Everything felt wrong today. The stormclouds. My shirt screamed at me “WE ARE BEING CENSORED!” It was a popup advertisement from a website I’d just been looking at, somehow activated while in my pocket. The laundromat was open at 7am, when its posted hours say 8am. I’d never seen the place open at that hour so I checked my time, checked again on a parking meter (who knew those things have the correct time of day one them?) then checked yet again at the subway station. Indeed, it was 7:10am but the subways were messed, though with no alerts on the MTA website. Platform was crowded as hell. I spotted an Asian women about whom I’d had sexual fantasies in the past. I was too confused about what year of the week this was for such thoughts, until a brief, dreamlike moment of imagining her shirtless slipped into the confusion. These thoughts went haywire upon entering the subway car, with eyes darting from woman to woman thinking “She’s pretty” and “She’s hot” and “She’s reading.” Thoughts tried to settle as I buried my face into a news website. All this talk of Trump I has me asking who is the president? I see more beautiful women as the train makes two stops, the crowd shuffles, the bells ding and dong. I get an email saying I must change my Weebly login. What the fuck is a Weebly? A similar email from something called 3CX, I think, says I must change my account or do something to prevent the heavens from heaving. On the very crowded 4 train I continue my week-long attempt to make peace with this stupid laptop bag I’ve co-opted for everyday use. It’s too big but not as absurdly so as another laptop bag. But it is like having a small child or pet on the train. It feels like I have a tail. Images of Justin Bieber flash past, not because I’m a Belieber but because his experience of working so hard that he became physically deformed made an impression on me. Is that what happened to me? I briefly, flittingly ask before remembering it’s this obtuse bag I’ve tautly appended to my person. Arrival at Fulton Street is met with gasps at the pouring rain. It’s coming down like firehoses. I wear sandals with socks and protected my feet like they would evaporate upon contact with the rain. In so doing I let the back of my shirt get drenched. I didn’t care, as long as the feet stayed dry. I do carry spare socks with me, in the bachelor bag with condoms and underwear and a toothbrush. But I don’t like to deploy the bachelor bag unless circumstances differ. I get to work and the computer does not work. I try another desk. The mouse is sticky. I try another desk. It’s too loud. I settle here, for the day at least. I don’t care where I sit, it’s just that I have to sign in to every single program and it’s a tedious bore. I popped my BP and anxiety pills and feel the calming coming.

…

Yesterday sent me on a weird field trip to Oakland Gardens. It took surprisingly little time to get there. Less than an hour, I think, but that was with some luck that the 7 train for some reason went express when it normally goes local. I found a couple of payphones, as expected, though I had no concrete reason to expect them. I just have a sense about such things. I seem to end up on buses these days with the after school rush. No problem with anything but the noise.

I was on one such bus last week when I spotted a rarity. MTA enforcement of fare payment. It was an SBS, which I suspect is as routinely fare-evaded as anything else in the system, but it’s easier to bust people for not having the required receipt. I am honest to a fault and find the constant fare evasion that surrounds me virtually every single time I ride the subway is a soul-drainer.

Here to be here, not afraid to not be here anymore. Could walk from this job at any time.