Sufficiently Over-thought

work in an office. It is boring and grey. When I come home I am tired, but not annoyed, and have some time fore myself to relax and enjoy the night - watch a TV show, play a game - before going to bed and doing it all over again.
I wear clothes that are conservative and make me uncomfortable in my skin. My shoes have made my feet go all swollen.
My boss is a nice woman, when she's not being my boss. Otherwise she is demanding, towards everyone.
I file papers, re-write files, cover the reception desk.
My co-workers, mostly, are friendly people, who see us all as in the same boat.
But I am still not me while I'm there.
I cannot wear the outfits I like, or comfortable shoes. I frequently watch what I say.
I consider myself, strangely, ahead of the game.
I know that this is not going to become my life, the way people seem to let it become theirs. Sure the money is nice to have. The money makes it possible for me to cross off the epitaph "Dead beat" off my list of "Things Homer Would Identify Me As".  It lets me apply for school and maybe I will be able to move out on my own.
I rub my ring - a pewter piece I bought yesterday at a fair in front of the office. In a diamond shape seems to be a celtic knot-type of design, with a flower in the center and four corners. It's on my pinky, because I like to wear my rings on my pinky. The flowers have a yellow stone in their center. Like pollen. It's a small reminded, at work, our of the cornor of my eye, this piece of metal and glass, of who I am. I bought it because I liked it. It resonated with me.
Now I buy my clothes because they are right for an office.
When I walk home, I listen to music.
Music is my real anchor to who I am. All the songs on my iPod, shuffled continuously, reach out to a different part of my brain, my soul, what have you, that reminds me of who I am, what I've done, who my friends are, and where I want to go.
I am a geek, a child, an artist, and all these other conflicting parts that make up one person who seems to compliment only herself.
That's the way it feels sometimes.
I don't belong in an office. But that's where I am right now.
It's those constant reminders of who I really am... reading a book, singing a song, writing a story, being a hypochondriac... that remind me that life and where I am if only temporary. Where I'll be in 2 years will be temporary.
And, besides, I don't come home saying "I hate work so much"... that counts for something.

It kind of looks like a bunny... or maybe a ducky

...if you squint and turn your head sideways

I was on the ferry yesterday, going to Ars Nova to bartend. This isn't about how I got into the city and ended up being 45 minutes late (though I was still there before the audience was seated... thanks a lot train full of people who wouldn't let me off at my stop,, and retarded downtown service).
...
Memory is a funny thing - it creeps up on you when you think you've forgotten everythng, and hides in strange places, maybe it's a taste - the ghost of a flavor - that has stayed in the back of your mouth that you can't explain but long for, a smell that you can't identify, but tickles your nose and makes you close your eyes with a wsistful sigh, or a song you had forgotten about, but once it plays on the radio (you do listen to the radio right?) a hundred feelings all swell up into one feeling of "summer".
As I'm on the ferry, with children running around, and tourists hanging off the side of the railings, trying to get a good picture, I noticed the land across the way. The only reasoin I noticed it was because I remembered how the day before the fog had been so thick you couldn't even see Lady Liberty's Torch.
I don't know where the land was a part of - Jersey, Manhatten. It wasn't Staten Island, that's all I knew.
The houses on the side of the hill, close to the water, a white building, a hotel as far as I was concerned, resting a little ways off from the shore line.
It wasn't hard to imagine that hidden behind that hotel, connecting the houses, were small streets, lines with Orange trees.
A small detail I had forgotten about my trip to France several years ago.
I get lost - it's shouldn't be a surprise that someone who frequently needs someone to pull on the back of her shirt to stop her fros crossing a street because she didn't notice a car was coming - gets lost. On my trip to France, I had gotten lost three times.
One of those times had me touring the streets of the village I was in, with amazement. I had never seen orange trees. They lined the smal streets there, in a few places, and many hung ripe, begging to be eaten. I live in New York City - Staten Island, in fact, as I've mentioned. Orange trees can grow here. It's just a matter of pride that they don't. Also, I wouldn't eat an orange off a tree in New York City. They probably know that. So, I, in fact, have never seen a real orange tree, and only knew them to grow on trees as a matter of scientfice fact - the way that I know that the human head weighs 8 - 12 pounds, or that there is no oxygen in space. I've never checked these facts personally, but I'm secure in the knowlede that many grad students have.
With a minimum of fuss, I remembered the paths I used to walk every day while I was there, remembering the rooster in the morning, how weird my ham and cheese sandwich tasted because they put butter on the bread, and that in order to get my rented bike to stop properly, I had to steer it towards a wall.
I remembered that I wrote everything that I learned down into a little book, but I can't remember where that book is, nor half the things I wrote down.
So many things about France came back to me, just because if you squint and turn your head, it's not hard to imagine orange tree-lined streets in July.