Whole Foods

I was pulled into an environment of over exposure.  Tiny cities scraping the ceilings of the grocery store.  Whole Foods to be exact.  Columbus Circle to be more specific.  A watering hole for tourists students and working individuals.  I was coming from a nice day at the beach, not too much sun-burn but just enough to leave its mark.

The crippling factor was my sinuses.  They started acting up soon as I grabbed the two-tiered shopping cart.  It made my senses cloudy and I was sneezing into my shirt so loud a worker yelled a hearty "bless you!" as he walked by.

I dragged my feet to the fruit aisle and wasn't interested.  I went by the seafood aisle and spotted some oysters.  Someone I know was on an oyster kick and I thought maybe I should make my own.  I scanned the seafood section in an attempt to alter my diet and caught a disgruntled fish man and old woman talking about a certain piece of fish.  The elder woman was asking him a clear question but he didn't respond.  Her response was then garbled and ended up as "Yes, I'll just take it!" but then he acted surprised and somehow the transaction was delayed, fish in hand.  The woman kept asking him more questions while leaning over the frozen fillets and I was too overwhelmed by this situation to linger.

Snacks, I wanted to grab some snacks.  I started walking through the aisle and paused.  Not knowing I blocked an entire line of shoppers, I looked at them blankly and then moved aside.  A few "thank yous" came my way and I nodded in lieu of my wonderful feat.  I resumed my position of staring.  I don't remember what I was staring at but I didn't buy anything from that section.  I think it was overpriced tea.  I did end up buying "afternoon pickup" because I was looking for a non-coffee pickup for afternoons in the office to help cope with my detest of staring at an unnatural computer square.

It was not cocaine.

I turned the corner and sneezed again, my recovery was languid and I had to walk a few more steps to recover the energy spent.  My eyes felt sick, acting like a live broadcast camera of the war waging inside me.  I grabbed a few seaweed snacks hiding behind the absurd flavors on the shelf.

The only clear instruction my brain could make was lip balm.  It was my one anchor to reality.  I needed lip balm because recently, when I have been waking up, a nice seam opens up in the middle of my lip.  I wobbled to other end of the store passing, bread, salad, people, prepared dishes, and peered into the small restaurant hidden behind a wall of beer.  I started staring again, and other shoppers would pass by and also stare to try and decipher what I was looking at.  I was trying to find ramen but I saw no one eating ramen.  I saw a picture of a sad looking bowl of ramen blown up to make the sadness even more overbearing.

The Body Aisle.  Finally, I could own a moisturized lip.  I got sidetracked to the essential oils.  There was a roll-on so I had to test out this roll-on feature.  It did what it said and I smelled like a wooden hotbox filled with white-haired men in white towels.  Another oil had great marketing, with a pamphlet the size of a postcard attached to the little vial.  It said it would make me feel better, so naturally, I tried a few drops but too much came out.  My hand was soaked in a blend of well-known essential oils.  I put some by my nose to help with sinuses and I started to cry.  For the remainder, I wiped my hand on all the absorbent objects around me.  I moved on to the lip balm section still crying with my eyes half closed because it kind of burned.

I was allergic to all the lip balm in that aisle. I realized that I'm in a natural food store and natural lip balms make it look like I made-out with a beehive.  Oh and beeswax is ironically one of the ingredients I cannot put on my lips.  Along with lanolin, because sheep are fluffy assholes.

I proceeded to the checkout.  After the cashier scanned all the items I asked him to remove an item due to its inflated price.  I never knew what Almond Butter tasted like.  I'd like to think it's just like almonds, though.  The man behind the register asked around for a "key" in response.  He asked around but no one seemed to answer.  I had imagined a physical key was needed and found it kind of arbitrary.  I whip out my card and wait.  I wait some more.  A lady asks if she can get through and I stepped aside.  Then I kept waiting wondering what is taking so long.  The man asks, "did you swipe?"  Oh, apparently he got the key (password) soon after he asked for it and was waiting for me. 

Slow

A sinus infection in August.  A first for me.  I always associated colds with, well the cold.  Now here in the biggest heatwave of the year I'm sitting in my apartment, straddling my a/c like a lover.

 --

I woke up and stepped into the main room.  Thick air greeted me softly as the sun rose.  I shuffled over to the bathroom and splashed cold water in my face, winced at my imperfections in the mirror, and said fuck it and filled a glass of water.

My nose was leaking more than the fire hydrants cracked open in the streets and the tissue paper made my skin raw.  I popped a pain relief for my sore throat and blinked a couple times.

I nestled back into my sheets and crawled up to another.  Still sleeping -- while a friend remained on the floor to share the a/c unit.  Light filtered between the crack in the shades with the realization that I'm not going to get very far from this room.

Heavy Pollution

Cloudy thoughts, heavy air
No focus–

UGH why is it when I propel myself in a public situation I freak myself out.  The nerves that rush over my body that causes all bearings to fade.  I went to pick up my clothes from the tailor today (round 2) and tried everything on.  Again, a lot of things didn't fit quite right because I have to climb out of my own throat to ask them to pin something up.

Now when I step back and look at it all.  It doesn't make sense.  I know it's their job to do this very thing.  I am there because I want something to fit the way I want.  This is why I'm here and this is why they're here.

Once I have to ask for more my nerves catch flame.  I don't know why I can't say "this needs to be tweaked a little more."  So I get the big one out of the way.  I settle for 1 thing and threw out the other requests.  It is like going to a McDonalds and ordering a meal but only eating the pickles.

So I come back home. Try them on again. Say to myself. you know what?  I should have asked for more.  Why don't I think I deserve it?  I paid for it and didn't come home satisfied.

Then I think about it more.  And more. And more.
I put the pants back on. I take them off.  I stare at it on the rack.  I put them on again.  Then I mark what I wanted done.  Then I put them back.  Now I have to get them tailored again.  But I am too embarrassed to go back to the same place because if I didn't like it I should have just asked them to do it AGAIN not take it home.

So mistakes like this become expensive.  I was so sure of what I wanted when I walked in.  I slipped and missed everything I wanted.

__

I take a shower.  A long shower.  My roommate is crying in the other room because she cannot afford her student loans and they jacked up her monthly rate yet again.  Are they really scraping 750 dollars a month from a college grad who will be paying this bill for the next 20 years anyway?  In the end they will get their money.

And here I am.  I can't smoke a cigarette to calm my nerves because my throat is too sore from smoking cigarettes.  I have a lone roach scaling the wall that I reluctantly have to smash because I don't have time to be my tender loving, hippie self.  My air conditioning unit decides to turn on when it wants to.   My eyelids want to shut but I'm not tired.

So, I'll take an Advil and have a drink.  Try to calm my roommate and in the process calm myself.  Sniff a few lavender buds to try and overwhelm the dark shadows lying in the wrinkles of my brain.