Stephen Mejias

The thing about Tuesday is that I've got my therapy session at 6pm. I spend the day processing submissions for our Buyer's Guide. I go through each Excel spreadsheet making sure things look the way they're supposed to. It's a tedious, generally unfulfilling, task. A task measured out in columns, rows, and cells. I have found no way to incorporate art or love. I transfer the tidied files from one folder on our server to another. Cut and paste. Control X, Control C. Kristina then collects the new file and transfers it to a Master spreadsheet. It is a strange kind of communication, this digital dance we do.

You're absolutely right, Christian: I do have the bug. I do! I'm not ashamed to admit it, though it does come as a small surprise. Next thing you know, I'll begin to wonder silly wonders:

I should have just slept here. It certainly would have been easier. And, of course, it would have saved me the commute. However, the thought of enormous roaches warming up against my thighs throughout the air conditioned evening kept me from crashing on JA's couch.

Feeling uninspired — burned by the heat and wearied by spreadsheets — Kristina fights off a case of the Monday Blahs while searching for her mechanical eye.
–SM

It would have been a very sad story. Having diligently packed the Ayre units and sent them off to lofty Boulder, I was left with empty space. I considered bringing the old Magnavox down from the closet. Luckily, I'd done a bad job of returning the Musical Fidelity A3.5 integrated amp and CD player. Reuniting them with the DeVore gibbon 3 loudspeakers was enlightening.

The PATH train arrives at its 33rd Street stop. The doors slide open. People slither out. Treading up the crowded platform, we are made to pass through stainless-steel turnstiles. I hate touching skin to steel, preferring to push the mechanism over with the forward motion of my legs. Almost as though the turnstiles aren't there.