anthrax

remember that song by scott ian and his band? 'time time tickin' in my head; tickin' in my head; tickin' in my head."

when i was in college friends and i went to vermont one weekend and did what college kids do. that is smoke pot. some of the kids also took acid. i'm the kind of kid who's scared of drugs like acid and so stuck to pot. and around midnight a couple of us kids went out to one of our rental cars, turned on the radio, and turned it way up until the car shook hard.

little moments stay in your head for so long.

i dined with my great aunt last night. she wanted to go to a restaurant called gene's on 6th avenue. i told her i don't like gene's. she asked why. i said i find it depressing. she didn't press me on it but i'll tell you why, somewhat loyal reader: once i went there with my aunt and the crowd in the joint was exceedingly geriatric. that's not what depressed me. the menu was veal marsala and veal scallopine and veal capone. that didn't quite depress me either.

here's what made me want to scream: the short jackets the waiters had to wear, with fringed epaulettes, that seemed too big entirely and the uniforms seemed to date from about 1979. and they didn't say, miss or ma'am when they took my order.

they said, 'what would you like, lady?'

uniforms. lady. the all of it.

my heart apparently bleeds; i got sympathy pangs of humiliation for people who have to wear decades-old polyester. we're not on a cruise anyway. meantime, the waiters are trying to make a goddamn dime and don't want my worthless sympathy.

work let out early today but i'm still here, waiting on a phone call or two for a freelance story. and it depresses me to be in a nearly empty office with tasteless concord grapes on my messy, dusty, dirty desk having eaten a bland, stale piece of pizza for lunch.

and time is ticking in my head. ticking in my head. ticking in my head.