Memoirs 5 and 6
#5
Sundays have the most sections to them. There are the most steps: Picking up the inserts from Leanne's garage, assembling the papers and delivering to them to the first apartment building, assembling and delivering them to the second building. There are the most sections: The glossy and slippery ads for frozen meatloaf and toothbrushes, extra classifieds, the thick leisure section, the television guide, the comics (which are stuffed with more of the sticky ads).
I dread the Sundays. I curse and spit through the first sections. I complain and whine to myself, I drag my feet and sleep much too late. A headache has turned from a dull ache to sharp and spasmodic pains at the nape of my neck. It is a miserable job, to sub for another girl's newspaper route. It's hot in the apartment buildings and the cinder block walls make me dizzy with their uniformity. My jeans feel waxy with sweat. I have a blister on my right foot. I curse some more.
By the third floor, I've settled into the rhythm of the paper route. I've quit cursing and spitting, I'm not enjoying myself but I'm no longer miserable. I'm accepting of the work - it's the feeling that I get when I finally start rowing after trying desperately to escape the labor. I start making the best of unpleasant and uncomfortable work. I think about my father, a paper boy in his day, and how I'll be able to go home and commiserate with him, talk about the proper way to fling a paper, the way my uncle used to ride his bike with his eyes closed and deliver the paper. I'll get to show him my gray-inked hands, the silly and slippery inserts, and that I can handle a little menial and physical labor.
The fourth floor. Second wing. I gather the last of the papers. My headache has subsided with the promise of a shower and a clean bed. Before I set out, a man storms up the stairs. "You left a mess in the lobby," he says. "That was irresponsible and simply unacceptable." I mumble that I'm sorry, it won't happen again. "That's not enough." His eyes flash out, he's been seething up four flights of stairs and won't take any apologies. I stare at him and his smooth bald head, and am too tired to fight back. Humiliated and dejected, the headache wailing and howling away, I deliver the last of the papers.
(=======)
#6
The white couch is in the vault of the house. It is always cool there. In the mornings, it is animate. The light forms pools on the old, wide floorboards. The windows play with the light, the curtains distort it, the breeze shifts it. In the afternoons, the light has ripened to a slow and rich orange, and has fastened it's intensity on the marching pattern of the oriental rug right before the white couch. When curled on the couch, I can see the triangles and squares of the rug marching in a steady and careful time.
The floorboards are dark with age and oil. It is very dusty. It smells like a root cellar. Or a museum. My father's books line the shelves. Barefoot, I think I can feel every particle of dust on the floor.
The white couch is intoxicating. If I walk past it without concentrating, I invariably wind up sucked into it's feather cushions. This couch is one magnetic barge. It's beauty is not in it's fabric or it's feather cushions or even the beautiful things the light does to it, but lays within it's ability to induce moments of intoxicating joy in me. I surround myself with tea and novels, but I end up staring at the windows, at the light, at the oriental rug, at the dust, and am overcome.
I choke on this joy. It fills my mouth and I try to swallow it, and it stops up my nose and fills my esophagus and my lungs and my capillaries, like any malady would, but it is heady and thrilling. It is the opposite of sickness, but it takes over me the same way. These moments remind me not only that I am alive, but why I am alive. The white couch makes me feel clean again. As though my cranium were hinged open, everything removed, and cold water and air rush through me and leave me purged.
(=======)
Four more. I have two part written, and one more idea. I might end up snatching material from old entries. Some I might decide not to post - they're good for real life but this would feel too public. All of y'all have been excellent about feedback. Much thanks. People like the entries that are in their second drafts better. I think that's neat. These two I just wrote now, so they're probably not in their final phase yet.
Girls go to mars, become rock stars
2000-06-11, Memoirs 5 and 6
before / after archives / website / hello book / diaryland