simile time.

do you remember that video game pitfall? the one where you had to navigate your way through the jungle, swinging on vines and avoiding quicksand and such?

sometimes, i feel like getting through a day in this city is like a game of pitfall.

today's adventure included:

- uncomfortable shoes

- oppressive humidity

- lugging five books to work in my bag

- lugging five books from work to the library, and coming out an hour later with seven

- not having a bag that fits seven books and all my other crap, which results in beng weighed down with a huge bag on one arm and three books in the other

- running the gauntlet (twice! once coming, and once going) of homeless or otherwise indigent men*, who gather in groups and staaaaaaaaare at you for the length of the block

- running for a blue line train carrying what begins to feel like a few slabs of concrete

- sitting down next to a middle-aged white guy on the train who shows you his copy of the onion and says, in all seriousness, "did you know that this is a fake newspaper??"

- walking up the hill to your apartment, sweaty, blistered, weighed down like a pack mule, exasperated with humanity and exhausted with yourself, and having to pass all the happy people drinking margaritas at the mexican place on the corner.


why i am not drinking a margarita right now is beyond me, actually. (oh right - we don't have an ice maker, or any disposable income this week!) the funny thing is, none of this is out of the ordinary. there are just some days where it all conspires to make you feel like a guy in a safari hat, sweeping precariously through the urban jungle.



*in general, i appreciate the unfortunate situation most of these men are in. i don't begrudge them a place to go and not get harassed by business owners and/or cops. but regardless, a dozen or more pairs of eyes on you - especially when they belong to scruffy, potentially mentally ill people, is not an enjoyable experience.