Jittered, Capped, and Dead Weight

Below are three separate posts from my old blog.  When I first posted it, people told me Jittered was a strong piece of writing, the first compliment of its kind for me.  Fortunately, it wasn't the last one.  The other two posts, Capped and Dead Weight, are meant to follow Jittered.  I love all three.  Jittered accurately describes a stressful day at work where all the men found me insanely attractive for some reason.  Maybe it was because I was wearing a skirted suit.  I love Capped because it's an odd description of complete exhaustion vs. sexual longing.  Jittered might be the best written of the three but Dead Weight is my favorite, especially the end.

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Jittered (First Posted Feb. 9, 2006)

At 7:20 am I stood outside City Hall looking for the way in. I ignored that replica Italian dome vying for my attention. The sun was warm, the sky beautiful and it was already a bad start to the day.

I walked briskly, trying to disguise the fact that I had the shakes. I was pulling a hand truck with important documents. Documents that could make or break things, but I didn't care. I still had to get into the building. Something popped in my head. Grove. Street. I walked passed a couple of guys who both said good morning. I've been looking good lately. I feel like hell, but I smile and flirt anyway. Part of the job.

I'm holding the one thing in my hand that I should not be carrying. The one thing that will make and break me: a cup of strong coffee with a little sugar. I haven't drank it yet. When I do, everything will go jittered. My thoughts will scattershot all over the place. Must wait for the right moment.

7:42 am and I'm arguing with security who keeps telling me to go to the door at the end. I try to stay calm, but that shaky inside feeling is getting worse. I finally find the right door. The sun blazes outside. The angry employees are leaving all that warm sunshine for the big dome.

I manage to make it through the metal detector without falling to pieces. The security guard chats away. I thank him and move on. Basement. Okay. Up the elevator now. The men are tripping over themselves to help me find my room. They try to talk to me as we ride up four floors. I long to ask someone what kind of wood is on the paneling, but I keep forgetting. The brain is jumping here and there. To and fro. When I get off on my floor, the men realize they forgot to press their floor number.

I make it to my room and the door is locked. I wait outside with the documents. The hallway is long and wide with gleaming white marble floors. More men in suits show up and they all smile, say good morning. One guy really likes me. He's a hyperactive little shit or maybe I'm just projecting.

I drink my coffee now. I breathe. It's the last breath of the day that will have any effect except to move the oxygen around. In about ten minutes, I can barely keep it together. The morning flies by, a blur of papers and people. I'm sitting for hours on a red velvet chair that's too small. I get cranky. I want to punch the only other chick here in the face. Bitch.

Later I'm wandering through the Controller's Office. Everyone ignores me. I smile and look around waiting for someone to ask me what the hell I'm doing there. No one does. I could steal anything from that place right now because all the employees are sitting around talking about what they watched on TV last night. There are too many exits here, too many side stairs.

Back to my velvet seat. I drank that cup of coffee as quickly as possible. I'm so wired, I can't feel sorry for myself anymore. I try to calm down, but it's not working. I'm still cranky, but I'm kicking ass. I don't know how I do it. The suit next to me keeps flirting. Giving me sideways glances. He smells good.

I wander into the hallway to make a phone call. I stare down to the main part of the building. I look up at the huge dome and then down four floors of white marble and concrete. Alarms are going off in my body, something about not falling and going splat. I'm having a perfectly ordinary conversation and then another one. Each lasts ten minutes. My voice has not started shaking, but I notice it's pitched to a slightly higher octave. Inside my head pounds and my eyeballs start to burn. Tears run down my left cheek. I manage to stop the tears and get off the phone. Now my eyes are burning so bad it feels like I've been blasted with tear gas. I stop and "drop" into the moment. It works, but now I'm in the "moment" eyeballs burning and inside shaking.

Back to my red velvet seat. I kick some more ass. I got everything. You want it now? I got it. I'm ready for ya, baby. Bring it on. I know what you want before you do.

I'm finally out of there. I have to go find a man about some equipment. I spend the next 30 minutes wandering around City Hall while he tells me I can have anything, I just have to ask him. He gives me his cell phone number. I thank him and leave. The security guard insists upon carrying my boxes for me down the front stairs.

Day is beautiful. So am I. Jittered.

Capped (First Posted Feb. 9, 2006)

Safe in my stripped down apartment, the shakes start to subside a little. I'm pushing the envelope with all the wrong combinations. The only thing that would make things more interesting is if I added some recreational drugs. No dice tonight.

I watch a very bad movie. The same message keeps showing up: "The disk is dirty." That's accurate. I have to turn it off after a few clicks of the remote. Brain overload. I need water.

I shake out my thick hair and smooth cream on my soft skin. Floss. Brush. Stretch. I have good, sensitive hands.

Almost time for bed. I'll curl up in my silky cool sheets and dream about all the things I need so badly. I want to whisper softly. I want to tumble and flourish. I couldn't even if I wanted to. The body wants much, but must drop into dreamland now.

Dead Weight (First Posted Feb. 10, 2006)

The trembly overlay stayed with me all day. At least I didn't feel like punching that bitch out. In fact, I didn't feel like punching anybody out. Progress. I had a glimpse, a murmur of what it must feel like when the gangster raps that it was a good day because no one died.

I keep drawing shivery breaths. I managed to stay off the caffeine. I went to my own funeral just now, but left because they were getting ready to put me in the ground. The box is not a good place for me; cremation is the only way to go. Heaven and Hell are two sides of the same coin, two turns in the wheel. My worst nightmare is about to come true: I'm going to be reincarnated as a creature at the bottom of the food chain. A krill, anchovy or zooplankton.

I keep telling myself I should be coming down now, but it's not happening. That's not unusual. I tell myself things all the time and the outside just ignores all my yapping. The brain bounces but then goes back to center and stays for a second. I can't hear anything anymore. A promising sign.

I sat in my car when I got home and closed my eyes. I'd found center again and wanted to stay there. So I stayed for a while. The world went dark and quiet. No dreams. No nothing.

A friend looked me over today and said I looked like I should be reporting the news. "I like it," he said. My arms are trembling a little and I don't want to think about my hands anymore. I am chagrined and sheepish. Nothing new there.

The usual confusion blasts through my head. I'm full of mysteries and cocksure of them all. Everything is complicated because I make it so. Deadweight it all. Need to channel all those stories out of my really really world and onto the page where they belong.

Then I stand up straight. I look around. The stories are overflowing. It's like the water pouring out of the dark apartment, taps turned up full. I'm so shrink wrapped that I can't even see them. I've been slogging through the water and not noticing them at all. Everything is right in front of me.