Huff me. I will make you high and more stupiderer.

While agonizing over an entry, I realized I couldn't put a thought together in any sort of meaningful way.

It happens to everyone. Yesterday's manifestos of growth and inner peace seem pale compared today's reality that the linolium in the break room couldn't get any more beige if it tried. Days in which all cumulative progress (mental, physical, emotional) seems to dissolve..voluntarily. We watch it happen. Like watching butter melt with bored fascination.

These days, hours, minutes exist - tick after indifferent tock - regardless of how unwanted they are. Struggling only tightens the grip.

So do attempts at making up metaphors.


Today, I am rubber cement.

I have an interesting smell. Things kind of stick to me and then fall off. I'm no good for permanent fixtures. If you get enough of me on your hands you can roll me into a rubber-ish ball. I won't bounce very well.

Today, I am Fruit Stripe Gum.

I taste really good at first and then call up fond childhood memories. In 15 seconds, my flavor will vanish.

Today, I am like a old bag of marshmallows in the pantry.

I am white, and hard, and forgotten except at Thanksgiving.

Today, I am a Word a Day Calendar.

You haven't turned me in 6 days. You'll rip out the last week in a stack and toss the the sheets into the garbage. You'll never know what Callipygean means, now. And I don't care. I am a Word a Day Calendar, not your AP English Teacher.

Today, I am one half of your favorite pair of earrings.

You keep forgetting that you lost one of me. You pull me out on special occasions, and the night is nearly ruined when you recall dropping it down the drain in the bathroom a year and half ago. For an instant, you think maybe you'll dig it out. But time is running short and you pick up another pair or earrings, swearing that you'll return to with a wire hanger to dredge out my mate.

This will go unremembered until your brother-in-law's wedding in three months when the exact same set of thoughts will occur to you.

Today, I am a subcutaneous lump.

You felt me on the soft of your underarm on Tuesday. By day's end, your feverish mind-that had nothing better to do-had built me up into cancer of the rarest and deadliest kind. You will lose sleep for tonight...but tonight only.

What you don't realize is that I have been there for years. I am a tiny piece of bone left behind the day Chris Decker hit you in the arm with a baseball bat in the second grade.

Today, I am the letter E.

I'm in several places at once.

Today, I am a person typing on a computer.

I type words and string them together. Students keep interrupting me to pick up their papers from last quarter. Suddenly, I run out of things to type.








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