Mall Talk/Food Court Drift

E: These were Kiosks that I was setting up. A pyramid of gold bars, cheap/fake jewelry on felt displays and a laptop with a jewelry scale

R: It was like an old beach house..I worked in the stock room which was really bright with floor to ceiling rolling shelves

E: The buildings are cavernous and unfurnished, save for the 20ft tall wire racks that define the aisles, full of back stock.

R: I had to be there at midnight and was there til noon sorting through a jungle of shoes.

I'm waiting by the phone for the mall to call. If i don't get the job I'll be shattered. I don't even want it, i need it, it's almost beneath me. But I imagine the discounts on face balms, the cucumber mask from the artsy apothecary I could try getting into. I imagine a ritual i will invent- Enzo pizza and a seltzer with lemon, beer somewhere bourgie after work on Wednesdays, my new life as a shadow Gap girl armed with a folding board, a cashmere with a cowl neck sliding soundlessly down. Last minute madness on Xmas eve. I'm not religious so it will be refreshing to spend the day in the service of something bigger than myself, my emerging relationship with the girl at the food court who gives smoothie samples, her neat white smile for me. Bland house music on Pandora, twisting in a three way mirror.

E: I remember the way it smelled in there- like warm plastic and cheap incense- and the feeling of having a job and tasks that i knew I could perform well. It's where I learned that I was excellent at customer service.

R: This 4 year old girl saw me fixing a mannequin and started pointing to me and trying to get her mothers attention. She was yelling, "Mom there's a real person in there!" Her mother said,"No those are just mannequins!" For some reason, I decided to say to the girl, "She's right I'm not real. "

Maybe my mom will respect me, grotesquely overqualified, maybe I'll thwart a terrorist attack- a bomb in an H&M bag. Maybe I'll trip a Colts fan, misanthropy winning my body back, babies drooling in their strollers, men peddling hair extensions in unbranded kiosks.
What's the weirdest store? Flag World? I remember being a teen, marching around, flapping the tiny flags. There's nothing you can do in a mall to truly feel rebellious. I find this vaguely comforting, a hug from my homeland. I practically grew up in traffic around a Galyan's, my mom and I wobbling in our winter coats out of the car across the ice to stroll through Sears, power walk by Pass Pets, the smell of a shar pei's cage- piss on newspaper wafting into Kaybee Toys. In B Dalton sitting with the Spin Guide to Alternative Rock across my lap, taking notes: Hole, Bratmobile, B-52s. I fell immediately in love with a boy at Sam Goody admiring the same Smashing Pumpkins poster as me, but I'll never see him again. Now I'm 31.

R: One of my co-workers was this older woman who seemed like Mother Time to me then but she was probably only 34 but had been smoking every day of her life.

E: I started to notice random men of different ages starting to congregate around that bench. They would all just watch me dress and undress the mannequins and it was really uncomfortable. Every time I would change that window it would happen. Complete strangers sitting on a bench together watching me.

One time Vanessa and I went to Castleton with a carton of raw eggs, left them nestled in Macy's miniature Christmas trees, on the stools at the piercing pagoda, in the pockets of dangling minks. We dubbed our game "You're the Rotten Egg," evading mall security, pre-Segway era; shoot the mall cop in your head.

Editor's note: the phone never rang.

$entimental Assassination

Last night I wrote: "Dear Diary, should I sell my blood or tap shoes? "
Ten percent of my body is scrawled with sketchy tattoos and I don't wanna hear I have hepatitis, so I'm avoiding the plasma clinic. And I've still got a lot of hope for the future of confrontational tap dancing, so I'm holding onto the footwear.
With these decisions, today started by dragging a bag of audio treasures to TD's. It's ok. I'm overdue for a sentimental assassination. The collector's impulse doesn't fit anymore. It's saggy.
Hey, how do you hoard the ephemeral?
In less ascetic times I wandered through the antique mall till my eyes locked with a set of four "Love is..." tumblers. Naked babies in frilly aprons, arm in chubby arm, pervy smiles smeared across each glass. I considered taking them home: practical housewares to inevitably shatter when someone makes late night pina coladas. Dislodged by a fruit skewer from the gold-flecked formica counter. A wet pile of ice for the dogs to cut their paws on.
Now I'll cup my hands around the faucet tap. Embrace more basic ways.

Here I am pictured at the Anthropology Museum, keeping a crappy fire, where I didn't have any important realizations about culture.

Abject Snacks

I get a $2 eggroll and sit outside with it somewhere in the strip. As I peel back the silver wrapper around it the tinfoil seems to hiss:
"Kill yourself."

I eat the thing.
Now its evil is inside me.

I wander around the oriental grocery. A display of flocked orange ponies flick their feathery eyelashes away. But the vacant plastic face of a five foot Hello Kitty meets me head on and whispers:
"You should be dead."

I scan my brain, rerunning my malformed morning routine. Did i take my medication today? How long has it been since I popped one of those tiny chalky chunks out of its foil-backed case?

The medication came a month overdue and in sketchy packaging, covered with a million stamps. The mailman explained that en route from India, my name had been erroneously written in the area reserved for a return address. As he handed it to me, I made a mental list of potential enemies, half-expecting to find a disembodied finger wrapped inside. I could be the butt of some horrible prank. I was relieve to find the drugs factory-sealed, probably not containing anthrax.

The root of my unhappiness is chemical, but it's definitely exacerbated by the material world. The way I keep spending money makes me hate myself.

But Abject Snacks will make me rich. Abject Snacks will be the name of my anti-foodie food blog. There, I'll document the over-salted, hot sauce drenched concoctions that happen at the end of most of my nights. I'll sell a series of cookbooks enumerating the ill-begotten secret ingredients that make the meals. I'll plaster it with filtered pix of cold fries and curry sauce from the refrigerator's depths. Sprouted grain toast from the roommate's secret stash. A squiggle of gourmet mustard.

Abject Snacks will make my problems go away.

Late Night Texts to Google

My search for "psychogeography conference" in the local area always yields 0 results. :*(

Fake Jail

My head's been scattered this past week. It's been too gorgeous out to think-- the peak of fall is somehow rendering me impotent. There's no way to ignore it and just no good way to drink it in. Stare at a tree all day? We watch the season's progress from the jail-like basement window at Soma. Our fave leaves have alreadt burnt out and fallen. They were electric red!

I imagine asking Liza to switch rooms so I can write from somewhere a little more miserable and evocative. My room's better, really. The south side of the house is lit by the morning sun and my closets are so big that Drekka could play in them (which might happen next month). There are bars on her window and a subtle Victorian print (like texture on a roll of paper towels) on the walls. I'd imagine I was Oscar Wilde, imprisoned for buggery. Oh, how the desperate romance would propell me! I might even don a ball and chain. Anything to distract me from the goddamn trees.

More Fake Danger

Greg and I are in a maze. Running seems right. He's sweating whiskey and looks crazy, hay hooked into the fur of his sweater. I'm crashing into cornstalks, trying not to twist an ankle in my party shoes. We're running cuz there's no imminent danger; we have to invent it. My lungs sting. I'm puffing and want to give up. We've managed to weave ourselves into an unfamiliar place, twisted till we're dizzy.

I wanna lay in the mud laughing till the crows come pick the skin from my bones-- a dumb city kid. Leave me here.

This is why he was handed the map, I guess. I've got passivity written all over me. When my friends dunk me in the pool I just go limp. I imagine my last wet guffaws bubbling to the surface: You guys really got me this time! The corn maze just illuminates my greater flaws and our first wold woes. We make conflict where there is none, navigate insane mazes of social bureaucracy, flashing polite hand gestures to other bicyclists, alerting them to our next moves. In the vortex of my brain chemistry, manic depression is the only minotaur.

Meanwhile, back in the maze, my companion is illuminated from within. We work well together--until he gives me a shove that sends me flying far afield. Whatever, we all die alone. On my knees in the mud I make a call to my workplace, lucky to get service out here. I've got a feeling I'm going to be late.

Notes After a Night Jog

(Banned Nike chainsaw commercial. This scared the shit outta me as a kid when it aired!) Going for a night jog takes on a sinister tone after viewing back to back slashers. Electrified by the night air: I'm the Last Girl. I'm staying alert for looming shadows as I brush past the neighbors' shrubbery. Imagination is kinetic and things seem more sinister. Why is horror? It's like exercise, a late capitalist invention. From Victorian times, so I'm aging myself. Faking survival, feigning control. My brain is splayed by feminist critiques of body and space. Are there other juxtapositions of gender, horror, and exercise?