Exeunt?

Sitting on the bus on my way to work. Ron and I were going to back to my place
after dinner lawst night and the gym when a brain-blown guy got on and started
shouting ‘she called me a nigga! I ain’t no nigga! A nigga is a low-life piece
of trash – I been gangbanging all my life.’ This i right after toldl Ron that
I was definitely not going to miss having to be on guard all the time in my
neighborhood. The smart-ass in me wanted to logically conclude, ‘well, if you
are indeed a lifelong gang-banger and you’re nearly drunk on the CTA doesn’t
that make you a low-life piece of trash or nigga?’ But of course I resisted.
Good thing too. Because less than thirty seconds after he got on the we were
stopped and surrounded by squad cars. The bus was flooded with cops – eight
of them streamed in from both entrances. Evidently this guy had been waving
a wrench at people on Montrose and Clark and sure enough – they found a big-ass
wrench in on eo fhis bags. The dragged him out of the bus and took all of his
bags of stuff and went on teir merry way – this, of course, made all te other
drunk transients on the bus sit up a little straighter and stop moaning in liquor-soaked
breath about their misfortunes. As we got off the bus – yeah – we only had another
half a block to go when we were stopped – I looked at the garbage blowing across
the streets and thought, ‘I’m not going to miss this neighborhood at night.’
That’s for damn sure.

I’d decided to go to Circuit on Saturday night but of course it doesn’t get
good until about 2 – and being the cheapskate I am I didn’t want to pay for
a taxi so I decided to go out and wait for the Clark bus at 2 in the morning.
Wearing tight jeans and a black muscle shirt, I felt like a street hustler –
only without that all the STDs. The good thing about 2am on Clark is that nobody
is going to mess with you because they’re still too drunk to even walk uprgith.
Except for the gaggle of white kids in search of an ATM there were just a few
disparate (desperate?) groups of drunkards comign out of the bar that has no
title – only a big sign that says ‘Old Style.’ Maybe I’ll take mom and dad ther
when they visit next — they like Old Style. Got to Circiut and everyone wanted
to know where Ron was and I can never remember – it was one of those days where
he’d called me from a different city every four hours and I (employer) never remember
which one he’d called form last – his layover – but it was our 11 month anniversay
so was happy to say that. A lot fo the Filipino Mafia was there too – though
not the femme ones – the ones that were a little less Madame Butterly. They
all kept chiding me when I took breaks from dancing until I explained that I
was probably dancing on a stress fracture (they finally did an x-ray on Saturday
morning – of course I’ve had no call from the radiologist yet). I can’t jump
up and down but do my best to move my upper body and hips to the music. I’m
standing there watching te crowd and this guy comes up to me – pretty geeky
guy, geekier than I used to be – and says ‘Hi, I’m Scott.’ I introducde myself.
‘Yeah, they told me this is the club to go to find muscle-boys.’ I smiled inside,
presuming that I was (finally!) included in the clan of gym-bunnies. He was
from D.C. and was I here alone tonight – yeah – I’m here by myself since my
boyfriend is out of town. Long long silence. I say, ‘Well, I’m gonna walk around
some more – have a good night – good luck!’ Ron remarked how gentle that was
– like when some older daddy from the suburbs crept up behind me and put his
hands on my hips and I calmlly grabbed his hands and put them back on his own
hips – no reason to make a scene or embarrass anybody. Sometimes I have way
too much tact. Stayed there from 2:30 to 4 and then came home – woke up with
a sore throat. Colorful junk which means infection – but probably the end of
one. That or I’ve got West Nile virus. Schsse!

Friday I had a meeting with G_____ and announced my intention to give three
weeks notice. The week had gone from bad to worse and I had re-realized for
one last time the fact that this job is not goign to get any easier, more enjoyable,
less frustrating or less draining in the forseeable future. And how much longer
am I going to put up with it? It was hardest of all that I had to say this to
G_____, a fellow INFJ how takes everything personaly – like me. She was deinitely
shocked. And I felt bad that M____ had just gone on a three-week vacation and
then C_____ was gone too – though I thought C_____ was just gone for the weekend
and not for three weeks – I made it very clear to G_____ that I hoped that thsi
did not come off as a ‘sabotage’ – with me giving notice like this when 2 out
my 3 bosses are out of the office. We talked about the possibility of me going
part-time and transitioning out of the company. They have handed down a new-new
policy – that we are going to stop hiring outside contractors to do work for
the company – I’m sure this excldes any favorites of the senior management –
we changed CEOs agian a week ago. But this will at least guarantee me a small
amount of income for a couple of months while I get everything else prepared
and put together. I have lots of projects – all prepared about half to 2/3rds
of the way done – got get ’em rolling out!

Saw four one-act plays by John Guare by Eclipse on Sunday. I’ve always tried
to read Guare and enjoy it – Mary used to say that my writing reminded me of
him. But as we left the theatre Brigitte said, ‘You’re plays are nothign like
his – you have conflict.’ Two out of the four plays were very floating and conflict-less.
I guess I’m supposed to say they had the lilt of a tone-poem or of a Debussy
modern piano piece. But no – two of them were just plain boring. And I thought
they had that contrived-arty-ness thing going on too that really drives me up
a wall. Sometimes I think that I have over-rigid ideas.