I'm working as I write. No, I'm at work, but hardly working. Hard at work or hardly working?! Choice #2, if "hardly" is removed and replaced by "not." The cat is away, the mice play. Tonight is a reading from the literary journal Mizna, and the bosses are gone, and the store is empty, so we're left with nothing to do. I have no one to watch, no store to guard. Nearly all of the store is in the dark, for the reading. I walked to where they're setting up and, after flipping through Tristram Shandy, I laid on the floor. "This," I thought, "is where I am now. This is what my life's led up to -- lying (on my back, against a shelf) on the floor in a lighted section of a dark bookstore." Also, Arabic music was playing.

Today—after work—I took the bus to Super Target. After I got off the 16 at Snelling, I waited on a bench for the 84 while a 12-year-old punched a trash can. It was roasting outside (nearly 90 degrees) and I felt heavy. Everywhere I sat I slouched: the bus station bench, the bus seat. This position is, according to the audiobook I'd downloaded, useless social input. Useless in that it isolates. A slouch says, "I'm miserable and tired. Don't bother me." The night before, I'd had only 5 hours of sleep, so the Slouch was preferred. The bus came and once on, I sat near the front surrounded by women/girls. The one in front of me kept staring at me, a full-on look back. How does one respond to this? I did by ignoring her. The heaviness of my head kept me staring at the floor. I imagined she'd fallen in love with me. Immediately, as soon as I'd stepped on. The staring was an attempt to gain my attention, so that I might reciprocate. I did not.

My ride ended at Har Mar, far from Super Target. I walked across Har Mar's parking lot, past a Subway where I'd once eaten a footlong meatball sandwich, and jaywalked across two lanes of traffic. Walking across Target's enormous lot, with cars and cars around me, I felt as though I were on an epic adventure. A voice in my head had, when I got off the 16 at Snelling, said, "Don't go home. Go to Target. Something amazing will happen." This isn't foreshadowing. Nothing amazing happened. So I walked across the lot, listening to "Paranoid Android" by Radiohead. These lines played as I walked in: "Ambition makes you look pretty ugly / Kicking, squealing gucci little piggy." Spending two gift cards I'd received was this adventure's purpose. I wanted to buy, to consume. I wanted to avoid home because I knew as soon as I got home my body would assume control and put me to sleep. (Later on, that's what happened.) Actually, I rolled—I didn't walk—into Target, because I had, before I got up, snatched a cart from the line. I was rolling in alone listening to Radiohead.

Profundity was the feeling. Previously, the bookstore had confined me. I'd been trapped on the floor, trapped at the door. Here I was, though, leaving a massive parking lot, entering an epical consumerist monument—ready to purchase. "I love the smell of commerce in the morning." Actually, this was in the afternoon. The problem with receiving gift cards is that I can't ever decide what to buy. On the upside, they're an excuse to spend money guilt-free. I can't spend this anywhere else. I must spend it here, and, oh, they have only movies/videogames/books. I will succumb. But... if I go somewhere without a clear idea of what I'm getting, I wander around like a dunce, looking at the same items over and over, weighing nothing against nothing. I spent—no kidding—an hour and a half doing exactly that in Target. I stared at videogame boxes while a blonde-haired boy playing Sonic said things like, "Yeah, I made it!" whenever I stood nearby. I checked my blood pressure in the Health section. I engaged a bald-headed Target employee in videogame conversation: what should I buy? is this game good? why does this game's box contain a picture of a monkey? Har har har.

A moisture ring formed around each eye. I almost cried. Shopping is much too painful. I bought a videogame, finally, only to escape. I couldn't stare at the same games any longer. I couldn't walk around Movies and look up at the security camera anymore. The game I bought, it turns out, is a good one. I'm glad I bought it. Splinter Cell, for only $20. Post-purchase, I went to the food section. I wanted something quick and easy. I waited for an attractive pair of Lesbiae—one lipstick, one butch—to finish pastry shopping, grabbed two jalapeño bagels and a cake donut. Then, I went to the back aisle and picked out an enormous jug of Lime Ade. I bought these from a purple haired register girl who smiled when, after she'd asked how many donuts, I answered with very specific information: "Two jalapeño, one chocolate cake." Her smile said, "You're a weirdo." I left Super Target, sat on the curb outside the store. Two cart-movers, discussing Nintendo, walked past. All of the old feeling is gone. While I watched heavy traffic pass on Snelling, I ate both jalapeño bagels, and drank straight from the Lime Ade jug.

Someone has created a site in my honor!

Patioman is a Flaming Gay Douchebag! Unfortunately, there's not much to read.

It's so lonely, like this. I have off from work and Emily is babysitting until 4pm. Andrew may be coming over at 4pm but I'm not sure so we'll see. On Monday, I imagined this dream day: "I will wake up whenever I want and finish my Thank You notes and query magazines and newspapers and I will lose this overwhelming sense of stasis I've taken on during the past few weeks, sense that I'm getting nowhere, am stuck." Instead, I'm on the couch reading with my shirt halfway up and my stomach exposed while the other people in my building bang in and out. Stasis is what drove me away from Rochester, finally, what drove my Dad and me into fist fights. I see only limits and limitations. Plans are made and then abandoned. Now is the time to remove what's unnecessary, what's hindersome instead of what helps. From my life, that is. I'm obsessed with simplicity. I don't want things more complicated than they should be.

A few days ago I bought The Warriors videogame, with a gift card George gave me for graduating. I asked George if I could shadow him. He fixes up around my building—toilets and the like. Random tasks, whatever's required. I want to shadow him because knowledge like this is—I think—the essence of maleness, knowing how things work sub-surface and what needs be done to ensure a home runs. I've been denied this knowledge. My dad was never interested in sharing, if he knew. My grandpa could, apparently, take apart an entire car and put it back together. I know how to structure sentences and arguments, but those are abstract, kind of useless, abilities, whereas all of George's stuff has concrete value. With a gift card George gave me, I bought The Warriors. I rode the 84 to Best Buy, got off at the end of a highway exit, walked under a bridge where homeless guys live and yell at each other, then crossed an intersection and a parking lot to Best Buy. I worked at BB a few years ago and it was miserable. The job I have now is much better, though trapped in the same income bracket.

A Few Hours Later

I showered eventually and rode to Kowalski's for lunch. I bought lemonade, water, a Snickers, a pizza whose cheese I scraped off and didn't eat. Once I'd eaten, I went out again. I rode down Portland to the stoplight, sat on a curb. I read while cars roared past behind me. Some guy in an SUV drove by, an inch from my face, at I would say 50mph in a 30mph zone. My parents were the only SUV drivers who didn't suck. I'm never surprised to see a Bush '04 sticker on the back of one. That affection for Bush? That love for the gas guzzlers, + cars that destroy others and intimidate with their size? Invariably, they're driven by people who go too fast, and drive too aggressively. Those traits go together: disregard for the world + misplaced aggression = Bush. Emily isn't home yet. Andrew is off work but I haven't called him. I talked to Ron outside. He told me about a fencer he knows at West Point. I had several sparks of inspiration while biking, and immediately pangs of self-doubt. I must work past these doubts.