9-5: Workin the Grind

I steal out of work early, it feels covert, exciting. I'm leaving at 4:50, skimming ten delicious minutes off the hour. 9-4:50 sounds so much better than 9-5.

And yet, I'm not home til 5:45pm. It's nearly six, and the weight of the day is heavy on me. I come home exhausted. Part of me, the part that listens to the heaviness of the limbs, wants to flop into bed and feel the tension drain from each isolated muscle, taut with its own tension. The other part of me sends quick messages to my collective being, to rally, to generate internal momentum, to salvage and redeem the day. Pluck the remaining hours from the dark hand of night! Get out and do something!

I loathe to think that what I enjoy of my life must happen between 7-11pm. I always think, this is when I should focus on my writing, since I'm in two writing groups and about to fall behind in both. But it just feels like another chore. It feels like I need to be outside- or if I'm not going to be outside, I need to be at least outside my mind. Before I started working, and I was writing my memoirish pieces, there would be whole days devoted to digging through the recesses of my mind, unearthing the humor and pain, traversing those psychic seas with bravery. Now, I cannot imagine mustering that energy- to steer through my memories with focus and direction. The thought of it overwhelms me, I'd rather just go and get an icecream cone and watch the sunset from my periphery.

My favorite after work activities include: tennis, ice cream, pizza, movies. I feel like I am happy simply, with these ingredients, sports, sugar, cheese, an engrossing moving image that distracts me from the petty drama of my own life.

Speaking of sugar, I saw an incredible film by the same name. It follows a fictional dominican baseball player pitching for the dream, a chance to play pro ball in the US. With beautiful and honest feeling cinematography it traces his journey from the island to Iowa, where he starts out playing for the minor leagues. Iowa is a perfect place to capture the stunning rural landscape while evoking the cultural isolation a Dominican would feel in a place like the midwest. I usually find baseball so intolerably boring. This movie reminds me, there is the symphony of suspense in all things- if examined in a particular way.

I write a lot for my job but when i come home I have lost the inspiration for my own writing. Today is a rare exception. I think it's because the nice spaced-out guy at the cafe made me a regular latte instead of a soy chai, and my mind is zooming with a vague dull throb. I know that sounds oxymoronical but fatigue+stimulant= mental run-off trapped in heavy fingers, words spurting out, little aim.

I want to write in a new language. I'm reading the Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. It has tons and tons of reviews, critical acclaim. Only fifteen pages in, I know I like it, I like the author, I like what's happening in my mind when the words tunnel into. But sometimes he's talking to us, as readers, too much, too gimmicky. And I think,who am I to say? I'm the one trying to pass off personal emails as essays I want published in the Paris Review. I need to start over, or somewhere, or at least sometime soon.

Words can fly, I know they can, but it's kind of gross and sad, I see clipped wings all around my feet. Working on sweeping it up, working on it.

For now, I release these words and jump in the shower. Wash it all away, and start again.