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Coffee: Americano, Caribou Coffee
6:13 am: I watched a man walk his two dogs in the almost-morning. He went around the gazebo, stopped to let the dog sniff the bridge. I’d just gotten up. I was still in my boxers. I watched from the kitchen window. It occurred to me later that he might have been watching me, too.
12:35 pm: In the bank’s parking lot, on my lunch break, I watched a tiny silver spider attempt a web from the closest tree to my driver’s side mirror. She had six long legs with two smaller. She kept falling off the mirror then twisting back up. Vexed, I guess, she’d turn circles on my pearl-white car. I’d try to laugh but my mouth got stuck on peanut butter. Ms. Spider was good company.
3:49 pm: All the news blows up about Kavanaugh’s accuser. She never wanted the spotlight so I won’t name her. There’s different theories as to why she must be mis-remembering: the long time it took her to come forward; the possibility that she was almost-raped by a different man; Kavanaugh’s perfect pearly-white smile. I heard an interview with a good friend of hers who said the woman was choked by the first news of Kavanaugh’s nomination. I couldn’t help but think that Kavanaugh has a great grip, those same ten fingers having strangled a woman for 36 years.
5:57 pm: I bought dinner from a Chinese diner. I tipped a dollar. I ordered to go. The restaurant was smoky and busy, a non-stop phone. The two chefs were men but a woman and her 13-yr-old son staffed the counter. In between orders, she helped him with his homework. In between assignments, he filled a couple notebook pages with his own art. I got thinking: what will this kid’s hands hold? A dog leash? A gavel? Some girl’s throat?
Before I left, his mom had a long conversation with another customer. Friends, laughing. The boy was back to art. Everyone in the building seemed stressed and honest and good and warm. I want to believe the diner-woman’s slowly managing to spin a perfect web.
Currently Reading: Autumn, Ali Smith
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“In joined hands there is still some token of hope, in the clinched fist none.” – Victor Hugo
Livesay Writing 