lindsayliveshere.org

Just a moment

Shoplifted a book from the big chain down the street, dizzy and wild with angst at boxes of bigness and empty covers selling words by the bushel, ran into Caleb and as we talked a woman with wilder eyes and long stringy hair, a hippy who slept I imagine in the corner of a meth lab, asked me for money — I said no, and she said, “How about a dollar?” I said no again, though of course I’d just shoplifted a book and so this seemed to be out of sync with my karmic destiny but she was so aggressive I couldn’t reward aggressive or else I’d be like George Bush, or a tiny version of those yuppies who ease their minds by plinking quarters into homeless dudes’ cups. And then Caleb and I kept talking and then he made me smile, and she saw me smile, and then she yelled at me that I was A PUNK AND WHAT WAS I SMILING ABOUT I WAS YOUNGER THAN HER. And I’m not sure what that meant. I think it’s nice to be younger than her. So that would seem to justify the smile. Were the smile about her. Which it wasn’t. But of course. In the moral superiority department, I’m low on shoes to stand in, or legs to stand on, or however that goes.