ECHO PARK

That was definitely gunfire.

PopPop.......Pop.

 Then nothing.  Dead quiet.

3am.

The ghettobirds were overhead earlier - most of the night in fact.  They are not what keep me awake, though.  They usually lull me to sleep; giant, hovering white-noise generators protecting and serving from above.  Besides, you know what keeps me awake....

So I can't seem to shake this cold.  The floor next to the bed in my little sublet is littered with wadded up tissues and wrappers from so many Hall's "Triple Soothing Action" lozenges (the one with the picture of the honeydripper on the bag).  I'd just gotten the cough under control when the mewing started.

I'm not a "cat person" per se, but I got no beef with felines in general. And, over the years, I have met more than a few really cool cats.  Before it was called "The Hotel Angelino", the building that looks like a stack of pancakes next to the 405 at Sunset was a Holliday Inn (there's another one in Long Beach).  They had (maybe still have) a cat named ChiChi that had a very cool setup in the garage, under the hotel.  Loudly purring, he greeted all the hotel guests upon their arrival.  Before I moved to LA, I stayed there and met ChiChi.  He acts like a dog - comes when you call, likes his belly scratched, etc....  I used to visit him every time I was in town.

But this mewing cat outside my door sounds just pitiful.  His mew sounds like "Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease let me in."  Not constant.  Just enough to tug at my heartstrings.  I know it's raining outside and I know they just installed the steel mesh security door so you can't stroll in and out of the hallway at will, but I have no human food, let alone cat food and I'm subleasing and it wouldn't be cool and I'm already sneezing and coughing and your kind make my eyes itch.

"Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese."

I held out for a long time.

"Pleeeeease."

...Maybe if I just go out and pet it....  Because now it is constant.

Fine.

So I throw on a pair of sweats and a hoodie, go out into the hallway and to the new steel mesh security door.  The thing is mewing nonstop.  I cannot see it through the mesh because the mesh is painted white and the hallway light is bright and it is dark outside but I hear it mewing and scratching on the mesh and I open the door and the mewing instantly stops.

There is no cat.

IMPERMANENCE

Everything is a sand painting.

All I have done,
Opportunities seized and squandered,
Lovers embraced,
Songs sung,
Possessions accumulated,
Food consumed,
Miles run,
Days wasted,
Depths dived and Heights scaled,
Dreams dreamt,
Fears - both faced and fled,
Poems penned,
Crimes committed,
Children hugged,
Tears shed,
Novels read,
Pets and Jobs and Television Programs and Sex and Concerts and Road Trips and Teachers and Friends and Family and Diets and Resolutions and Sunrises and Sunsets and Yoga Classes and Massages and Fights and Illnesses and Rent and Utilities and Worry and Lists Upon Lists of "Things" to do...

All sand.

PIECES

No, I am not okay.  I am not and have never really been okay.  The closest I have ever been was accepting my not-okayness and that, my friends, was pretty fucking sweet.

I feel as if I have never been me.  Not the whole me, anyway.

Like some IKEA furniture that got delivered with missing pieces and directions in Aramaic.  These missing parts are not cosmetic or optional they are functional and they are missing and the customer service number just rings and rings and rings.

I put together what is there as best as I can and it looks alright, but I wouldn't put any weight on it if I were you and it does not do what it is supposed to do.

If one more person tells me how great this office chair or bookshelf or dresser or workstation is, I am going to scream.  I'm going to scream because it is not an office chair or bookshelf or dresser or workstation.  It is what I threw together with what I had and it sucks because it doesn't do what it was designed to do.

The worst part is the hope.  The hope that the delivery person will just show up with the missing parts or that someone, a real person, in customer service will answer or that I'll find the missing pieces myself.  Fuck.  I'll check under the bed.