Chicken Feet

Falling asleep on the couch, she had visions of stars and paradise. She slept long and deep and woke rested fifteen minutes before the alarm clock. Throughout the day, she recalled her dreams with pleasure; they provided a source of inspiration in the most mundane tasks. Assembling welcome packets for the conference guests, a job requiring minute attention and boring as hell, she knew that everything was going to be alright because something existed so beautiful that nothing else mattered. She stopped short of saying or even thinking I am one with the universe, but she did look forward to going back to sleep as soon as possible.

Professor

Professor Newman had regular habits. That's probably why he was a professor. There were many things that it was his job to do every day, and then there were a few that made his life worth living. He took a particular pleasure from attending to his correspondence at a coffee shop in a quiet side street of a small residential town adjacent to the university. Most patrons of this particular coffee shop were housewives and nannies who stopped by for a quiet lunch in each other's pleasant company and to reaffirm their strength and motivation before picking up their precious charges from the elementary school next door. "I come here to find my smile for the day," Professor had once heard someone say. Professor found that the sidelong glances that the housewives threw on the stack of folders and envelopes and foreign-language dictionaries on his table provided necessary motivation in his task as well. He would mutter to himself in German or French and thus try to feign complete absorption in reading. Every day, he needed this boost. He needed to say to himself, they think I'm so clever. Then he went back to his office, dropped off his mail on the desk of his graduate assistant for sorting, and went in to lecture the undergrads.

Tree house

This is how it's always been. This is how it always will be. People turn into deer after they die and then get killed and eaten by other people. I know this. And yet, I can't help thinking there's something very cruel about all of this. Personally, I refuse to participate in the carnage. Some parts of the world, they say, deer has been "taken care of." Well, too bad for us. At this rate, we're all going to have to move into the tree houses, to get any rest around here. The deer come begging for sugar day and night, and end up poking holes in our doors and windows with their antlers from disappointment. Personally, I only have enough sugar to feed my mother every so often. She gets really upset when she comes by and knocks -- tap-tap-tong -- on the door and I have nothing for her. Yes, I know, it's a hard life for her out there, she is slimmer and timider than most, she rarely even dares to cross the highway to get to the nice little wilderness by the river on the other side of town, but at least she never runs a danger of getting hit by a car... Between me and my brother, she does okay for herself, I hope. But still. I can't help feeling like a failure on the days when I can't provide her with even a single sugar cube. That's when I seriously begin contemplating building a nice, cozy tree house for myself.

Work ethics

When she got tired of one kind of work, she switched to another. "The best kind of rest is a change of occupation," she used to say. There was no taking a break for her. No relaxing in front of the TV for a minute or two, no taking quick naps. She never wanted to just finish an article or two of a newspaper she perused during dinner before going back to whatever else demanded attention. In general, she never read more than she had set out to read, nor skipped chapters of the densest novels, nor threw any book away half finished. Reading, like everything else, was a job, a task to do, and she sat down to it with a freshly sharpened pencil in her hand and a clean notepad laid out in front of her. She never read on the couch, lying down, but always at a desk, in the upright position, both feet firmly planted on the parquet floor. And she never read books she didn't think were worth reading. Only once ever did her body get the better of her, and then she simply collapsed on the couch in the middle of a busy, sunny afternoon.

Meeting

I keep running into her at the oddest times. Last night, for example, I mean late last night, around 2 am or so, I decided I had to stop blogging and went out for a walk. To clear my head, to get some exercise (I could've gone to the gym, but I didn't), to enjoy the rain and the city empty of people. I swallowed some vodka for warmth, grabbed an umbrella and went out. It was cold, brrr, how cold it was, icy rain coming down on my umbrella-holding hand and sockless feet. I thought I was going to go back in right away, but then vodka hit my head, and it was okay. I walked to the corner of the street, where there is a martini bar, and the martini bar had just closed for the night, and all the people were out on the street waiting for the cabs to show up to take them to their various residences scattered across the hills of the city and beyond. And there she was, with a group of friends, red scarf, orange hat, the rain dared not touch her. She stepped out into the street, and the cab appeared from around the corner; she got in alone, and that was that.