It’s a tough bagel with egg salad that I’m eating. It’s cold out but the sky is clear and the sun is struggling in through the window of the café, hitting the pine tables and giving everything a tentative glow, then there’s my nicotine-stained fingers and the egg which is bright yellow, and there’s some kind of concord in the visual field at lease – which is good because today’s the day that’s come along for me to get back into the life stream in some fashion; to assert some kind of organization over (or at least register my presence with respect to) the meandering mess.

I have a checklist of things to do. This eating of food was one of them. As was having a shower and washing my hair. And looking in my postbox, which needed doing since it contained bills, for example for my phone and credit cards; things that have been or will be cut off if I don’t pay them shortly. All those plain black and white notices rather than the usual coloured ones.

So now I’ve got to take those notices to the bank and do my usual financial shape-shifting, pay off one credit card with another that I hope is still operational etc, and then I’m going to get groceries – or rather I’ll get the groceries first, since it’s on my way, and I can drop the videos off at Blockbuster as well (to mention an organization that really gets pissed when its organization is flouted – black and white notices in stricter language than credit cards or Bell bills which is kind of strange and might suggest the primacy of entertainment perhaps – and then they go ahead and take the late charges off your credit card anyway which is also kind of strange since I don’t remember ever giving them and credit card information, but is just one of many mysteries of the world I’m resigned to). At any rate, I’m returning the videos I found under my bed not because the bastards deserve them, but in order to give myself an easy thing to do that can be ticked off my list, and that will give me a fleeting sense of satisfaction at the moment I think, if not the conviction that I’m a lean mean organizational machine.

Not for the first time I’m amazed how easy it is for things to get out of hand – just a little stretch when it’s all you can do to get out of bed, drag yourself up to put in a pathetically ineffectual day at the place you euphemistically label work, and trudge home and get straight back into bed – and then when you turn around or next thing you know you’ve got no more of the croutons you were eating instead of toast, no more soap let alone shampoo, and no more of the Harvey’s napkins that had come in handy since the disappearance of the last toilet paper, and things have been disconnected and various government agencies or other bodies are shaking fists at you in the shape of nasty letters, none of which you can get until you finally check the postbox – and in general things have run rampant, sprouted horns, and you regret that you ended up getting out of bed at all.

But then it’s a nice tough bagel, and with the coffee – the heaped spoonful of brown sugar – I’m starting to feel like I could take care of some things – yes, it’s not far off. Two guys come into the café with what look like metal detectors. They have backpacks too which they lean against the wall while they go decide on which variety of bagel they’ll have, or whatever they’re doing, standing in front of the display, arms folded. I mean there’s pretty much the same thing in a bagel. Why you need thirty different types is beyond me. White, brown, multi-grain – surely that’s all that’s called for. And maybe a cheesy one or something, if they must. Then the harried baker I can see through the glass doors could sit down for a moment, have a cigarette or something. (But then they’d probably just cut his hours, or deduct his fifteen-minute break from his pay, like the miserable bastards used to do at my old job.) in any case I just cant see what extra you get out of a honey-oat-triple-flax-blah-blah – but then I’m weird, as I was roundly informed at my present job the other day (tell me something I don’t know) – but by Marta, who doesn’t strike me as the most normal bread roll in the basket herself. She’s been on my case all week so much that if I gave a shit I’d think about quitting, or maybe just not come back from lunch one day, which I’ve found is generally easier and on occasion a more satisfying way to terminate one’s employment.

The thing with Marta has become plain weird itself. I’m used to being picked at from time to time, it’s to par of course if you’re a bit different and not into explaining it or anything like that. At first it was just some of my expressions that she reacted to, in that seemingly complimentary way that doesn’t take long to get barbs on it. “You’re so-“ (insert idiosyncrasy she’s decided to draw attention to this time). It’s inherently aggressive, like sitting down and telling someone what they’re likeor – what is almost as bludgeoning on a captive listener – sitting down and telling someone what you’re like, which was one of Phil’s favourite things to do, and the main reason I found I couldn’t spend time with the guy if I insisted on being sober for it.

But back to Marta – who asks if I’m working this weekend and when I say no she looks at me and says “must be nice,” with this tinge around her cheeks, like she just can’t quite swallow that particular flagrant violation. “Must be nice being Leanne.” I shrug since it’s not something I have a lot of control over, is it? And as for working on the weekend I couldn’t care less if I was or not, it’s only that I wasn’t scheduled to. (Although it would have put a damper on the smorgasbord of festivities I am surely planning on attending.) then Andrea is talking about reducing her course load at school, and Marta says she should just take two subjects, “given her other commitments.” And then: “Or just do one – and change your name to Leanne.” And again, with this look of some flagrant violation in the vicinity. Which would perhaps be even more flagrant if she knew that the actual number of subjects Leanne is in fact taking is none. Meanwhile Andrea goes to school and works two jobs andvolunteers God knows where etc etc. Which is brownie points for her somewhere out there I suppose. I just don’t know what it has to do with me.

And when there’s little enough time to breathe, to think. How do they do it? Why do they do it? What’s the point of it? I mean, of any of it. Similarly it appears as though what I eat is alternately fascinating to Marta and, again, some kind of violation. Like I went to Starbucks the other day, which for openers is wrong because it’s the “evil empire;” you can go there occasionally it seems, but to be de rigueur you should display guilt about doing so, which of course I don’t do because I’m not de rigueur, but I get my grandeand my bagel and sir down and open up the pack of cream cheese, and it’s then that Marta says “is that your lunch,” like it’s the last thing it should be, like it’s the last thing it possibly could be – and I say “yeah”, and she says “ever think about eating any protein?” – and as I’m unsure of how to respond to this, I don’t, and it’s then that she says, “God you’re weird.”

“I know,” I say.

Meanwhile she’s tucking into a crate of noodles for lunch, which, if we were really going to get into what’s weird and what’s not food-wise, I think would be an equal candidate, not to mention the fact that she starts talking about what she’s going to eat around eleven, and typically announces her final decision to the whole store about an our later, like it’s findings of a summit meeting, or like we should all be interested, but to each her own, right?

And God forbid you should eat your hamburger (which is protein if I’m not mistaken) – with a knife and fork. Maybe it’s worth a bit of mileage, of you’re the kind of person who’s into being stonkered by any little thing another person does, but then how does she cope wit the big stuff, that’s what I want to know; how does she cope with the things and people who are really out there? Like this guy walking past with a plastic bag over his head, cut away in the front like a balaclava, and with the corners pinched at the top and on each side so that it’s shaped like a cartoon image of a cat’s head, and with ribbons tied around the ears.

So then last week I was at work, getting on with it quite reasonably; humming along nicely, one of my better days, efficiency-wise – and Marta’s explaining something to me but she’s not explaining it very well so when she looks at me and says “you got all that?” I say yes, thinking I’ll just ask someone later, and then she snaps her fingers in my face and says: “Wake up.”

“I am,” I say, unfortunately, thinking I’m also not a dog to have fingers snapped at me, and looking at the bag of doggie chow that has been sitting next to the computer terminal all day for some reason.

“You didn’t answer me,” she says.

“I said yes,” I say.

“Well you said it like” – and then she does her imitation of what’s supposed to be me, which is to stare into space and say “Yeees…” – and look as dopey as possible.

“I thought you said I didn’t answer you,” I say.

“You could do with a bit more enthusiasm.”

“Gee wow I understand how gob-smackingly amazing and that you for changing my life,” or “How right you are from now on I plan on swapping my personality completely for yours and bouncing around here like a ping-pong ball on speed because you get so much more done that was anyway” – I don’t say, but shrug and go back to the order I’m working on, which, I can’t say I don’t realize is going to piss her off even more.

“We are all different,” I say then, after enough of a pause so that it seems to come out of the blue and has lost any relation to the previous exchange.

“And we are all God’s creatures.”

Now that did sound weird I suppose. I wonder if that’s why I said it (give them what they want, right, and in spades, if they’re going to hang onto some hastily formed idea with bared teeth anyway) – but I don’t really know where it came from. Which reminds me of one of Phil’s other oft-repeated lines: “you know yourself better than I do” – which is probably true, but still arguable; or “you know who you are” – which is just plain ridiculous. Where do people get this stuff from? Is it based on their own experiences of internal omnipotence? That’s more stonkering than a bagel for lunch, for my money.

The metal detector guys have made their selection it seems from the orgy of choices available for such a small decision; the pornographic excess. I make the mistake of glancing at the latest copy of Metro, which features the astounding news that Jennifer Lopez has been announced as a presenter for the Academy Awards, with an accompanying picture of her posing for the camera in her typical half-turn ass-display, like what we need is to see her ass one more time because, as it is, no one can remember what the damn thing looks like. It’s like the bagels. Put a different strain of poppy seed in it and tell us it’s something new, or in the case of Jennifer’s ass, drape that thing in a different colour or different style of dress; whack it on a different cover. The sale and resale of infinite minute and pointless variations on the same thing. When, dealing with something basic like this (and here’s a statement Phil should appreciate but probably wouldn’t): either you like it or you don’t – in an overall, averaged-out sense I mean, allowing for changes of mind or days when you feel indifferent etc. And on those days I just don’t see how some sour dough, or a gob of honey that’s supposedly in it, makes any difference. Or am I missing the whole point of consumer culture? (I’m certainly missing the point of pornography.)

But I must be sparked by some small suggestion of variety because at the grocery shop I decided to get a bunch of different stuff; fruit, vegetables, actual meat that hasn’t been cooked yet – rather than just the Campbell’s soup and bottles of Perrier I would normally get. And then there are small interactions, like with the cashier who watches me zip up my coat and put on my hat and gloves and says “it’s cold out there,” and I say “yeah, you’ve got to get organized before you go out into it,” and she laughs and there’s a surge of something which I think is being recognized by another person as existing.

I walk home along Bloor. I have to stop at the corner of Brunswick to swap the bags around since they’re cutting off the circulation in my fingers, being careful that the bag with the couple of tins of Campbell’s soup I did get doesn’t knock against the bag with the eggs. Like it would be the end of the world if a few eggs broke. It occurs to me that it wouldn’t, and I let the bags swing free. There’s that cold blue sky and the wind is picking up and bites though my gloves, and my fingers are starting to freeze and burn. I’m struck by the ongoing idea that somewhere out there there’s a grocery trek to end all grocery treks, or some load of laundry (speaking of another thing on my checklist for today) – that I could do so that I would never have to do it again. When what really happens is you get home with it all and it’s just one day isn’t it, and your favourite shirt is gone again.

I struggle to maneuver the key in my frozen hand, put the groceries away. I’ll have to go back up to Bloor again since I was past the bank by the time I remembered about it, although it’s almost too late for today. It doesn’t look like much, all the groceries, now that they’re in their place, divided between the cupboard, fridge and deep freeze compartment.

This is what’s weird, I think. Fridges stocked in order to be depleted, laundry bags emptied in order to be filled again, every day with the sales report, the product report, the summary report, the blah-blah report – more copies of something to be put in a file for someone else to do something else with before they’re picked up by some other group of people and dumped onto the pile of rubbish we churn out day after day, year after year – the closing down of all the computers that only get opened up again tomorrow; Marta’s searching for today’s ten cent mistake in the sales tally so she can have that neat zero to work with tomorrow; over and over, this voracious return back –

This breathing in of air that only needs to be breathed out again.

Originally published in White Wall Review 27 (2003)