I am at the beginning of three days off. I woke with a headache which is not auspicious, but who cares. I have three days in which I can keep my mind harnessed to my own concerns.

I am at the coffee shop. It is 9AM and I have been here for about 20 minutes. There is a woman at a nearby table with a small pixie face and black half glasses so big they are in danger of falling off her nose. She is typing furiously what, I suspect, is some academic treatise on some esoteric point of contention in the fine arts world but is probably an article giving helpful tips for budding mechanical engineers.

Once I finish my tea here I will go get some breakfast at the deli.  Then I will go to the library. Then to the beach where I will watch it rain into the sea.

We had a minor emergency at work yesterday and I was called in to help get the text reorganized so that it actually reflected what we do. That was fun. I like textual puzzles like that, but during that time my boss said something to the effect that we’ve got you now. Meaning I had been trapped by the work we do and I was going to end up staying despite my protestations of other plans. I groaned. She laughed and said get over it Mary.

This might explain my headache today because I fear that she is right, although I most ardently don’t want it to be so. Not because what we do is unimportant. It isn’t. But rather what I do makes use of the least of me. I feel like I am floating atop my own life.

Meh. What silliness.

This guy just came into the coffee shop and while ordering coffee and cake demanded, loudly, that no styrofoam be used because it was bad for the environment. As if cash and mono cropping wasn’t just as bad (you know all the chocolate and coffee). I didn’t point out the irony of his being able–and willing–to access the fruits of such agricultural (as well cultural) depredations.

I just saw two people go by the lighted windows. Both woman. One wore bright red knee high gum boots with a bright yellow rain slicker. She  bounced on by looking like the rain and her were having a blast. The other woman had a dark green jacket, dark jeans and some kind of work boots. Her head was bare; she had short  wavy dark hair. Her shoulders were hunched and the way she moved it looked like she was trying to dodge the rain and it wasn’t working. I wonder if these women approach their lives in the same way?

I also wonder how I move in the rain. There’s a joke in Indian Country about white people running from the rain. Just that image is hilarious but I suppose it doesn’t translate. It’s a bit like trying to stay dry in a pool – a waste of time, but more importantly it says something about a person that is so divorced from the world in which they actually live that they are uncomfortable with the most basic of processes. Imagine watching someone trying to dodge the air.

Enough. 3 days and counting. Then 4 days where my mind will be harnessed to work concerns, and then I will have myself back again. It will do for now.