Lost dog posters strike me as the most effectively tragic short stories. In another life I would like to be the Sherlock of lost dog cases. I think that would be the most good I could do in the world.
Bottled water is an absurd waste of resources, and not really ecologically justifiable, but I do buy it anyway sometimes, because we all have our private failures. Sparkling mineral water is specifically mine, because I'm that kind of insufferable person. Today, the cashier asked me if it was vodka. I told her no. She asked if I drank, which seemed a step too far, probably, but I told her it had been a few years. She asked why and I said apathy. That's a strange answer, she said. I agreed but said some things just happen but most things just don't.
Gap is running an ad campaign basically promoting wearing black shirts(?) and I am a little too seduced by it. I wore a black shirt and black jeans today - both from Gap - but I did not look like a model and it did not tastefully rain on me.
Getting gas today, the cashier offered to me, unprompted, that she hoped I was staying in school. I told her that I was 26 and done. She said that was good because I wouldn't want to end up like her, working at a place like this. I told her I actually liked retail, did it for a while post college, and didn't consider it a step below anything. All jobs are kinda stupid, I said. She just said she had made a lot of mistakes. She seemed pretty down about something specific and a lot of things generally but I didn't know what to say so I got my gas and left.
While running I went by a new restaurant around 7 that really isn't that new and should have been busy since it was dinner time but nobody was there. One server looked very bored and I felt bad for her and also for the owners, because I run by this place a lot and it's always desolate. A lot of money and a lot of work and it seems like it's going nowhere.
I watched the news. A lot people are being killed. Perpetually.
This is every day, basically. Not specifically. The details vary. But you look around and you see people and things which are to you set pieces and the most minor of details but are entire lives in reality, whole existences equivalent to our own. And I think about those things. A lot. Can't help but look at a line of people in a grocery store and wonder how they got here, if they're happy. It's their whole life going on right now, after all.
I realize that sounds neurotic. Hell, I realize it is neurotic. And I realize too that this all sounds negative, perhaps a bit depressing. But I don't feel negative, nor depressed. I wonder why not sometimes, if being a generally pleased, positive person is blatantly irrational. And then I wonder if irrationality necessarily conflicts with rightness, and whether those two things can be quantified to any meaningful extent, thus making the basic calculus even possible. If the nature of each is truly unknowable, then...
Which is where I'm getting back around to the two hour jog at the end of the day. It doesn't fix any of this, and I get that. But it fixes me, and I get that too. Turns down - if not off - the neurosis, puts me in the present, in myself. Just run. And it feels good. And that's it. It doesn't matter. It doesn't have to. Just step, step, step. Breathe. Sweat. Burn. Self immolate and grow back stronger.
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