or; leaving the starting blocks a titch early . . .
I sit in my old orange armchair. A hand-me-down from the Barlows up the street, it has been a constant companion in my thoughts for years. It's a mid-forties piece of lovely crap, older than either of my parents, but it has always served me well. I feel the worn wood of the armrests, remember each scratch and splinter. I run my fingers across the padded areas, feeling the threadbare fabric stretch. It is a good chair.
My first official day of work after training begins in about two and a half hours. Part of me is excited, eager to see what the afternoon might hold. The other part of me is reticent; I'm still missing my job at the garden center and my good friends there. But tonight I have the pleasure of working with Cassidy, one of my new coworkers, who is a lot of fun to work with. It will be fun and rewarding, but I don't want to think about work. With the new job, I'm having dreams of money and counting, and robberies, and all that kind of nonsense. I don't want to think about it right now.
The soothing, eerie voice of Cristina Scabbia wafts over the crunchy guitars of the song she's singing. Her sexy, throatier voice gets me to thinking about voices. I run the gamut of voices of girls that I know, thinking who has a sexy voice or not. Finally my mind comes to rest on Malerie.
She too is a newer employee of the bank. I met her for the first time last Thursday, at an employee meeting for all the new tellers. I was astonished at first sight of the pure grace she emanated; she was beauty incarnate. I defy any atheist to stay one after meeting this girl; no pure chance, no coincidence could create such an immaculate creature.
I remember being simply overcome by her presence upon first meeting her. The trainer at my work, Connie, noticed. (Thank heavens I've known her for years and that she could give me a bad time about it.) I couldn't help but be captivated by her. She was intelligent, witty, and absolutely, breath-takingly gorgeous.
I begin to imagine what a date with her would be like. I haven't been this floored by a girl in ages, probably since high school. I resolve to do some investigating at the next employee meeting, this coming Thursday. I have to know whether she is attached to someone or not, and what kind of chance I might have with this girl.
Thoughts like that just begin to depress me. I change the disc on my CD player; the irreplaceable beats of Thom Yorke's new solo album begin to shake my walls. I feel the nicks in the arms of my chair again. Time to think of something else. I can't. Malerie's beautiful face seems to fill the whole of my existence, or at least the whole of my current frame of sight. I hate this feeling; this sick inability to think of anything else. I don't even know the girl yet; I barely met her, but already I'm imagining what it would be like to date her. I begin to fantasize a relationship with her.
Time to change my frame of mind. I throw on my tennys and head out to the courts. Maybe if I hit a few balls against the wall for awhile my mind can stop dwelling on things that don't exist yet.