Novelistic Fragments

I found an old one of these, and then wrote a couple more. They're not connected, and they don't mean anything, mostly, and there's a lot of things I think of as placeholders, but, well, it's writing, and it feels nice, doesn't it.

1.
Carl said they found the man.
He had locked his knees in
with a kryptonite lock, I'd like to tell you.
I'd like to pretend they froze
the metal with nitrogen and broke
it and his legs with a sledgehammer.

Carl said the man was sleeping.
He hadn't locked anything
anywhere. He was waiting.
He pled guilty. There was no point
in telling anything but the truth
he said. Carl told me

all of this on the train. We followed
the lightning that night from Colorado to
Illinois and slept in the lounge car.
Carl stop, I said, when he whispered
more to me while I rested. Carl never
knows when to shut up.

2.
I could eliminate this mental palsy,
its attendant shivers in my speech,
perhaps, if I were to recall
Emma’s face when she told us
she would stay. It held itself,
credible. Hold my head, would you?
And push it from want to will.

3.
While we boomeranged the carob pods at each other
and called them banana beans, Todd and Jake would hide
from us on opposite sides of the garage
behind fallen window screens or our piled-up bikes.
I’m glad I wore glasses even then, so I could see them,
beans and boys, coming.
The lenses protected me from what I couldn’t dodge.

Bukowski worked in the Post Office and he was miserable

Group Interview:
-Why do you want to work at Starbuck's?
-Money. Coffee. Socially-conscious Starbuck's benefit program
-What do you think would be most challenging about working at Starbuck's?
-Being pleasant to people that want to drink 20 ounces of milk. Evil Starbuck's defeat of independent coffeehouses.
-We'll let you know.

I'm obsessed with job-seeking. I'm not sure if I'm made for any sort of job at all. I didn't really mean it when I named this thing the Malingerer, but apparently it's very suitable. But I do like looking for a job. I look on Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com and Craigslist everyday to see what new possibilities there are. Mostly they want experienced people. But I can type fifty words a minute. I took a test on-line.

I've applied for a couple of receptionisty things and administrative assisstant things. I think it would be interesting to work in an office, anthropologically speaking. The work will be easy if I'm capable of doing it, but my only experience of the office experience comes from Dilbert and The Office (the BBC version, of course). It can't really be that bad, can it? I'm also thinking that to be a waitress might be a good thing, in that, anywhere I go, there will be restaurants, so I'd always be able to find some work relatively easily. There's a job fair tomorrow at the convention center. I'm totally going. If only my good shoes weren't in a box in California.

I think sort of menial labor will be good for me. Not that I need to be humbled or anything, or connect with the working man, but I need to do something to make money and structure my day, but it can't be anything that I have to think about (beyond "I can't believe how stupid that customer/co-worker/boss is!") when I get home. I need to be able to come home and read Kierkegaard and write poems. Side-note: If I ever have a son, I'm naming him Soren.