A New Tattoo, A Lot More Sex

I was at the grocery store early this morning, too early in fact, because it didn't open until 9, and despite this fact, there was a throng, yes a throng of people - at least 30, waiting impatiently to get in. It was a veritable sea of gray heads and glasses on chains, one that I kept my distance from for fear that I might get swept under their current and not resurface until I'm withered and wearing orthopedics myself.

They had all brought their own buggies - lined with cardboard and plastic bags, some of them adorned with little flags or rosaries - and they kept tapping insistantly on the glass windows, though this seem to have little effect on the speed of the employees inside.

This end of my block is referred to as "Little Italy", and if you happen to walk among them, you'll know why. They're small. They're all small. And they segregate themselves by sex while waiting outside the grocery store. The women stand with their arms crossed and a sour little purse of their lips. The men stand more socially, and they kiss each other an awful lot. They also seem to have an unwritten code that prohibits them from ever leaving the house without a sport coat and a pair of spiffy loafers.

The one upside to shopping with these eager-tomato-squeezers is that when it comes to my feminine hygiene needs, I have the whole aisle to myself.

I should have decided between laundry detergent and the case of pepsi, but I didn't, and I regretted it the whole way home, as I felt one disc slipping into another. Once relieved of my burden, I was one happy camel. I rewarded myself with a trip to the park with a little hummus and some cucumber slices and a book to keep me company.

But sitting on the wobbly bench, I was distracted by the other patrons of the park:

First, by a gathering of adults all dressed alike, rather boisterous at times and prayerfull the next.

Then by a cheep cheep cheep noise coming from a woman who had brought a green plastic lunch tray heaped with bread crumbs and was calling the dirty birds to her, and then left abruptly after dumping the contents of the tray directly behind me. Knowing my sweet spot was about to become a fowl toilet, I fled to the grassy hill where I sullied my bum (but avoided the shit).

And then by a lazy cow of a mother who let her 2 year old daughter run into the soccer field where the above group was playing. The mother stayed more than 100 yards away (way out of reach, in my opinion), and called feebly, even though from that distance not a sound could be heard. The play had to stop constantly for her, and still she got dangerously close to the flailing limbs of a soccer team, and if you've ever gotten thwacked in the face by a soccer ball kicked at high speed, just imagine being 2 and that the ball is bigger than your face. And the mother made no move to retrieve her kid.

I was afraid I would end up yelling at her, so I packed up my stuff and left. And as I walked home, I felt rather directionless. I was finding my way all right, I was headed home, but no longer sure what that meant. I have never thought that home was the place you lived, but lately it's certainly not where the heart is, and it's rarely where the rump rests or where I hang my hat. I don't know where I'm going, and I don't mean north or south.

At the start of the year, I made 2 resolutions:

1. Stop plucking.

2. Don't break the blender.

As you know, I feel like I've already accomplished the first, and as for the second, I no longer own a blender.

It's time for something new. It's time to do something for me. It's time for resolution v2.0:

1. A new tattoo.

2. A lot more sex.