26.12.02 - 10:53 pm

i am trying to remember the small beautiful moments in life and find them. been working too much. strange things happen at work. i work retail in busy downtown area. lots of characters.

moments of shuddering glory today:

tall gentle overweight teenage boy from the midwest following his mother around the store. he is eating a small tub of ben and jerrys ice cream. in a split second when no else one is watching him he becomes slow motion to me. all facets of his existence suddenly condense into this moment, and i see him move the spoon into his mouth. his lips are wet, they part. he is the ice cream. it is him. his cheeks are chubby, smooth, and pale. i admire him so deeply, filled with an inexplicable understanding. suddenly his eyes dart to mine and he is embarassed and sweet, shrinking into his plaid shirt, looking away.

i had fallen in love over the summer with somone who occasionally i summon into myself . if done right it causes an involuntary shiver of recognition, like today, when i made my face move in the way he moves his face sometimes. it is an expression, biting the lower lip while raising the eyebrows at the same time, but it's more than that. i did it somewhat thoughtlessly then he was with me, and i shivered violently with memory, while surrounded by the unknowing horrors of capitalism.

it's interesting to work this way, because my passion is a mental retreat during the work day, and it's safe. i am disassociated generally, talking and working somewhat robotically, just there to get paid and go home, spaced out, saying the same things over and over. but occasionally my secret inner world grows too big to hold itself in and i say something a little too honest or i just space out and forget where i am, just watching people and feeling what they might be feeling. that's usually when my boss shows up with some assinine suggestion about sales goals or bath bomb demos. oh do i exist? right, i'm here, and i'm selling. sell sell. HAVE YOU EVER SEEN OUR SOLID SHAMPOO BARS??? i've started to just tell anyone who asks that i have used whatever product they are asking about and that i love it. it's not even that i'm lying it's more like i just forget where i am, and i'm supposed to be saying something to someone at all times. things fly out that are wrong or mislabeled quite often. it's just the sheer quantity that's the problem, you can't expect quality when you have to talk as much as i talk at work. i talk so much my lips are chapped. i am not lying.

anyway i'm going to ask for my hours to be cut back tomorrow. my schoolwork is behind because i've been working too much. and school is the only thing that matters right now that i can focus on.

innertribal relations are slightly strained due to the fact that we all work too much. eve is going to bali for a month so that makes it hard to plan the group-future beyond the middle of january. we need to come up with a way to all be working on something we love and care about, together. what it should be, i don't know, perhaps frogwood, well, definitely frogwood really. tonight i was wishing to run away to yachats with xep and eric tho, work makes me feel that way often.

it's scary but i am really going to print up some bidness cards and start doing readings for people for money. parts of me know that i don't know as much as i'd like, particularly about transits, but shit, i still know enough to provide a service to people who know nada.

anyway, enough. bedtime is upon me.