At what point do you know if yogurt is bad? I'm fairly certain that mine has gone sour - but I ate a few spoonfuls for breakfast anyhow. Does it make the pro-biotics more pro-biotic?
...
You were in my dream last night. It has been weeks since I thought about you, really thought about you in a tangible sense, and you sat in the front seat of my car. Took me places and it was as if no space existed between us, we have been together all along.
When I woke up this morning, a wash of satisfaction engrossed me. I could have laid there forever. Mere moments of us sitting together, in my car, in my dream, us walking places, making plans, the initial hello. It was, we were, incredible. And I want that in the here, now. Let us see what August brings, I suppose.
[I wish I could photo document my dreams, if only for this feeling and this moment. It is three-twenty pm and my visions are already fading.]
...
Taking walks rather than sitting at my desk has become my new thing over lunch break. Today I walked around the Abbott campus. I passed the boy on the Bianchi. First he sat eating lunch outside of Manny's and second when he rode back to Abbott. Maybe he knows I have lunch at 12:30 every day, or maybe he too has his break then and wonders the same for me. Maybe people pass us and think, They actually know each other, because of the way we make eye contact. In our timid glance exchanges, I look for a ring every time, it's like this gun-shy twitch I have developed. Perhaps I have been single too long and assume that all the good ones are hitched. He's still not married.
I walk around the parking garage - the only other constant in my route - and hear a jazz band clearly playing outside. This alters the course of my trek. On 10th just past Anderson School, I loop up to the back entrance of the hospital. Bianchi boy passes me and I am pretty sure I blush. My badge is in my bag and I don't want him to think I follow him. Strategic routes. Would wearing my badge make him not think I'm following him? Maybe it is worse if he knows where I work, like I can see and know everything about him. I slow my pace slightly, until I can barely see him enter the doors. Not creepy. Crossing the street a man yells, Hi Gorgeous, and I don't turn to see who it is.
The band plays in the courtyard, just past the bronze statue of the family playing. I think they are naked but I cannot recall. It's been years since I've looked at the statue, like really looked. Something about it conjures up anxiety of being fourteen again, of hearts and scars, and sometimes, you just don't want to think about that anymore.
The woman who wears headphones in the break room and mumbles inaudible sentences does yoga in the park next to the band as I pass. Her hair is fried golden on the edges with two inches clean growth on the top. I wonder what she listens to. She stands under a tree and doesn't mumble when she moves.
113
14 years ago
