The final day

Mellow drama – really mellow – I am the only one here. Parked in the empty lot and had the, “here I am in this part of the fish tank again” experience at the doorway. My large tank at home has gone cloudy with the imbalance created by new fish in the tank. I need to do a water change to restore balance – we all need change to keep our balance eh?

Having listened to NPR on the way in I was thinking the thoughts of lasts – last time I take this way to work wondering, “I am a pretty emotional guy, why isn’t this affecting me more.” It all feels resolved, matter of fact. I unlocked the front door and removed my key from the chain. I unlocked the store and did the same. Perhaps I was trying to create a little moment for myself, but really I’m not feeling it. Or I am feeling it, and what I am feeling is relief, the setting down of a burden. I left both keys on Deby’s mouse pad where she’ll find them later.

Jody is now here. I’m leaving most of the morning work to her. Jody has a tattoo of a pineapple on her left bicep, very tiki. I have a large coffee stain down the front of my coffee colored shirt. I have a tattoo of a sun on my right shoulder blade. I bought it with my first paycheck as a graduate teaching and research assistant – GTRA. Maybe I should get a tattoo of the moon today with my last HAC paycheck, bookend the cycle with indelible ink in honor of Wednesday’s lunar eclipse. Sure, why not.

I am considering all the time that I will have to read initially. According to my daily email from The Writer’s Almanac, today is Boswell’s (Johnson’s biographer) birthday and I’ve never read it. It is apparently considered by many to be the best biography ever written. Perhaps I will read it. I am sleepy, hung over, & neutral. MB and I swam in the deep end of the gin pool last night so all of these lasts will be buffered by last night. She gave me twenty bucks to buy myself a nice lunch or dinner after I leave. I’m not sure when I will leave, whether or not I am wanted to work a full day. Blah.

I bought three new little cherry barbs and Angela gifted me her more aggressive giant golden Gourami, who seems quite happy with his new digs and has settled into tank hierarchy just below the red tailed shark, who is himself under the monstrously sized prehistoric Pleco. Plecos have something like exoskeleto-armor. They are passive fish unless food is involved. Angela has been having a bizarre problem in her tank. She keeps buying plecos and they keep disappearing. I think they are all inside these fake rocks that she has, she thinks the Bala sharks are eating them. (That was my impression of Johnson talking to his cats).

This is depressing, but soon it will be over.