Pine St

Well, hello. I thought I'd write to you today about my morning
routine—not the screaming phone slapping or the snorting of the line
of coke off the cat's back or even the crawling through the tangled
limbs of your (very satisfied) mothers and sisters, but about the
walking to my car. Due to the strange and tiny nature of Sarah's and
my apartment building, this three-story brown box huddling defiantly
in a neighborhood of high rises and clothes stores and pizza shops, we
only have one parking space, which Sarah's Jesuscar occupies. I have
to trot a few blocks off to whichever curb I've parked against, hoping
all the time that nobody has backed some SUV into my side mirrors.

This is around 10:30 am, and I can gauge how late I'm going to be to
work by where the neighborhood regulars are when I see them. There are
three people who I see nearly every morning: middle-aged woman on a
bicycle, pedaling leisurely east, hair wild and grocery store uniform
frumpy; young woman in a wrap dress walking next to old woman in sweat
pants; and, finally, angry smoking nurse. If I see these people while
I'm still moving toward my car, I will be late for work. If the
bicycle woman streaks past while I'm pulling away from the curb, I
should be on time.

Anyway, I'm curious about these people. If I was an artist I would
draw a comic about them, maybe. But I'm not. I can barely draw
hamburger teenagers. It's too bad, really, because my head is cracking
with bizarre narratives that are unsuited to text but might make good
comics. But then, maybe they're unsuited to existence at all.

What would YOU make these people do? I think I'd give the young woman cancer.

ZAP.

Cancered.

Cancered in the ankles.