potato, boycott, dustpan, madame.


So, my cell phone broke yesterday. It just broke. I went to take a photo and it just said “not enough memory” and shut off, and then it never turned back on.
No, it wasn’t the battery; I checked that with Russell’s twin phone. I knew something was wrong, when I took off the battery and there was this little red dot that suddenly appeared underneath the battery. This little dot indicates something is wrong. This is what all of us guessed anyway. It’s cell phone blood, said J-man.
 
Now I’m just carrying around a dead cell phone. It’s like having a potato in your purse.
 
Yesterday I drank too much coffee. Maybe later, you and my bowels can have a private conversation about how traumatic that was to them. I’m sure they would appreciate the commiserating, poor guys.
 
So, I resisted Fraiser’s last night. Jaime went to meet a few goucherites, one of whom is a secret blog crush of mine. But I didn’t go. I was tired anyway, I guess: like the old lady I’ve become but, I know that I will probably crumble while trying to ban this local bar, it’s like trying to boycott McDonalds…but the point is, that I didn’t go there last night. Booyah, Fraiser’s, I kept $20 of my dollars and you didn’t!!! Screw you for kicking me out. Eventually I’ll falter, I’ll come home drunk on pineapple upside down shots and slam my fist into the wall, cursing my easily swayed principals. But, the point is: Not yet.
 
Internet, tonight I need to sweep. The dust is clumping. I don’t remember where my dust-pan is. Maybe I’ll get a new one, that one was too small anyway. It was almost a pretend dustpan and brush: for play.
 
I have a beautiful friend living in Bulgaria and I miss her. She sent me her phone number there. I’m thinking about calling her from work. Do you think that is a bad idea? I don’t think they’ll ever know. We’re an international organization; people call Eastern Europe all the time!
 
I’m supposed to be working on an expense report for my boss’ trip to Ghana and South Africa. Actually, everyone is supposed to do their own expense reports…so neither of us are doing our jobs. 

The past three days in the office have been very busy. I have barely gotten time to make lists of all the things I have to do. But this morning, everything seems a little calmed down. I think it’s because my boss is in meetings. I know this afternoon will be different. I should get a head start. But that isn’t like me, is it?
 
They are talking about me in the other room. “She is temp,” says my boss, with his French African dialect. I found out that he is from Burkina Faso. It makes me laugh how he doesn’t fiddle around. He’s right, these are little and unnecessary words.
 
He is a harsh man who interrupts you while you are speaking with “Okay okay okay okay.” You think it means “shut-up shut-up shut-up”, but he is just agreeing with you. He is a fierce man.  His face scrunches up when he reads. He looks angry a lot, but I have never found him to be. In is family portrait he towers over his wife and children and looks stern and doesn’t smile, like turn of the century American photographs: my boss stayed very still for the camera. He looks proud often. When you ask him a question he takes a long time to respond, and doesn’t stop talking until it all makes sense to him, you will be unable to interrupt him at this point, you should not even try it’s like a boulder down a hill. He is relieved when he reaches the bottom with a narrow and severe path of destruction behind him. There are blades of grass, like me, left in awe. And he sighs loudly and says, “you know!” as a command instead of a question.
 
Yesterday he called me Madame. Nothing makes you want to file or copy like being called Madame.

Amen.