Chipotle Ranch
... and other rejected epitaphs.
Dear Diary,
Maxine walks up to my workspace telling me all about the tantric yoga class she takes over at her Y. She says it’s “what’s happening” right now, and that it’s fun but also clarifying. I don’t know what she means by “happening,” or for that matter “clarifying,” but she always talks to me about this new activity she’s doing (where does she get the time?) in a super purposeful way, like something in me is missing, or like I have a huge hole in the middle of my chest that only she can see and fix. She always does this when I’m on a tight deadline. I also don’t like how she clacks her nails onto the desk so that we notice the new art she put on them. I don’t like it because it absolutely works. This week it’s peace signs on one hand, John Wayne Gacy in clown makeup on the other.
Dear Diary,
There are 5 interns on my staff. Two of them are tied for my least-favorite. One spends his break buying candy from the vending machine, then selling them on Craigslist for double, claiming they are items on the Rockettes’ dressing room rider. The other one is competent, reliable, takes direction well, and cycles maybe 5 or 6 different solid-colored cardigans every day. But she does all this while holding onto a selfie stick, because she’s an MFA student whose thesis is a performance art piece entitled terminal_capitalism v6.7.
The other three are unremarkable.
Dear Diary,
I have a name curse. It’s followed me throughout my life. At least since 4th grade, when I met Dylan. Dylan and I were friends for most of that year, I’d go over to his house all the time, and he to mine. It was fine for a while, we liked a lot of the same things: like Marvel Comics trading cards and Earthworm Jim. Eventually he moved out of state. I met another Dylan in 5th grade and tried to build a friendship with him. We had less in common. He collected pennies and stamps, his fingernails were always grimy and yellow, and he had a compulsive tendency to disrupt class. His name was on the board every day. At some point, I think Mrs. Montag just didn’t erase it. His bad habits started to rub off on me. He bathed sporadically so I did the same. Whenever he had to fart, he would stand behind Cassandra Boyd and do it very indiscreetly. I kind of liked her, but again, I did the same.
My whole identity soon took the form of Dylan 2’s tastes and desires. We’d spend weekends sorting through piles of pennies, then go to the park and stare blankly at older kids making out behind the tennis wall. Sometimes Dylan 2 would bring Bubble Yum and blew bubbles really methodically. One of those kids turned out to be my babysitter, who told my parents, so I was forbidden to see him.
Dylan 2 was expelled for trying to pants the gym teacher and I think ended up in juvie for attempted arson. I didn’t meet another Dylan until sophomore year in high school. We were not friends, we didn’t run in the same circles or share classes, but whenever I’d run into him my week would go completely to shit. I’d miss the bus several times, the cable would go out during Jackass, I’d somehow get grounded the same weekend as a party. I avoided that Dylan as best I could. But it transferred over to other Dylans. Like the one in my frat, which started the whole process over. He was harder to avoid. It is because of frat bro Dylan that I got scabies.
Anyway, the curse remains, but under a new name. This time it’s Blake. There’s a Blake with a terrier at the dog park every few days and things go to shit in a very recognizable way whenever I see him. Then there’s a barista named Blake at my favorite coffee place and it happens all over again.
I don’t want to change coffee places, so to mitigate the effects of the curse I’ve hatched a plan to get him fired. I’ve stolen one of the medium-size cups and wrote “EAT ASS” on it in his very distinctive part-cursive, part-print penmanship. The idea is to wait for someone to order a medium drink—which I think is the most common size—and quickly switch another customer’s drink order with my decoy cup. There are a lot of moving parts and I’m hoping it’s impactful enough to cover up the otherwise implausible nature of the scheme. It sucks because Blake’s name is his only apparent fault. But what’s done is done.
Dear Diary,
Cherie’s landlord is a dick who seems to think that because she pays him rent, he gets to be her dad. It’s creepy. I walked her up to her stoop on Friday and went in for a kiss, but the mood soured when I saw his glum face staring through the front door. Cherie did not invite me up, not that I would have gone up if she had.
One time when we passed him going to dinner I could have sworn he called her “Princess.” When I asked her if I heard him right she just laughed and said “You guys are such kooks, y’know?” What’s this “guys” bullshit?
Dear Diary,
I woke up on Saturday to a loud banging on my door. I was hoping it was my landlord coming to change the moldy showerhead, but when I opened the door no one was there. I stepped out into the hallway and my foot nearly crushed what was left in front of the door: a CD case. When I opened it there was a CD-R with “PLAY ME ;-)” written on it in red sharpie. I went back in fully intending to play the CD, but soon realized that I had nothing in the apartment that can actually play CDs.
I was bummed, and very curious. But I put it in a drawer and tried to forget about it. I made some coffee and drank it while looking out the window. Cloudy, but lots of joggers. I need to jog again. I thought about all the secrets people keep from each other. I think secrets are an important component of our lives. We need secrets to keep from everyone else, even from ourselves.
Dear Diary,
The vibe at the coffee place has soured; so after all that, I still had to find a new one. I’m now kicking myself for my stubbornness about change. My new coffee place is actually on the way to the office, so I can go in the morning and indulge myself sometimes for “working lunches.” There are no Blakes so far as I know, this place does not use nametags, but the staff has plenty of tattoos and piercings. If you wanted to complain about someone’s shitty service, just say “The girl with the lip ring did this that offended me or the guy with the lobe gauge and the Alkaline Trio neck tat did that,” and so on.
The staff is fine so far. I only wish the customers wouldn’t order so many espressos. The machine sounds like its grinding bones to powder. Since I can’t unspin the planet to prevent them from buying that machine, my only other option is to overpower the noise with noise of my own. Not actual noise, though: interior noise. Every admonition, every word of discouragement said to me over the course of my life will cancel out the churn of espresso. So every time it turns on I hear You’re playing outfield; You must be THIS tall to go on this ride; Caring for a puppy takes commitment, let’s get a rabbit instead; You don’t really have the fingers for bass guitar; You’re such a good friend; Maybe you should consider a state school as your target. So soothing, comparably speaking.
Dear Diary,
After yet another unsolicited wellness intervention from Maxine, I threw up my hands and signed up for a trial session of meditation at the Woodhull Day School. I admitted to myself that I need other forms of relaxation that aren’t as costly as (and possibly more effective than) therapy.
Things went well for the first 10 or so minutes. Then I started to drift. I found myself transported. I was in this park near my old apartment in Jersey City. I’m not sure why, that place had no special significance to me and I was glad to be rid of it when I moved. Anyway, I’m walking in the park and I come across the playground area. There is no one else there—no kids or parents or babysitters or cops—but some ravens, perched in almost perfect formation along the monkey bars. They looked so still I thought they were fake. But looking closer they were very real. I got a look at their eyes, which were not birds’ eyes … they were human. Not just of any human, though, they were very much like my mom’s eyes. The same color (a kind of golden brown) and the same shocked glare she gave me that one summer day when I was 14 and she caught me masturbating three times: in my bedroom, in the den, and in the laundry room. It was agreed that I was going to get a job that night. That summer felt like my worst one at the time, and historically it may still be.
The ravens also had vocal fry.
I guess it’s cool that I learned I can sleep sitting up. I will tell Maxine that it wasn’t for me, though it may break her heart.
Dear Diary,
The two least-favorite interns are now down to one. Now it is one least-favorite intern and one least-favorite new hire. I finally reported the fucker about the vending machines. I listened in (not hard to do in an open office) as my boss was giving him the talking-to that prefaced a very likely firing, he slumped in his chair and sighed “Big mood.” This struck my boss in no small way. Now he’s an “identity associate” who has his own desk and sits in meetings saying “big mood” in various registers whenever my boss pauses what he’s saying and looks at him. Everything is now a “big mood.” “Big mood this” and “big mood that.” I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean. Like, I can’t tell if it’s good or bad. Our whole business model rests on those two words. “Big mood” will probably go on my tombstone. When I asked him to clarify he just said, “Brah, c’mon. Brah.” And the whole office just laughed.
Never mind, that will go on my tombstone.
Dear Diary,
Spent the afternoon watching Maxine eat a salad at her desk. She uses her hands because she saw a YouTube video about how eating with utensils enables “degrowth” habits. She dips her hand in the dressing—thousand island, I think—then swirls it into the salad. Then she slathers it into her mouth, it drips everywhere and I feel morally uptight that I seem to be the only one who finds the display prurient. On the way home I imagine the hole in my chest oozing out chipotle ranch. Maxine dips into it throughout the day, even when she doesn’t have a salad. I don’t mind because her nails have been filed into sharp points and they tickle me every time she helps herself.
Dear Diary,
After a week I finally cracked. I had to know what is on that CD. I hadn’t talked to Cherie in a little bit, and I knew she had some kind of old laptop with CD capability. I called her and asked if I could use it. “I had to get rid of it,” she said, “but I have a portable CD drive you can use. I don’t want what’s on that CD getting on my laptop.” “It has a winky face on it, how bad can it be?” was my reply. But I kind of understood and went over with the necessary materials.
When I put in the CD, iTunes opened up and listed four tracks: “EAT ASS part 1,” “EAT ASS part 2,” “EAT ASS part 3,” etc. Their lengths went upward from 7-15 minutes.
Cherie stared uneasily at the screen and handed me her headphones. When I pressed play on the first track, all I heard was an organ. Playing a single note. For the entire 7 minutes. When I played the parts 2, 3, and 4, they were the same: a single long note, though each were different notes. It was like someone having excruciating diarrhea in slow motion.
When I took off the headphones, Cherie asked me what the deal was. I shrugged and thought it was an experimental art record, maybe something the other intern made, and she thought I had a record label or something. Not sure where she got that idea. I grew tired of the subject and asked Cherie if she needed company for the night. Cherie said no.
I walked home trying to think which I had more of: hated interns or possible epitaphs.