person, one day, strike you in the way a wooden match would when dragged across a brick fireplace, with such a spark and such an energy that they are forever imprinted in your mind? And depending on certain variables - the size of the spark, the voracity with which it was lit, and the length of time before the fire (when there was only darkness and it was cold) - the imprint grows. The connection strengthens. The purest, wildest of fires burn fast and with intensity. Chaotic.

I am drawn to the flames. I've stretched my arms out, palms facing away from me, and found the fire. It wasn't hard to find; I helped strike the match.

It's been warmer lately, and bright. Aren't these things supposed to start in the spring? Is it fitting that we found each other after the days have started shrinking and the sun's heat is at half mast and I need to put on my warmest socks and bundle my skinny body up into layers of thin clothing and burrow deep down into my double bed to escape the chill? You're there often, underneath the covers with me. That's when it gets hot enough for the clothes to come off.

And that will be my fall. The trees that line our streets will burn with orange and spark with gold and then fall will turn into winter. It will start getting wetter. The trees will shed their clothes too and the rain will come often. Piles of leaves will turn to mush and start to disintegrate, their energy seeping back into the vessel from which it came. It will get colder but I don't mind. I'll have you.

Eventually the sun will want come out and play, and so will the birds. The leaves will be picked up or become compost, now blackened with rot. Buds of green will burst open into reds and pinks and whites on the trees on our streets, and the water that runs off the mountains and down through our rivers will be warm enough to swim in. The same shades of green, and different ones too, will cover the landscape, from lawns to fields, and critters will stir in the ground and in the sky, their offspring falling out of nests or being eaten by predators or growing up to mate and have babies of their own.

Fires will ignite in the hills. We can find a cliff overlooking a valley, some electric orange ball of energy licking and engulfing and blazing below. We can stand there, bodies touching, and feel the heat.

Fuck Fridays is back in Sacramento.

October 17th work

The kind of thing I have to experience at my place of work is interesting, to say the least. Unsettling, to say it best. I've been to hell and I'll spell it brunch. I am a hostess at a restaurant downtown - and kids, I'll shit you not and tell you it's the place to go for your hangover with a side of breakfast.

But for me, I no longer have the privilege of weekend brunch. I won't be enjoying it; I'll be working it. Taking names and numbers and handing out pagers, constructing puzzles out of tables. I wear a smile well and often - I soothe the weary, the hungry, the cranky. I fluctuate so that you will have a wonderful experience. It may take a good deal of energy, but I'm usually brimming it, even first thing in the morning, if forced. The coffee helps a great deal, and honestly, I enjoy running around and chatting with people all over the restaurant. It keeps me busy.

But because I work brunches, I have to experience a loss. Beautiful breakfasty things slip away. Mimosas no longer have a meaning to me; they are transformed into a shiny orange bulbous tumors on a glass stick. The french toast is always burnt. The potatoes are over-fried. The company is cranky and hungry and the syrup-covered infant at the table next to you is shrieking. Pleasant.

So I run around and I hand out menus and then I pick up menus and I try to appease the servers by rotating the sections fairly and try to appease the customers by seating them in desirable sections and make small chat with the customers and try not to trip over the kids who are running around unsupervised while avoiding the plate of food that is being run out the door and the bosses who are either flirting or scolding or joking with the rest of the staff. It's a hectic place. I'm surprised so many customers want to deal with that. I wonder if, while stuffing a fat piece of our famous french toast into their fat greasy mouths, the customers are able to feel the pulsating energy that engulfs the places, seeping out of the mop closet in the back and sizzling with the pomme frittes in the deep fryer, gurgling along with the scalding coffees behind the bar or oozing out of the ketchup bottles. I wonder indeed.

I dream of going out to breakfast with friends. I cherish it when it happens. I never go to my restaurant, I never dream about work, but I dream about my friends at work. The other day I dreampt I was smoking a spliff with my boss. I wonder if he'd be interested. Maybe in the next dream I'll offer him some.