I stand in this elevator. I ride the train in the morning and stand in this elevator, waiting as I pass thirty-four floors. Lift off. One, two. The elevator dings as it slides by each floor. This is life as it is. This is my morning, the beginning to all of my days. Three, four…
I think I am still in my bed. It would be nice in my bed. Warm, under the covers, half awake and lazy; it is my favorite state. Languoring in convected heat, spreading my arms and limbs against the flannel on my sheets. I roll onto my stomach, stretching my sides as I turn, now back and here my.. Five, six… ding ding. The alarm goes off and I see myself hitting snooze again, shutting off the faces around me silent with coffee stupor dead with morning dilemna, feeling only their ears as they begin to pop. The elevator climbs. Seven, eight… Oh to drift back to bed; lounge. Funny I never go back there alone. Climbing back into my bed by myself is an admission of illness with the exception of the college years. If someone is with me, however, there is nothing like crawling back into bed.
Ding Ding. Nine, ten. No one gets off. This elevator goes right to the top. Just climb. Keep on keep on. And what are we all looking at? We all stare at the doors as if at the television screen, I wonder if the man next to me is watching Mission Impossible as he picks the scab off the edge of his ear. The woman so close in front of me I could bite her scarf is probably watching some sick rerun of the a.m. traffic over the bay bridge. Ding ding. Eleven and twelve. I close my eyes as I imagine the doors opening. I will be walking to my cubicle. Ugh. I tell myself it’s not that bad, and in the bed of my imagination I give an extra stretch. Lean up. In the bed of my imagination you are there, and I bury my head in the pillow. But the truth is, you are not there. You are somewhere far north of me and far away. And it is easy to believe, when I am with you in my bed, that you will wait for me, and I for you, and all of this will come out fine. Once in awhile, though, in the elevator of my workplace, I have doubts.
Fourteen… ding ding. My cubicle. I promised myself I would never have to work in cubicle land. I told myself I would never have to do that. And here I am doing it. Here I am waiting through 34 floors of goddamned dings so that I can walk to my cube first thing in the morning. I don’t want to work like this. And the job I had, in the precise environment I was looking for, I left. Smart caito. Really smart. I must have been out of my fucking mind. Ding ding.. I was unhappy. ding ding. And I needed to leave. Ding ding. Why was I unhappy? Because I couldn’t stand the over-professional atmosphere of kissing ass all the time. That’s what you have to do though. Kiss ass and love it. Work with absolutely no guidance whatsoever. and love it. Work with no mentors. And love it. love it loveit. ding ding. I know I needed to leave. The question is can I get back? The larger question is do I want to go back? The largest question is, what the fuck do I want to do with my life that involves more than a man?
Why does it always come down to them? Why am I always sitting in my room, rocking back and forth and listening to chick music in the dark in tears. Oh excuse me, I’ve progressed to candlelight. Why do I have to be the drama queen. What I want to be is Marilla Cuthbert. What I want to be is N—- O’—–. The picture of stability. I know it isn’t like that. I know that everyone has cracks that can’t be seen. But, I want to be stable. I want to be even. dependable. I’ll do without life of the party. I’ll take the slow and steady fire, provided it’s actually burning.
Twenty three and twenty four. Ding a ding. Why is it that when I’m talking to him to myself, I’m always arguing with him? Do I actually expect I’ll be arguing with him? Am I stressing too much? Or am I waiting for the right time to fight with him. It’s not my fault I want to know how much he can take, how much we’ll be capable of forgiving each other; ourselves. I want to know. I want to know what it will take to make him leave. I want to test his mettle. The right time to fight with him? I hear Garrin, my Mofo coworker in my head. His mettle. ha ha very funny Garrin. Let’s move off the topic of his unit shall we?
I’ve been throwing temper tantrums lately. Juan says I haven’t been in a good mood in months. That’s not true, at least I don’t think. I just haven’t been in a good mood at home. They irritate me now. I think Juan told Rob about my crush on him. I sincerely get that feeling. Maybe I’m wrong. We’ll just assume that’s the case. Since lately all I am is wrong. Everything I say everything that comes out of my mouth… I have to learn to shut up I think. Just be invisible? Is that what I’m telling myself to do? Rob has been taking digs.. a comment about “yeah well at least I don’t sleep with them.” That low. Of course he wasn’t serious, and probably doesn’t even remember, but those are the comments that mean the most. Those things that pop out without our consent; aren’t they the way we actually feel? I think so. That was such a lovely thing to think about me. I’m so glad he took the time. Or maybe he didn’t. But I have. I certainly have. Ouch.
I do need to stop my sex drive. Or do I? Is it bad that I’m sleeping with all these men? Am I supposed to feel like a whore? Or do we just have sex? Is that what we do as a species? I mean technically, in Darwin’s terms, we are supposed to be having sex, because we’re supposed to be having babies. Proliferating, propagating, I mean, just biologically speaking. Of course I don’t mean everybody, and I certainly don’t speak for every woman. But the survival of the species does have to be ensured. Doesn’t it? And the society we live in isn’t truly proliferate at anything, when is the last time you heard the word proliferate? It’s really a strange era of humankind for raising pups. But we still need the sex. Or I do anyway.
Which takes me right back to why? Why is it I still want to have sex? I do want a baby. I really do. Saw a stupid sappy movie. Say that six times fast. I want to experience pregnancy. But I think I would lose my mind if I did. I am pregnant. My skin around my belly is taut, my tummy is hug, my belly button is poking out through my shirt, and I sink into the couch so far I can’t get up.
The thing about S—- that scares me? He’s done all this before. He’s fallen in love, he’s been through the moodiness. I really always thought the one I found would have never been in love before. That’s so silly. He’s put his ear on someone else’s stomach. He’s slept that way through hours of the night with other people. But for me? It’s a first. I don’t want him to have slept on other women’s tummies, I don’t want him to have another intimacy to compare. I want him to fall in love with me. But not for any of the same reason’s he fell in love with her.