Twunch

Lunchtime Conversation By Myself...

He looked at his soup.
His stomach grumbled.
His tongue grumled back.
He thought,  "No more favors for millionaires."
And also, "No more shit sandwiches."
The stomach was insistent, not to be bargained with.  Still stretched out, swollen from last night's debacle with the lousy 22 dollar pizza.  The soup looked like a job too easy to be bothered with.
But the gut wants what it wants.  The gut is not a body part to be bargained with.  The blade of the soup probed the reflective skim that skimmed the top of the paper soup bowl.
Slimy, tangs the tongue- crinkle their dry lids atop his dry eyes.  The lips darken at the corners.
The brain (peacemaker that he is) pipes in:
"Might be okay.  Remember the mussels from a couple nights ago?  They smelled like catshit and they were okay."
The stomach grumbles in agreement.  The stomach is capable of grumbling from several places at the same time and thereby sounding like a non-descript crowd murmuring assent. 
The tongue hears nothing.  The cat shit comment from the brain triggered a sense memory of stinky litterbox mussels in spicy catshit sauce and the tongue in response has chosen paralytic detachment.  The tongue has packed its bags for the rest of the day. 
The stomach says words like "watermelon" and "rutabaga" over and over again.  It will still get the food it needs, but without the tongue's enthusiastic approbation the hand will only lazily move the spoon to the mouth and leisurely dump the contents there.  The opportunity for the urgent gorging to which the stomach feels entitled, to which the stomach has become accustomed seems all but gone.  The stomach is now pissed off.
The brain (arbiter in cases like these) steps in.  He announces that he will graciously cover for the tongue, operate the  hand, and placate the stomach.  He can do all of these things!  He's a hero!  See how easy it can be to get along?
The brain waits for appreciative comments that will never come.
The brain sighs and swings the right hand into action.
The spoon breaks the skin of the lukewarm tomato soup.  The soup passes the lips slides across the tongue down the gullet to the skeptical and unsatisfied stomach.
"See! See?" says the brain. "It's- whadyacallit- it's- you know- salty!"
The tongue says nothing.  Only lies in the mouth looking off at the opening and closing teeth and lips and thinking of fresh baked blueberry muffins.

Welcome back...

I've arrived.  New York City.  Queens to be precise.  Weathered the weather, got my self into some swell and sweet digs.  A little statistical breakdown is in order:

2.5: Total number of hours of sleep I got prior to driving to Queens.
18: Total number of hours it took to drive from St. Louis to Queens.
400:  Miles per hour of sleep.
25: Number of minutes I napped on a bridge deadlocked in traffic in Wheeling West Virginia.  Which sort of blows the previous statistic up- but the important thing, as is always the important thing- you understand my suffering.
0: Number of times I've delved in Onastic pleasures since my departing St. Louis.  My palms have never been so smooth, my eyesight ne'er so keen. 
This does raise questions for me.  My monkey like fixation with self plesaurement has never been based on loneliness.  I fear I've simply lost interest in myself physically.  And if that doesn't sound horrifying, you have lost your capacity for horror.
29: Number of minutes into the movie Descent where it became boring.  Good first 29 though...
24:  Number of health code violations that my FAVORITE restaurant in NYC received on it's most recent evaluation.  Yes, yes, LOTS-O-BAGELS between 30th and 31st on Broadway in Queens was said to have found live roaches in both food-preparing and non-food preparing areas. 
This also raises questions for me.  This place has the greatest bagels on earth.  Big, fluffy, boiled not baked- their everything bagel quite literally has everything- under the right circumstances you might actually notice a cocoa puff on the surface of the bagel.  The prices are completely unbeatable- I'm talking about 95 cents for a cup of coffee and another 70 cents for a bagel.  There's a line out the door most days and yet the line moves briskly.  The workers are always pleasant, their short, round Mexican faces seem to light up when I place the odd change in the tip jar.
So the question remains- do I chance it?  Can I in good conscience continue to brave this place?  Should I ask them questions about the roach problem- is it fixed? 
And the thing that seriously sucks about all of this is that I knew in my heart of hearts that this infomation would not make me happy.  I went to www.gothamist.com, a wonderful NYC website and they listed, for a larf, the health inspector report of a notorious manhattan eatery.  I thought, I should visit other places and find out about their numbers.
Brick Cafe? 21, bitches. 
Cafe Bar: 28!
I mean, come on- these are reputable eateries with high numbers.  Please don't tell me I have to stop eating my bagels.  If I just ate half the bagel- wouldn't that be okay?  I'd cut my chance s of eating a half roach by almost fifty percent.
4: Number of fights Deanna and I have had since I arrived.  Not bad.  Like one every 5.8 days.  Both of us have full time jobs.  Melissa and Trevor- both on my friendster list- sacked up huge for us- in one case lying about my salary and in the other actually giving Deanna extra hours to pad her pay stubs.  Huge.  They would absolutely represent two of my three stars for this month.
3: Number of friends I have who are in Fringe Shows this week.  Good for Melissa, Brit and John.
0: Number of auditions I've been to since returning.
6: Number of days Inside Man has been available on DVD.  Rent it muthafuckas- I get like one sixty-eighth of a penny of your rental fee!
40: Number of pps I was able to write on a screenplay that I put aside three weeks of my life expressly for the purpose of writing.  Ask me if that's depressing.  Go on ask me.  Yes.  Yes it is.   Thank you for asking.
4100: Total number of dollars I paid for first, security, credit check and broker fee.
670: Price of new bed.-Sleepy's
60: Rental truck to pick up mattress after original delivery time was botched.
40: Used table and chairs (craigslist)
50: Used dresser (upstairs neighbor)
30: Used Desk (upstairs neighbor)
20: Used bookcase (craigslist)
40: Used Microwave and Cart (craigslist)
0: Found bookcase (six footer!), desk (free via craigslist), end table (masquerading as entertainment center/tv stand)
Needs: Kitchen Hutch/Bakers Rack, Entertainment Center
CABLE MOTHER FUCKING TELEVISION.  Okay.  I'm proud of all of you who can exist without cable.  I think you're all terrific people and you have nothing but the finest moral fiber- but good fucking jesus.  Three weeks without television.  With a war going on?  I mean, is there any finer pleasure than getting high as a kite and watching Anderson Cooper try to talk about mideastern politics?  I'm only fucking human!
So, the cable comes tomorrow and hopefully my fights with Deanna number will not increase.  I got DVR instead of HBO.  So she can endlessly record animal planet and style network while she's at work- she works overnight- and i can watch sports center and history channel when I need to sleep.
That's all for now.
Get back to work.

Currently I hunger for work.  I'd rather go to work than do anything else.  You know why?  I think it's because at work I get the sense of competence.  Also because it's very hard to spend money at work- except at lunch.  Meanwhile-