I call it my social job. It being a part-time sales associate at the local Mobil station.

My main job does not afford me very much contact with others. I am, for the most part, isolated from the patients, which is a good thing. My main job is working at a cancer center as a medical coder. In a nutshell, I translate doctor lingo into cold hard insurance company numbers. I try very much to disassociate myself from the emotional aspect of working in such a field. My heart would break. It is a high mortality area. And so, I isolate myself.

The gas station job affords me the chance to socialize however briefly with a high quantity of people. We are daytime’s bartender, if we choose to be. I see all kinds of people.

Some I see only once. For them, I become a random stranger who smiled and wished them a nice day. For them, I am the keeper of one of the cleanest restrooms across the country. I am the maker of one of the best damn cups of coffee when they are at their most weary. I am the giver of directions to late night food , to the closest clean bed or even to the nearest large parking lot that an 18-wheeler can fit on. Or sometimes, for some, I become the focal point of pent up frustration over the ever escalating price of gas. I am the symbol of corporate greed. For most, I will let the words rain down upon my shoulders to form droplets upon my back that roll off to become a puddle on the floor. Usually the anger is spent, and the chance of road rage is dissipated. This is why I allow it. (more…)

Smooth. Positive. Aloof. Cool. Outgoing. Romantic. Witty. Charming. These are the words that nobody would ever use to describe me. I’ve always been a bit introverted, ever since I was a small child playing games on my Atari 2600. I’d always been the awkward child, the underdog, the unnoticed, the kid in the back of the class and the front of the bus that didn’t make a lot of friends.

But as a grownup, for one night something magical happened. I became all of those mysterious words that had never quite fit me. Maybe it was something in the air, maybe it was because the events of this night made me feel so “cool” that I couldn’t help but play along.

This night, I had a date with a girl I’d met online. It was the first time we’d see each other so I was rather nervous. On my way from my home in New Jersey to our meeting place in her hometown of Philadelphia, I wondered about what I was getting into. I had met a few other girls online, some of whom had turned out to be a little scary. Some were possessive, others were uncompromisingly distant, and others were harmless but just not my type. Still others had looked nothing like the pictures they had sent. (more…)

Chapter I

The ex and I are going along fine. We are one of the cool couples at my alma mater and senior prom is approaching. Before my senior year, I hadn’t gone to any of the dances for one of the following two reasons:

A. No date-often
B. Bowling Tournament out of town-occasionally

So, prom is approaching and I’ve got my tux. I’m going to blow all my cash on this thing. Great dinner, limo, after party, the works. One week before it all goes down I get dumped. Explanation? I’m about to go off to college and she doesn’t want a long distance relationship. Oi.

I don’t want to tell anybody, but you could see the hurt on my face. My mom makes one of her legendary Augustus-esque decrees and says that I still have to go to the prom. Well, prom is the last place I want to be. So, I hatch a plan.

I’ll put on my tux and take pictures in front of my dear mother. She asks why I have a bag of clothes and I tell her that I’m staying the night at a friend’s house. She buys it.

After the pictures are taken, I drive away and instead of meeting up with friends for dinner I head straight north to my grandfather’s cabin. I change clothes there and head up I-35 to Oklahoma City where I go to a dinner and movie in solitude.

As I’m driving home my cell phone rings. It’s the ex, and her date was taking her to an after party. I told her I didn’t go and that she could kiss my ass.  My interaction with her should have ended right there, but, alas, it didn’t. (more…)

One day in my fifth grade class, Mrs. Daniels, our teacher told us that in the afternoon, a guest was going to visit our classroom. Even though I was sedated and groggy from walking to school in the heat, my eyebrows lifted at the news, followed by my head. Classroom guests were always a good thing, as they were a distraction from well, school. Anything that helped the clock tick that much faster toward 2:50PM when the freedom bell rang got a good mark in my book.

Our class had had previous guests, such as cops, firemen, a guest art teacher, and others. The firemen were great. They took us to the gym and while wearing those manly man uniforms, made flamethrowers using a match and several different commercial aerosol products to demonstrate how dangerously flammable the contents were. The largest was a can of spray paint that produced a ball of fire so intense that I felt the warmth on my face sitting several feet away. Of course, none of us were to try this at home. No, that would have to wait until college when art school provided us with all sorts of flammables and combustibles. Not that I’m encouraging this, but you haven’t lived until you’ve painted a table with a rubber cement pattern and then lit it on fire from several feet away using a match and an aerosol can.

But, back to fifth grade and the sink of disappointment that I felt when Mrs. Daniels said that class would continue as usual and the guest wasn’t going to interact with us, just observe. We were to think of her as invisible. Mrs. Daniels explained that the guest was studying how kids in the fifth grade act and behave. Knowing us all very well, she quickly followed that with a warning that she expected us to exhibit our usual behavior and not to make a show of ourselves. (more…)

It’s 3:30 in the morning. It’s rare that I can’t sleep. Sleep is my respite, my peace, my solace. Even with the dreams that never let me rest, sleep is my rest. It’s rare that I can’t sleep. Tonight is a rare night.

I turn off the alarm and walk outside. It’s a beautiful morning. The street by my house is quiet, but one person another person another person walks through the crosswalk at the corner. That’s where the action is, so I turn to my left and walk.

A woman paces on the other side of the street. She stands and stares at the sidewalk, then turns and gazes through the windows of a parked car, then turns again and lowers her eyes to the concrete walkway. Back and forth, back and forth. She never stops moving. Her legs are thin in her skintight jeans. (more…)