The smoke drifted down from on high, from the Mount. The immolation had been held at false dawn, when the pale sunlight had just begun to tinge the dark awake. Now, by late morning, the demanding sun’s light took all attention on the plains, broken only by the occasionally shadowing cloud and the traces of pyre smoke.
The sun baked down on the plains of Manon, the ruddy clay providing for a light, rusty dust. The silence of the desert in the sweltering afternoon was broken and punctuated by the grunts of exertion. Rocks being broken. The neophyte approached, paused before taking up one of the sacred axes and joining his brothers in penance under the pale, brilliant light.
The doorway (any doorway – take your pick) has never struck me as a particularly good place to hang-out. I’m pretty sure this isn’t just my opinion, a doorway being a place to allow entrance to or admittance from. It’s for passing, for moving through, for getting in, and getting out.
It isn’t, however, a place to stop and smell the roses.
Repeatedly, I run into (in some cases literally) people who simply stop in a doorway. They stop and they get this idiotic lost expression on their faces as if the next step in the process had somehow become foreign. The next step is, of course, take another few steps (probably with “you moron” added to the end of it.
All day long it’s been like this … people opening a door, stepping into the doorway and stopping. In. Out. Doesn’t matter. It’s all the same – the doorway as the lounge.
In California, the exception to the stopping in the doorway is the elevators. Instead, you get people who charge onto the elevator the second it opens – before giving anybody the chance to get off. And, of course, they look at me like I’m the crazy one … expecting people to disembark from an elevator before more passengers get on. God forbid they actually wait a few seconds to make sure no one’s getting off. Why they can’t wait is beyond me – they just did it when standing in the friggin’ doorway . Apprently, once they pass through the doorway (and stop … then go) they’re no longer able to bear the thought of stopping… until, of course, they reach another doorway.
Of course, no one who reads my lil’ blog actually does any of these things. Of course, if you do, you can likely expect me to say something, because, well because.
There are days when you just can’t take it any more; when you have to make a stand. Days when you look life right in the eye. Those days when you have to throw down and get exactly what you want, when you want it, and if life keeps giving you grief, you let it know exactly what it has coming, ’cause if you don’t get what you want, there’s going to be some serious bitch-slapping and fury.
Sadly, today was not one of those days. I don’t even remember having one of those days recently.
Nonetheless, my wayward pants were returned. Largely through little effort of my own.
I swear – inevitably, everytime I catch myself wondering if maybe I’m unjustified in being paranoid, along wanders something to make me reconsider.
Today, my dry cleaning. Picked up my dry cleaning the other night – 5 shirts, 5 pants. Everything in order … off to home, dinner, and sleep.
Wake up, get ready for work and … whoa, these aren’t my pants.
That’s right – my local dry cleaners gave me my 5 shirts, and somebody else’s (ratty) pants. Fantastic. The cleaners are looking for them right now. Somehow, I’ve got a feeling I’m going to come out of this less 5 pair of pants.
and to think, I actually get asked if I really think people are out to get me.
Yes, yes they are.
" (6/28)
