especially. Thomas spouting all these boring llama facts per Emmett.
Lilly: I can’t wait till my party. My party is two weeks, right?
Pam: What do you want to do for your party, sweetie?
Long silence in car.
Lilly, finally, sadly: Oh, I don’t know. Nothing, I guess.
Pulled up to house. Another silence as we regarded blank empty yard. That is, mostly crabgrass and no red Oriental bridge w/ancient hoofprints and no outbuildings and not a single SG, but only Ferber, who we’d kind of forgotten about, and who, as usual, had circled round and round the treeuntil nearly choking to death on his gradually shortening leash, having basically tethered himself to the ground in supine position, and was looking up at us with begging eyes in which desperation was combined with a sort of low boiling anger.
Let him off leash, he shot me hostile look, took dump extremely close to porch.
Watched to see if kids would take initiative and pick up. But no. Kids only slumped past and stood exhausted by front door. Then I knew I should take initiative and pick up. But was tired and knew I had to come in and write in this stupid book.
Do not really like rich people, as they make us poor people feel dopey and inadequate. Not that we are poor. I would say we are middle. We are very very lucky. I know that. But still, it is not right that rich people make us middle people feel dopey and inadequate.
Am writing this still drunk and it is getting late and tomorrow is Monday, which means work.
Work work work. Stupid work. Am so tired of work.
Goodnight.
(Sept. 7)
Just reread that last entry and should clarify.
Am not tired of work. It is a privilege to work. I do not hate the rich. I aspire to be rich myself. And when we finally do get our own bridge, trout, treehouse, SGs, etc., at leastwill know we really earned them, unlike, say, the Torrinis, who, I feel, must have family money.
Today at work, at lunch, was Fall Fling. Down we all went, perhaps a thousand folks streaming out. Little trio playing. Someone had distributed orange and yellow mini-flags stamped “FF,” which soon nearly covered ground. Fake river runs through courtyard, many assholes had dropped their mini-flags into fake river. Filtering device at one end soon clogged with mini-flags, maintenance man with several mini-flags sticking out of rear pocket crossly going around attempting to dislodge mini-flags from filter with yardstick.
As always they served these flat little dry sandwiches. By time our group got down, many sandwiches already on ground around serving table, with heel marks.
Threw ourselves down on berm, ate hurriedly.
Sat thinking of Eva. Such a sweetie. Last night, after party, found her sad in her room. Asked why. She said no reason. But in sketchpad: crayon pic of row of sad SGs. Could tell were meant to be sad due to frowns went down off faces like Fu Manchus and tears were dropping in arcs, flowers springing up where tears hit ground. Note to self: talk to her, explain it does not hurt, they are not sad, but actually happy, given what their prior conditions were like: they chose, are glad, etc.
Very moving piece on NPR re. Bangladeshi SG sending money home: hence her parents able to build small shack. (Note to self: Find online, download, play for Eva. First fix computer. Computer superslow. Due to low memory? Possiblydelete “CircusLoser”? Acrobats run all jerky, due to low memory + elephants do not hop = no fun.)
Soon was nearly one, we returned to work. In elevator, some still holding our little dry sandwiches, stood all of us red-faced men in ties, making jokes about enough Fall Flinging, the Fall Fling has been Flung, etc., etc. Then the embarrassed silence as we, in our minds, resaid the things we had just enthusiastically heatedly said, as if vying for some sort of Stupid Utterance Prize.
Then brief period during which we each surreptitiously cut eyes up at mirrored ceiling of elevator to check bald spots etc., etc., see what we looked
Lilly: I can’t wait till my party. My party is two weeks, right?
Pam: What do you want to do for your party, sweetie?
Long silence in car.
Lilly, finally, sadly: Oh, I don’t know. Nothing, I guess.
Pulled up to house. Another silence as we regarded blank empty yard. That is, mostly crabgrass and no red Oriental bridge w/ancient hoofprints and no outbuildings and not a single SG, but only Ferber, who we’d kind of forgotten about, and who, as usual, had circled round and round the treeuntil nearly choking to death on his gradually shortening leash, having basically tethered himself to the ground in supine position, and was looking up at us with begging eyes in which desperation was combined with a sort of low boiling anger.
Let him off leash, he shot me hostile look, took dump extremely close to porch.
Watched to see if kids would take initiative and pick up. But no. Kids only slumped past and stood exhausted by front door. Then I knew I should take initiative and pick up. But was tired and knew I had to come in and write in this stupid book.
Do not really like rich people, as they make us poor people feel dopey and inadequate. Not that we are poor. I would say we are middle. We are very very lucky. I know that. But still, it is not right that rich people make us middle people feel dopey and inadequate.
Am writing this still drunk and it is getting late and tomorrow is Monday, which means work.
Work work work. Stupid work. Am so tired of work.
Goodnight.
(Sept. 7)
Just reread that last entry and should clarify.
Am not tired of work. It is a privilege to work. I do not hate the rich. I aspire to be rich myself. And when we finally do get our own bridge, trout, treehouse, SGs, etc., at leastwill know we really earned them, unlike, say, the Torrinis, who, I feel, must have family money.
Today at work, at lunch, was Fall Fling. Down we all went, perhaps a thousand folks streaming out. Little trio playing. Someone had distributed orange and yellow mini-flags stamped “FF,” which soon nearly covered ground. Fake river runs through courtyard, many assholes had dropped their mini-flags into fake river. Filtering device at one end soon clogged with mini-flags, maintenance man with several mini-flags sticking out of rear pocket crossly going around attempting to dislodge mini-flags from filter with yardstick.
As always they served these flat little dry sandwiches. By time our group got down, many sandwiches already on ground around serving table, with heel marks.
Threw ourselves down on berm, ate hurriedly.
Sat thinking of Eva. Such a sweetie. Last night, after party, found her sad in her room. Asked why. She said no reason. But in sketchpad: crayon pic of row of sad SGs. Could tell were meant to be sad due to frowns went down off faces like Fu Manchus and tears were dropping in arcs, flowers springing up where tears hit ground. Note to self: talk to her, explain it does not hurt, they are not sad, but actually happy, given what their prior conditions were like: they chose, are glad, etc.
Very moving piece on NPR re. Bangladeshi SG sending money home: hence her parents able to build small shack. (Note to self: Find online, download, play for Eva. First fix computer. Computer superslow. Due to low memory? Possiblydelete “CircusLoser”? Acrobats run all jerky, due to low memory + elephants do not hop = no fun.)
Soon was nearly one, we returned to work. In elevator, some still holding our little dry sandwiches, stood all of us red-faced men in ties, making jokes about enough Fall Flinging, the Fall Fling has been Flung, etc., etc. Then the embarrassed silence as we, in our minds, resaid the things we had just enthusiastically heatedly said, as if vying for some sort of Stupid Utterance Prize.
Then brief period during which we each surreptitiously cut eyes up at mirrored ceiling of elevator to check bald spots etc., etc., see what we looked
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