Energy

"Oh, oh, oh,

Cincinnati."

-- The Seedy Seeds, "Oh, Cincinnati"

--

Last full day of work. Of Cincinnati.

Big days like this always surprise you with how ordinary they feel. It's like putting on new clothes and realizing they are much like every other set of clothes you've worn. Things work the same way. Buttons button. Pockets bunch. Socks creep downward. Seconds make minutes make hours make a day, and it isn't any different just because something happens to be happening to you. (Or something like that.)

I've returned everything that was not mine a year and a half ago--the TV, the collapsible bookshelf, the turtle shell that sat in the basement for far too long. My artsy theatre books are off the shelf above my cubicle and in three uneven stacks on the file cabinets, waiting to be taken. Scattered about are several piles of semi-important papers, office objects, writing utensils. I look at all of this and wonder what actually belongs to me.

This morning, did a photo shoot for Disney's Peter Pan, Jr., and will return for another this afternoon. For now, maybe an oil change once I feel right about leaving the office.

--

I was about to leave my apartment this morning when the energy company van pulled up. "Oh no," I thought, remembering when I'd scheduled for the power to be shut off, "I didn't think they'd come this early." We went into the basement and he started to take apart the meter. I debated asking him to return another day. I asked no such thing. When he left, I ran upstairs to open the windows, empty the fridge. To imagine this space after a day without A/C. Will I sleep here tonight? But then, sleeping in a hot apartment isn't too different from sleeping in a car, which is on my list of things to do...now the only question is, how will I power the vacuum cleaner?

We'll see how the evening goes. I wouldn't mind a lot of wind as I scurry upstairs and stagger downstairs, hefting bulk, gingerly turning corners at each landing. As one co-worker observed, it probably won't matter what temperature the air is. How true.

--

I'll take a picture later, but I already have the bottom layer of the backseat packed, a flush Tetris arrangement of boxes and suitcases. Across this plain, I'll lay down the blankets, and above them, whatever else will fit. Past roadtrip experiences suggest I should keep the trunk as easy to unpack as possible. (Once, halfway across Illinois, I had a flat on the highway. Had to extract everything from the trunk and put it in a heap beside my baking car, free-pile-style. It was humiliating, insult and injury, and anyway it just made everything take longer. No intentions of this happening again, but it never hurts to have thought about such things in advance. So: the trunk will be easily unpackable.)

The rest of the day is a sort of game: see how long we can avoid going back to the apartment. A friend will drop by later to pick up furniture, and the rest will descend to the basement, or else the curb. It's like I'm passing a sentence on the furniture. "You have served me well; your existence will continue. You have always been problematic; you shall be locked up indefinitely. You are unwanted; get thee to the corner."