a roasted chicken with a side of acorn squash

It was 36 hours that I ate like a modern-day Paleolithic human being before it began to mess with me.

The problem is that, unlike my hunter-gatherer counterparts, I already know about things like legumes, dairy, grain, and nightshade.

About things like bread and cheese.

About things like staying put and going nowhere and the magic of microwave pop-corn.

And I mean it literally when I say that I love bread.

I will admit that I didn't know how much bread meant to me until these one and a half days.

I knew where grain, dairy and legumes fit in my life, yes. But I had no idea what such meant to me in the scheme of things.

Then, quite innocently, Tom made a pizza.

This while I made myself some broccoli with steak.
I used crushed white, black and red pepper as an impromptu dry rub and there were herbs involved. And lemon. And love.

And I had zero problems.

But then twenty minutes past, and the whole world began to smell like cheese. Several kinds of cheese melting as though from high atop a fiery mountain, then sliding down some crazy, food related volcano somewhere right beneath my nose.

All of these cheeses melting at different rates per their wildly varying (yet genius as a mixture) types. Such variables as (for instance) how long the cheese had been aged, its softness, its dryness, or its mildness vs. its sharpness - all now coming into play.

I just kept getting up and walking into the kitchen then wondering why I was there.

And then the baking of the crust made itself known. And smelled as though I had been removed to that ancient bakery that exists (no matter what) in my heart of hearts. That ancestral oven. You know the one. Brick. Rock. Clay. It doesn't matter. Bread was baking. Alongside the stew. Alongside the meat. Alongside the mash.

And, as a wholesome entity, that every-thing's-going-to-be-okay aroma, it can't be broken down. Not, at least, for this Post-Paleolithic person.

No, I was home.

The home situated deep in the snow-drifted Steppes of my mind. Bread (pizza) was baking in the oven. Right here. Right now.

Bread.

BREAD!

Bread being the staff of life. Bread being the very reason we are so weak and fat. Bread being everything good and bad all rolled into one (the history of it being first a wonderful story about feeding the starving masses, then, not an hour later, about epidemic obesity in America).

It's the hearth. The kitchen. Where the old stories were told. It's the little stone villa with wine and song and the music of a stringed instrument going late into the night somewhere deep in a snow hushed hamlet, where, somehow, a light still burns (where, somehow, a loaf of bread still bakes) despite these cold, unforgiving centuries.

Yes, the harsh weather came blowing in. Yes, they worried about so many things. But was there not laughter? Was there not a sense of the ridiculous? Was there not love?

And, even if there was no money left, and all the crops had died, was there not still a little bit of bread?

This baking bread was, after all, what people who held down the home force were surrounded by all day long.

And it smelled so good.

It was a sign to those who ventured out that they were again, back home.

I cite the modern-day Pilsbury commercial: Everyone has their eyes on the oven. Something magical is occurring. It's hearts, home, full tummies.

No bread was the bosom of existence. The thing that kept people sane and returning. The goal was to venture out, yes, but to then get back home. Not to be sheltered, not to be safe, not to procreate, but to eat bread.

(if not a nest of angel hair pasta, a side of basmati rice or one perfectly roasted ear of corn)

Even, and perhaps especially, when those that had ventured out had been away at sea for years.

Why else would a loaf of bread and a fish (cooked simply in a pan with lemon and butter and a few sprigs of dill) be ubiquitous as a coming together? One that, though elementary (just add wine), can take on near religious properties for the bread and fish eater?

loaves and fish

This the part of my Lutheran schooling that always sounded so delectably savory.

So, was it a pizza (of all things) in all of its bread-y, cheese-y, nightshade-y goodness, that turned my world upside down last night?

Oh, yes. It was.

my inbox is empty

So, I got to the bottom of my inbox.

I had been working on this for weeks. Even though my job is designed so that a person will never get to the bottom of their inbox, I just had to do it.

You understand. I wanted to to show them. I mean really show them. I was going to do what no other person in my current position had ever done: I was going to get to the bottom of my inbox.

I even put together a folder for my supervisor:

Things Ignored for Three Months by Victoria

This folder contained what other assistants might have hid or secretly shred. I even said, I don't want to become the crazy secretary that starts hiding files!

This to the uproarious laughter of my supervisor. She laughed a little too hard at that, actually.

So, I handed her the file which contained those things which kept sifting to the bottom of my inbox over the last three months.

I said: help.

And, though no one ever did help me, I believe it was this act alone that began to turn things around for me. Because, at 3:00 pm on Wednesday I got to the bottom of my inbox.

That's when I saw a stray staple in the upper left corner of my now empty inbox. Mangled, with one of its tines broken off, it was clear that it couldn't be saved.

I placed it quietly into the recycling bin, and said a few words:

You know, you'll probably come back as a another staple. But maybe as a steel girder! There's no telling what's in store for you.

Really. Just no telling.

It was then that I took the paper weight that had always been there (atop the precarious stack) and polished it on my sleeve as though it were an apple or a diamond or something.

I then (as I'm sure you can imagine) put the paper weight back into the in box. Right there, in the very center. It made a glass-on-wood clunking sound that I don't think anyone in the office had ever heard before, because a few curious heads did pop up over their screens and look in my direction when I did this:

Just what is she trying to imply with all of that clunking over there?

And, then, just like that, everything improved.

I became more professional in my bearing.

I sat up straight and heard every bone in my vertebrae click audibly back into place as though a finger had gone skating across a keyboard.

pliiink!

I was a cog.

A hard metal cog with a hairdo that could now not only stand the test of time but maybe even humidity.

The very next day I wore red.

Then, the day after that, I completely ignored the doughnuts. Not as an exercise in discipline, mind you, but because I simply didn't register things like doughnuts anymore.

No, now I went for little cut up vegetables and fresh fruit. I mean all the way down six flights of spider-y stairs and out the crumbling entrance of this ancient building (pieces of chandeliers and plaster falling on me every step of the way) past security (by then, fast asleep) down the street, into a cab and directly to the farmer's market three towns over.

Waving my fist full of petty cash like a money pom-pom the entire way (because, as you may have heard, my inbox was finally empty).

I'll take one peck of apples for the office, please!

Yes. I was immune to all distractions, now.

Because I had gotten to the bottom of my inbox.

And at a juncture when others in my position (we'll call them Person X) had either given up or gotten fired. This usually preceded by weeks of nonsensical office chitter-chatter on the part of Person X, that then gives way to Person X's utter, sullen silence (nobody wants to talk to Person X) that leaves Person X with no recourse but to constantly surf for shoes on Zappos (the resultant spike in shoe deliveries for Person X a well known red flag signaling the end of employment for Person X).

But that wasn't going to be me.

Me? I ran the place.

Forget that. I was the place. I was the whole place.

I turned around (during what I sensed was a lull in the big important meeting) put down my watering can, and (without so much as thinking about it) presented a forty-five minute dissertation on curtain walls and steel case windows that, though it was shocking and uncalled for, brought down the house.
And when I say that there wasn't a dry eye in the conference room that morning, I mean that they were all crying.

For joy, people, sheer joy.

It wasn't ten minutes later that everyone gathered around my desk (some still nibbling on their organic, locally grown apples) to watch amazed as I clicked on the buy now button and purchased New York.

Yes, I do mean the city.

some of them wearing sweaters

I get all ready. I shower, I dress, I do my hair. I put on SPF. I make myself toast and maybe some yogurt.

I have a vitamin.

I play with my cats for a few minutes. I bring my sleeping boyfriend some coffee in a purely symbolic gesture meant to convey my love. Though he'll never be up in time to drink it while it's still warm. Still, these are the things I do every morning.

Then I walk out the door. Into the unrelenting heat.

And within three blocks everything is ruined. All of my makeup. All of my SPF. My hair. My clothes.

I get to the train station.

I am completley disgusting.

People, some of them wearing sweaters (in 70 % humidity with a heat index of 115) look at me as though maybe they should call an ambulance or something.

Sweat is running down me like rain.

I want to ask, Why are all of you wearing sweaters?!

And also,

Why aren't any of you sweating?

But, of course, I never do.

I get on the refrigerator-level cold train and all of my sweat dries back onto my skin. Ten minutes all told. This is the first such drying of the day. We'll call it Phase One.

The relief of the train puts me nearly into a coma, but I wake just in time to catch my stop.

Again, I hike to my office building. It's only six blocks, but in this heat it means I will sweat all over again (though this time less profusely). Phase Two is different only because there is no deodorant left on my person to maintain things as before.

I get inside my office building. A blast of cold air that continues even via the elevator dries Phase Two before I'm at my desk. Not that I'm not damp and sticky. I am. Phases One and Two are making themselves known to me. I smell not homeless, but something akin to the modern day hippy (willingly dirty, the modern day hippy wants to smell bad).

So, even as I pretend that all of this is okay, and place it safely somewhere under an imaginary umbrella of hippy-leanings (that might be understood by the people I work with: might), I still quietly rue the fact that I ate garlic every single meal last week.

My plan (the whole time) is to finally get to the ladies room to do what I can at a public sink with pump-soap to clean my face and possibly my torso and reapply my deodorant. But when I walk into the office there is some emergency already in progress or the phone is ringing (and it's someone telling me that flights for five people are needed to somewhere in the next hour).

So, I never get to the ladies room.

Instead I work and when I look up it's a quarter to twelve and I have to run something down to some nearby office. Because messegering might be too slow.

And when I return, full-on Phase Three has been established. It too, dries, but this time there is a salt residue left on my skin. Sweat rings and deodorant marks on one's clothing is one thing; salt rings on my black chemise, quite another. This, I'm afraid, is the lowest. Much lower than lint. Possibly only a couple levels higher than smelling like whiskey.

It's the damned humanness of it all!

Why do I have to be so fricking human all of the time?

So, concerned by the salt (but only a little bit thirsty), I drink copious amounts of water. And, though I mean the entire time to bathe in the ladies room, I, again, never get there.

For that matter, I don't need to get there. You see, I no longer need to pee due to all the sweating (and I'm sure this isn't good).

And on and on it goes.

No. I smell terrible. Still, someone tells me that the guy who shreds all of our files in going to be at the office in an hour. Could I please move twenty boxes down from the shelf for him?

Yes. So Phase Four, though happening within the heat-neutral conditions of the office itself, doesn't change anything in this dynamic.

I leave work for the day. Phases Five and Six happen without fanfare.

I get home, turn on the shower, sit down on my bed for a minute to wait for the water pressure to finally build (stupid water pressure) and fall immediately into a deep sleep.

Hours later my boyfriend gets home, turns off the shower, and tucks me in with a kiss.

I sleep. Six phases of sweat stuck to my skin.

The end.

Roman Grimiko: "I was never very good with money.."

It was about ten in the morning.

Roman Grimiko, sweaty and uncombed, waited for his son and daughter to arrive.

He prayed and talked to himself as he loosely scrambled eggs with some butter in a hot pan.

your mother and I will always be okay

For a second he considered making hash, but mindlessly ate the eggs while thinking of things to do with them.

Still he peered into the fridge:

Carrots. Milk. A bean soup from yesterday.

Cold, rare sliced beef.

A small cube of cheese floating unappealingly in its brine.

Mustard. Pickles.

An apricot nectar in a can.

It was all so beautiful.

Can you ever forgive me

Roman had lost his check book over four months ago.

He only realized it was missing this morning. He telephoned the bank (finally, at their repeated request) and wasn't actually certain until that moment which bank it was that he and his wife kept their life savings.

It was bad. Their money was gone. Close to a quarter of a million dollars.

That's close to a quarter of a million things they did and didn't do since 1963 in order to save that money.

Money that no one ever touched, except to pay the few bills they still had.

Roman's checkbook, covered in a cracked, dark red leather case, had always been in the middlemost desk drawer for as long as he could remember.

The checkbook had, in fact, been the only thing in that desk drawer, save for a pen, for well over forty years.

It was a bic pen.

A bic pen that had been obviously chewed on one end.

A bic pen that now rolled freely around the middlemost drawer, happy at last.

Roman remembered right then the pass-code written (for his convenience in his own longhand) on the flap of paper situated right above the checks themselves.

How he could see that checkbook now. So clearly in his mind. He could almost summon it back into the drawer, where it belonged:

back, back, back you go

It was late last winter that the Grimikos needed a new dryer. Of course, this requred a check.

Stan's Used Furniture & Appliances

Of course. It all made sense, now.

The bank had continually asked him to address his over drafts via hundreds of voicemail messages.

Messages he never checked. That is, until today.

Because Roman Grimiko never uses the telephone.

So now he waits. For his son and daughter to arrive.

They would be calm, he thought.

They would laugh. They would remedy this with their computers in five seconds and think he was silly.

Yes. It would be great!

Only, he had to tell them what had happened first.

And the thought paralyzed him.

lord, god, нет никакой возможности избежать реальность!

He poured some cold apricot nectar halfway into a glass, then added an equal amount of vodka. He noticed how the vodka rested on top of the nectar as though it were impermeable.

How, then, the vodka tore through the nectar in a slow, terrible way.

It reminded Roman of egg whites and blood. Of blood separating into several other liquids upon death.

He drank it down.

Right then, keys rattled in the kitchen door and Roman's eldest daughter, Nat, was suddenly in the kitchen sifting through a pile of mail.

A combination citrus and cigarette scent trailed around her. She was noisy even though she didn't say a word.

It was her gum popping; her many bracelets, her cell phone - her continuous clinking and trinkling. Her suntan without any sun; her laugh without any smile.

Roman noticed a huge gold ornament swinging on a narrow chain from her handbag. An ornament that certainly meant something.

Dad, it's so fricking hot in here. Can we please turn on the AC?

Hello, my darling. Is it hot?

Um. Yeah. It's gotta be 90 degrees in here.

I'm sorry, pumpkin (kiss on the forehead), you know mommy doesn't care too much about the heat. I'll close everything up. Do you want some tea?

No.

Okay. I'll get the upstairs windows. Will you check the parlor?

Yeah, so, what's going on?

What.

Why "must we talk" before mom gets home?

Let's wait for Alex, shall we?

Al 's at work. Didn't you get his message?

(pause)

Natasha?

Yeah.

Did you bring it with you, your computer?

No. Why?

(and less than a minute later)

Daddy. What's going on?

utter nonsense

Once, long ago, when I heard the sound of the rain coming down through the gutters, it sounded to me like bubbly water trickling across wonderful blue rocks.

You know, those blue rocks that are found in sea-side caves during certain tides?

The blue of the rock being dependant upon the presence of water?

The water definitely being sea water?

The sea water definitely being salty?

Ring a bell?

This, usually while waking up. My head fairly close to the window at the old, old, apartment. The window in question being quite close to the metal gutters. The watery, trinkle-y sound happening whenever it rained.

What I saw in my mind was so very stock footage 2002:

Zen: Four Rocks Arranged In A Non-Threatening Square

Sometimes, in the present day, as I make my way to the office, I'm refreshed by what feels like rain.

We all feel it. Especially if we are walking close to the sides of the buildings where a narrow band of shade gives one the illusion of a reprieve from the heat.

Of course, it's just water dripping down from millions of air conditioners from millions of floors above our heads.

Now, this is not technically weather.

And, the fact that such rain drops (any rain drops) hurtling down at us from miles above doen't kill us is curious, but I never bother to wonder about this.

Nor do I ever bother to wonder whether or not it is actually spit.

Yet, I do imagine such spitters as laughing at us from the safety of their ivory towers, where spitting down upon us is the only conclusion.

They do it because they can. They do it because they have to. They do it with mock regret, music blasting and probably martinis.

It's like these knotted up wads of money that I keep finding in the street. It's broad daylight but no one else ever notices this money but me.

I usually wait until I'm miles away in a taxi cab before I check to see how much money it really is.

I unfurl the found money one crinkly piece at a time.

sleep

I woke up feeling like I had slept for the first time in months.

I'm certain, according to my own made up unscientific notions, that outer regions of my brain do not get any rest until the middle-most portion has gotten it's rest, first.

Such unscientific notions are the very backbone of this operation, gentle reader. Try to keep up?

Imagine a blot of dark ink that travels outward toward the edges of the paper.

This is rest.

For me. For my brain.

It starts in the middle of my brain and works its way out. And there is no skipping ahead to the outer reaches under any circumstances.

Unfortunately, the outer reaches of my brain is where all of the really important, day-by-day functions are located (in my brain, I have no idea about your brain - nor anything whatsoever about real brains).

So, somehow I woke up this morning having gotten 100% rest. For every part of my brain. And, though my dreams were quickly forgotten, the feeling of being 100% rested will never be forgotten.

My Whole Life Became ..Better.

Breakfast?

No, thanks. In fact, this bagel and cream cheese can go right out the window.

Coffee?

Maybe for fun. Maybe in Spain. But certainly not right now.

Wash my face?

Why ever would I wash my face in light of such restful sleep?

Money?

No. I can finally throw all of these ridiculous (for that matter, terribly decorated) pieces of paper right down the toilet.

As it should be!

That's what I always say.

No. Sleep is my only currency now..

friendly

We had arranged it so that we would have time to mill around our old neighborhood for an hour or so before the picnic.

This picnic was located in what was once practically our back yard. So, everything was weird.

Not bad weird. Just weird.

It seems that all I need is to be tired, or to have had a couple of drinks, or be deep in thought - to find myself walking home, to my old apartment, rather than to the train to this my mom's coach house.

Jesus, this town.

It's the lady who sells books from her stoop.

It's the mean hippies at the old building who, for whatever reason it's still so damned awkward to be around - that you'd think we had had an actual feud (but we never really did).

It's things like the enormous double sided Mickey Mouse face that sat on someone's porch for ten years.

It's the corn cobs forever discarded in the gutters.

It's the rusted bike skeletons chained everywhere.

It's Wigs & Plus and how that they never bothered to make it grammatically correct.

As we made our way down the Milwaukee Blvd,
I saw that certain businesses were not only still going, but had expanded into more than one business - sometimes right next door to each other.

I felt bad that Lenny & Me was open on the Fourth. Still, I was only too happy to show Tom the very whys and hows of Lenny & Me.

It felt like he and I had done this before, but in truth, we never had.

Tom found a sort of semi-circle 1960's Rob and Laura Petrie cocktail bar that he wanted. And a couple of old typewriters.

A typewriter. What would that be like at this point?

A toy typewriter I had had when I was little popped up in my mind. It was blue plastic.

It actually worked.

I would do anything for that typewriter right now.

Wouldn't it be funny to write a book that won a Pulitzer Prize and then to admit that the whole thing had been written on a toy typewriter?

So, Tom & Me were at Lenny & Me.

How much had I bought at Lenny & Me? How much had I sold? How much of what I sold there had been bought there in the first place?

So many skirts, so many typewriters, so little time.

So, we bought a raffle ticket to support art in schools, locally.

The prize? A typewriter.

I should mention that it was so hot yesterday that all of my carefully applied-in-layers deodorant immediately slid off upon stepping out of the house.

So, I smelled, as Sylvia Plath might say, friendly for the rest of the day.

Later, after the picnic, when we got back home and hunkered down in the air conditioned happiness that is our living room, I started the process of finally watching District 9.

I'd been afraid of District 9 for so long that I still can't believe I fell asleep before the movie started.

But I did.

One Fourth of July, when I was seven, we had a huge party. We probably did every year after that, but this one was the first of what I will call the suburban series of such parties.

My dad grilled steaks, shishkabob and bratwurst (which he had lovingly marinaded in beer for over 24 hours beforehand).

My mom made salads, deserts and drinks for everyone.

It was fun.

At some point all the kids piled into our non-air conditioned, but somewhat shady den to watch The Yellow Submarine on channel 7.

I swear that we did this with the same sense of tradition as we did opening Christmas presents or hunting Easter eggs.

The Yellow Submarine somehow got all mixed up with The Fourth of July when I was growing up.

It just made sense.

The whole Yellow Submarine /Fourth of July association was further confused by me at that age with Screaming Yellow Zonkers, which was a popcorn + toffee snack that came in a box.

It, too, was very popular at the time.

As for my confusion (all those yellows) I think it had a great deal to with the very Peter Max-ness of both things (which nobody bothered to explain to me, but was, none the less, very much on my mind).

What was this Peter Max?

Why was it different?

What did Monty Python, The Beatles, Screaming Yellow Zonkers and the 7-Up sign (not to mention a few of my mom's scarves) all have in common?

I wasn't sure.

But something was definitely going on, there.

I was seven.

It was The Fourth of July.

And it was on that day, for some incredible reason, that Mr. Kahnwal decided he was bored (or was it that he was especially fun and clever?) and wanted to go see Jaws.

Just like that.

I mean it. We were right in the middle of eating potato salad, waving off bees and continually changing records when and Mr. Kahnwal suddenly, indugently decided that Jaws it is.

Independant of anything his wife or anyone else thought.

My mom said that we could go with Mr. Kahnwal (though, in all truth, he was going with or without us) and this, too, was wildly unprecedented.

So, we went to see Jaws.

It was something fun and happy all rolled up in something fun and happy.

I cite the Tootsie Pop as the closest of principles to this turn of events.

I should add that, when we got out of the theater, it was just in time to go see the fireworks.

Such was the perfect timing and candy-with-in-a-candy nature of that day.

Yesterday?

No. Yesterday was nothing like that.

Nothing remotely like that..

my dad is bigger than your dad, infinity

How something as innocent as a post about living in one's freezer could become something about (even if only for a few minutes) living in the gutter - or one's own death, is frankly, beyond me.

Furthermore, how this could be purely be a product of my own machinations is, though not completely surprising, shocking, none the less.

To put it plainly, people have been let go from this organization.

Rest assured, it was in the most ugly and abrupt of ways possible. So that the humiliation never be forgotten (as with any successful lay-off, the goal being utter, crippling humiliation - along with job loss, so that the person learns never to trust themselves ever again; that building something is silly; that paychecks are merely fleeting, etc, etc).

They were given pink-slips. Not merely pink, but perfectly pink. We took weeks to pick out just the right shade of pink for our pink-slips.

Meetings were had. The kind with bagels, omelet stations, and, at one point, an oh-so-quiet yet classically entertaining mime.

The kind of meetings where the finest of coffees is catered in (this a result of a polite, nearly whispered request over the phone that is then confirmed over and over to the point of tears via email) in one of those silver-urns-and-white-cloths deals that is dead serious and includes, somehow, miraculously, a cocoa station (the cocoa station that nobody wants to admit that they want). The kind of cocoa station that provides a real-life whipped-cream maker who wears a big puffy chefs hat and does nothing but makes whipped-cream all day long. And is happily at the disposal of any cocoa wanter, if only one would come forward (yet none ever does).

The kind of meeting where everyone is suddenly dressed for recognition: heels, cuff links, shaven and/or naturally unfair-life-bald heads (it doesn't matter) buffed to mirror like shines, nails neatly shaped and now the color of egg-plant, and all wayward threads and lint banished with utter contempt to elsewhere (an unidentified place), with hems absolutely straight, and buttons on so tight that they themselves threaten to save the planet (wholly independent of anything this meeting is meant to address).

And with brainstorming sessions that are nothing, if not hatefully, transparently self-promoting.

The kind where everyone gets at least a few poorly rehearsed words in. Even (and maybe especially) the guy on the speaker phone who (though in Japan, though on vacation) goes on and on more than anyone else.

So, that when the pink of the pink-slip is finally decided upon, everyone applauds and cheers.

So, that when the pink of the pink-slip is finally decided upon, a wheel-cart of cocktails is finally rolled in.

No. I never saw happier people in business.

No, I never did.

Oh, and they're scented, too. Did I tell you that part? The pink-slips are scented.

Ever so subtly like garbage.

The kind that rots in the Chicago sun over the scope of a long irregular summer holiday weekends, such as this one.

Where one's ill-timed garbage might lie in state over the course of more than two (2) days.

It's an ugly stench, to be sure. But, being as we are a corrupt city to begin with, this stench, my friend, is nothing.

That's, nothin', for those who speak only the native language.

That's nothin', jaggoff.

or:

Have another beef samich and shudup, once, jag!

As well:

My dad is bigger than yer dad.

End of story.

And that is the end of almost every story, here in Chicago. Hate to say it.

The thing is, my dad was probably bigger than almost of all of your dads.

And whatever he may have lacked in height or weight (laughs) he more than made up for in sheer, outright incredible meanness.

I promise you, this.

I dreamt about my dead-dad for the first time since he died, the other day.

(alliterative)

I'd been waiting for this.

It had been 3.5 years and nothin'.

What was he doin'?

He was building me a ceiling fixture to hold not only my wine glasses, but also my pots and pans. And there was some overhead lighting affixed to it as well.

It was my dad being all like my dad.

And he was pretty big in this dream, too.

So, there.

[infinity]

The Sixth Floor

I waited as Oscar whisked two eggs in a small yellow bowl that had once been his mother's.

The bowl, which had traveled with Oscar everywhere over the years, featured a 1960's motif of roosters and farm houses in red relief.



He poured the batter of loosely whisked eggs and a dash of cold cream into a hot pan.

Less than two minutes later, in one motion, he both folded and plated my omelet.

I took a bite.



The cheese, an aged domestic white cheddar (though Oscar never revealed as much) had somehow melted, despite being a hard cheese. And the white pepper, which Oscar used liberally, surprised me, as only white pepper can. 



Then, my black rye toast arrived. Kosher with glossy crust, it would be more accurate to say that my black rye bread arrived as it hadn't been toasted so much as it was still warm from the oven, having just been baked. This was one of those really thick slices of black rye bread. The kind you only read about in magazines. And, though the bread had already been buttered for me, the marmalade--homemade, exquisitely tart and served lovingly in an antique aperitif glass--was all my own doing.



I ate my breakfast and chatted with Oscar, the owner of Oscar's Magic Kitchen & Property Taxes, with the kind of contentment other people find only in hard drugs or pulling off perfect revenges. I wiped my mouth on my hand loomed 100% hemp napkin and paid my bill: $1.80.



Oscar, I don't know how you do it..



It was then, with all the reluctance in the world, that I stepped back out into the gray, wet streets, my thin coat pulled around me. On the way I smoked what was left of my cigar. I was now well over an hour late for work.



I turned a corner, then another corner, then darted on tip-toes down a back alleyway (strewn with yesterday's bloody sausage factory output), then, lumbered (about fifteen blocks) cop-like, with heavy, hard boiled steps--through an especially tough neighborhood, then, adopting a more casual attitude, I glided, as though on skates, into the building where I worked.



Good morning!



The doorman, Mr. Hendricks, shook his head at me, You are very late, Ms. Victoria!

I was out of breath: Mr. Hendricks, if you please, may I get an elevator?



To?



The sixth floor?



The sixth floor (pause) the SIXTH floor?



He nodded as he said it, as though to determine he had heard me correctly. He scratched his head. 



I suppose you want the sixth floor "right now", Ms. Victoria. Would that be accurate?



I would. I mean, only if..



Okay, then! Let's see..



And with that Mr. Hendricks very deliberately began paging through a document that sat before him on his podium. He licked the tip of his pencil, checked off a couple of things, then picked up his phone and placed a call. He looked straight at me with contempt as it rang forever. He then spoke barely audibly in another language to the other party. There was a big, seemingly empty pause.



Finally Mr. Hendricks slammed down the phone, and, without ever looking at me again, shouted, James! Take her to the sixth floor, "right away" will you, please?



I stepped onto the car. It, wallpapered in green voided velvet, plus one huge oval gold-leafed mirror--hanging at such an extreme angle as to threaten to fall off it's one precarious nail at any moment--plus two ashtrays, plus one spittoon, was probably the slowest method of getting anywhere in the world. But I couldn't take the stairs that morning, as they were still, presently, cordoned off by several layers of police tape.



I got onto the elevator. One door closed over another. Then another over that. And finally some apparatus was engaged by James via a crank wheel. And we were off, as they say, to the second floor.


All of the doors re-opened.



Three well outfitted people stepped hesitantly onto the car. One of them couldn't be bothered with getting all the way onto the car, for they were deeply into a conversation on their mobile. Someone finally yelled at them to get onto the car. At which point they all laughed hysterically.



I couldn't help but notice that they smelled strongly of whiskey.


Then, O! Is this car going UP?


At which point James promptly brought them back down to the lobby.


We resumed my trip, which was, this time, promised to go straight to the sixth floor, no matter what.


Wheels turned.



We traveled slowly.



We laughed. We spoke wistfully of our families.



Sixth floor!



I stepped up out of the car which had landed somewhat between floors, this time. James, being over worked, more than a little passive-aggressive and very, very high did this to people all day.



I walked as quietly down the corridor as I could. Like a ballerina or a super-spy. I noted, like always, that it smelled of soy sauce in that hallway. This naturally led to thoughts of all the other hallways in my life: There was the one that had smelled like White Castle, the one that had smelled like apples (or was it chamomile tea?)



I saw, at the very end, past all the other (mostly dark) offices, what was my office I approached my office. I stood at the door. I opened the door. I stepped very quietly in.

Then I saw it. A birthday with pie and fresh whipped cream was already in progress. The unmistakable smell of burnt birthday candles hung in the air, and, what with everyone crowded over by the long work table where most food related things occurred, it was clear that I hadn't been missed.



The fact that it was happening so early meant that there would be more than one birthday, that day. Yes. It was going to be one of those cake days where nothing got done.



And here's me, having already eaten.