What's the Point?

There’s nothing to do anymore.
Really, there isn’t.
I woke up this morning, bored.
I thought to myself,
“Go to a movie.”
What’s the point of doing that?
It’s just sitting.
It’s not really doing anything.
Besides, I usually hate every movie I see
and then I wish I could have my two hours back,
and my nine fifty.
O.k. then, why don’t you clean?
Cleaning’s always good,
and it’s so productive.
That’s stupid, I thought.
I have to clean tomorrow before I leave.
If I clean today, I’ll still end up cleaning tomorrow too.
O.k. then, why don’t you write?
Write what? I thought.
And for whom?
There’s no one to write for.
I’ve written everything I want to write about.
So, go workout.
Burn some calories.
I already did that.
Well, then, there’s always the mall.
I hate the mall.
I wander around like a dying fish
looking for water.
I stare at everything and wonder why I don’t want any of it.
Just how much pleasure is a leather bag and a pair of boots supposed to give me,
and for how long?
Go to the library and get a good book.
Great idea,
except the book I want is checked out,
and the last time I went to the library it took me fifteen minutes to get out of the parking garage
all because there was only one guard on duty working the gate.
“It’s lunch time,” the disgruntled guard said.
“Why can’t they get someone to fill in when the other person goes to lunch,” I asked?
“Why don’t I just stop eating lunch all together?” he quipped.
Yeah, there’s no way I’m going there today.
I hate every choice I come up with.
I get so desperate I even call my sister.
“So, what are you doing?”I asked casually.
“Getting ready for my date,” she said.
She’s trying to buy panties at Macy’s.
Not because she needs new panties,
she just doesn’t want to do her laundry.
I hang up.
She’s too much for me.
I tell myself to come up with something I’ve never done.
Challenge myself.
Well, I’ve never gone skydiving.
I guess I could go skydiving.
But why would I want to do that?
I hate things like that.
Either I die on the way down,
or I survive and vomit when I hit the ground.
That doesn’t sound appealing.
Wait a minute,
I know,
I could go to that new ice cream shop that sells twelve-dollar-a-pint ice creams.
That’s what I’ll do.
Oh, wait,
I can’t do that,
I’m lactose intolerant
and sugar makes me sick.

The Gerber Girl

Today as the Valium slips through my veins,
I am calmer.
I do not yell at the man in front of me, who,
rather than making a left
on a green light,
waits for the arrow.
Nor do I flip out when the girl at the grocery store
cuts in front of me with her basket of coconut water.
I smile at the woman next to me who is blaring some offending music
from her green I-pod.
And I forgive the child with the miniature cart who runs over my foot
without a thought.
After all, it’s the holidays.
We are all supposed to be nice to each other, right?
It’s bad Karma to do anything else.
At least that’s what my yoga teacher tells me.
Don’t be nice just to be nice,
do it for your Karma.
How very yoga!
So, as I make my way through my errands,
I am careful not to do anything that could potentially bring more strife to myself.
At Trader Joe’s, I watch a girl hugging some friend she hasn’t seen in months.
She is carrying pink Gerber daisies in one hand and a fruit cake in the other.
And though I don’t know her, I can tell
she is one of those perpetually smiley people.
Always happy and cheery.
I walk past her,
standing there in her burgundy coat with her little brown boots,
and I think to myself,
I want to be that girl.
No, really,
I want to be that girl.
The girl who brings sunshine.
The girl everyone is happy to see.
Little Miss Daisy.
I think about pulling her aside and asking her her secret.
Are you on something?
Herbal or prescription?
How do you do it?
Are you faking it?
Or are you really that happy?
But I can’t ask her.
She’d think I’m insane.
So I continue on.
I walk past cut vegetables,
hummus, and olive spread,
and eighty kinds of cheese
I’ll never eat.
And right past those little chocolate cakes I think about buying,
but never do,
even on my most pre-menstrual days.
And when I check out,
she is there again,
the Gerber girl,
smiling and sniffing her daisies.
And I am standing in line
behind her,
wishing.