There's A Crack, A Crack In Everything

That's how the light gets in. -Leonard Cohen

I Ate The Eggs...

Yes, how would I ever seek a higher plane if my life was already perfect; if everything wasn't broken, in such a way that only God could be the glue...?

It is about 5 PM, and rain is steadily falling outside, precluding any busking endeavors.

Plus, my harmonica and guitar strings were not in my mailbox Saturday -day 4 of the "2 to 3 days" that I am waiting for them to arrive.

It crossed my mind that someone here at Sacred Heart Apartments might have stolen it.

But, I think when packages arrive here, the security girl or guy at the front desk signs them in, thus taking the torch of responsibility for them out of the hand of the mail carrier, and assuming it themselves. If they are too big to fit in our shoe box sized mailboxes, then they are kept up front, and I think a phone call is made on the in-house line to the recipient, notifying them that they have a package "up front." This call is probably made immediately, so that the package won't be sitting in the area of the security desk any longer than it has to be; especially while the guard is making her rounds, looking for security risks. Skeezers linger in the same lobby, begging of the comers and goers, who probably wouldn't hesitate to steal from the very same people, whose generosity they "appreciate" so much.

I can't imagine the security guards thinking that any one of us would be getting anything of a value worth losing their jobs over -their jobs sitting in front of a bank of monitors and playing with their phones or laptops, while chowing down on delivered foods.

It will probably be here tomorrow.

I wonder, though, what would happen if I got a package (a small one) with the logo of a jewelry store on it and sent it here just before Christmas. ...can't be much, probably their cheapest cubic zirconium stuff... the guard would probably think. 

My Little Game

Which reminds me of an idea that I recently came up with, which is:

The next time that I have like, a thousand bucks, I'll go to one of the stores down the street and buy a money order for say, $858.77 (the 77 cent cost of the money order, I would eat).

I would then make it out to "cash" (or to myself) and cash it at the Unique Store.

(A thousand bucks is no big deal to them, and plus, they've seen me almost every day for the past 6 years, and so, they would cash them).

Then, I would go back to the corner store the next day and purchase another one, say $917.77.

I would repeat this day after day, until before long a rumor mill would be in full production.

It would be bruited among the cashiers that the skinny guy with the guitar who wore a hat was in there "spending" substantial amounts on money orders. After comparing notes, they would determine this amount to be almost 7 grand a week. This would spawn a kind of curiosity that only large amounts of money can, in those who work for modest wages.

Speculation on the matter would become a minor pastime for them. What would a guy like him be doing with all that money?

I would be scrutinized up and down as they hoped to gather a clue or to as to what I was up to. Everything from the clothes I wore, the things I bought from in the store, and the fact that I traveled by bicycle, would all be taken into account, in their musings upon me.

Eventually they wouldn't be able to contain their curiosity, and one of them might attempt an innocuous probing on the subject, such as: "Man, you must have a lot of bills to pay; you're in here every day buying money orders!"

At this, I would leave them hanging and further fan the flames of wonder by being brief, saying something like: "This one, I'm sending to daughter in San Diego. She's struggling a bit..." and just leave it at that.

How much money must I make to be able to cover my own expenses and still send my daughter almost a thousand bucks because she is struggling?
 
Then, using a re-mailing service (like can be found in the back of Soldier of Fortune magazines) I would start sending "fan mail" to myself at the apartments. Using a variety of envelopes and postcards, bearing a plethora of phony return addresses, and written in different hands, I would start receiving it by the basket full, fashioned so that photos could be seen. here and there, through transparent envelope fronts, revealing glimpses of all kinds of cool looking people, to include beautiful young women, their envelopes being redolent with perfume.

Maintaining a stony reticence and deflecting inquiries with curt, enigmatic responses, I would go about my life, keeping the ruse up. I might have to spend a couple hours each week composing the fake fan mail, but I could reuse many of the same envelopes, because it would all begin to look the same to the front desk people.

Then, I would sit back and watch what happened.

Would people start "coming out of the wood works" wanting to make my acquaintance?

Would the female guards tell their single friends about me, who would then just happen to be hanging around the lobby at around the time that I usually come in at night?

Any local who happens to be in the store when I come in to buy my money order, and who happens to make some comment about me to the cashier as soon as I leave: "That's one strange dude. I see him all the time.." or something, and who receives the intelligence: "That guy's f***ing rich, man! He sends like a thousand bucks a week to his kids! I wish I knew what he does for a living, so I could get into it; but, he doesn't talk much..." would become a cog in machine, who might tell two friends, who might tell two friends, etc. until...I don't know; I haven't followed the threads of possible outcomes far enough yet.

It would be like that game called "telegraph," where people get in a circle and some phrase is whispered from ear to ear, until it makes it's way full circle and has morphed into something totally unrecognizable from the original. Someone might come up to me and say: "I heard that you're one of the guy's from that group Kiss..."

Either that, or I would be held up at gunpoint within 3 months of starting my little game...

A Shirt For Jen

I think I will try to draw this shirt onto Jennifer, my friend, but am considering putting "New Orleans" on it, somehow. But then, I would have to move her hair out of the way so you could read it....hmm..

Food In Less Than 3 Hours

I never want to see time race by. I like to savor every moment.

This is why I got out of the rat race of working jobs that would have me looking at the clock and hoping that it was later than it actually was. Or wishing I could snap my fingers on a Tuesday morning, and it would magically become Friday afternoon.

I've had jobs like that before. 

I should thank my lucky stars that now, whenever I look at a clock, I am hoping that it is earlier than I thought it was.

But, here it is less than 3 hours before midnight, when my food stamp card becomes charged with what has been lasting an average of 20 days each month.

I guess I really do need food stamps, as evidenced by how, after my food money runs out with usually 10 to 14 days left in the month, my cash supply soon follows suit.

Even if it is still raining at midnight, I am going to go out and get a Monster Energy drink at the Walgreen's up the street.

I broke down and ate the eggs which I had in my refrigerator, and felt less than wonderful in the ensuing hours. I want to separate the eggs into white and yolk to see if I can eat just one or the other and still feel great. But I haven't been able to bring myself to throw the yolks away and just eat the whites. For one thing, it would be a colossal waste of food and money to buy eggs and chuck the yolks; unless Harold the cat would eat them...

It wouldn't matter if I could eat egg whites without negative consequences because they don't taste good enough to me by themselves to want to bother with them. It's the yolks (mixed with the whites) that I find delicious, especially with buttered toast and bacon.

One of them is supposed to be bad for you. At a gym where I once worked out, they sold little plastic "egg separators" which made it easy for body builders to, you guessed it, separate eggs into white and yolk, where after they would eat just the part that was going to support their body building efforts. I'll have to Google that.