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Saturday
February 26, 2005

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one way or another i usually find a way to feel like a sucker.
when money was tight, i felt like a freak because i couldn't
bring myself to look for work. most jobs seemed obscene. while
my Cornell '91 classmates threw themselves into internships and
jobs, i drank, played with Legos, and watched the Simpsons with
friends. the idea of a "career" was insanity. how could someone
more or less volunteer to become a part of the machine before
first understanding (at least a little) how that machine worked?
i had suspicions about corporate america and they were all bad.
now, i feel like a freak because i'm buying into the dream. i am
working a lot (hard, honest labor--sucker!), scraping and saving
towards a down payment on some future property. today was my
7th day in a row, plus another obligation tomorrow. well, at least
it was relatively easy, a half day only to finish dismantling, salvag-
ing, & disposing waste from a carport. truck rental to south seattle
transfer station, back up the viaduct to see the city keeping its
secrets. by afternoon the fog burned off and there was a treat
waiting in my mailbox: Slouching Toward Nirvana, the latest
posthumous collection of Charles Bukowski's poems. it's the best
selection in years. apparently, john martin has more time to devote
to editing since he sold Black Sparrow Press. i sat in the sun outside
sarah's studio and read the words of one sucker to another, relaxed.