If We Could Collect All The Missing Hours

Here's the thing. A challenge. The efficiency of two hours. I am at the least the most inefficient. Instead of rising to the challenge, I've been side-stepping. Reading blogs. Niina thinks readings are killing her. Maybe that's why she didn't post the reading she curates on her blog. I forgot about her reading. Dan called on Saturday to confirm my attendance at said series. I was honest. I said, Dan, dude, totally forgot about it. I made late lunch plans. No way I find myself in Bushwick by 4 o'clock. I will call Dan to see if he attended. To see if Niina was alive or a corspe. I'm curious that way.

I read Farrah's blog & became nostalgic for a bridge that I've never felt nostalgic for. The new new sincere. I will not thank Farrah for this. Vulnerability was not on my Sunday list. I make lists. My roommate makes lists. Sometimes we have plans with each other & we find each other & our plans on our separate lists. This continues to amuse me. We were on each other's lists last night, but then took each other off & replaced each other with other others. I hope she had a nice night.

I read Molly's blog. There's a picture. There are lots of pictures. But the picture in my mind (as it is in my mind since I am not looking at the picture at the particular minute in time) is of an aisle. & what is unpictured but captioned is her indecision. I think. If I was in Philly. I'd pick out some tea for her. Just like that. She'd have a basket of teas. But that means that if she's in New York she would have to help me decide on how to spend my money on things I don't want to spend my money on. This is the list thus far: laundry, dry-cleaning, shampoo, conditioner, soap. I'd rather spend that money on books, food, drinks, company. This is feeling like a math problem. I should add extra information to confuse you. I've always suspected that only I was confused by this extra information. I was horrible at math. I didn't understand the material. This made my mother angry. She was angry because she didn't understand the material, which made her feel embarrassed. But I was little & didn't know that she was embarrassed. I just thought she was impatient & mean. Sometimes I think about psychic scars. For some it was not being white enough or Black enough, or being Latino/a or Asian but only speaking English, or having acne, or being too skinny, or too fat, or too ugly, or too cute, or not popular enough, or too popular, but for all the wrong reasons which is usually how popularity works. I have had some of these problems, but today is Sunday & I don't care about any of these things. Today I will die.

Mariya & I made a wager. To see which one of us would spend the next two hours efficiently. She had to finish her work. I had to finish a novel. I have not finished the novel. Which means failure is explicit. Which means she gets to feed me to the crocodiles in the East River. I'm taller than Mariya & I hope that if I tower over her she will feel sorry or scared of me. Mariya may not feel sorry for me. Mariya may quite enjoy watching me being devoured by crocodiles. We all have our kicks. Yesterday. I saw my roommate eat a grapefruit. I've been enjoying grapefruit juice. Today I will buy a grapefruit. I am ready for it. Then I will go see Mariya. I will buy a grapefruit for her as well. Even in death one must be a gentleman.