holding out for neptune
27 July 1999

At this very moment I'm wondering if I could secure a temp job as early as tomorrow morning.

I'm sitting quietly in the "cube". Todd is meeting with a consultant on his half of our workspace and I'm eavesdropping on their conversation. The sun has shifted Westward, making the cars in the parking garage that I overlook sparkle.

Basically, I'm bored to tears.

I've been disconnected from our network, from the internet, and from email because of a virus contracted by my PC. Suddenly I'm rendered useless because of someone else's stupidity and panic. My seether is just under the surface dreaming of all things drastic. And the idea of holding out 'till January 31^st feels like a bike-ride to Neptune.

James recently quit his job as a business systems analyst with an insurance company after five-plus years. He used to talk about it as if it were prison, like Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption describing what it means to be "institutionalized". And I, too, hear these words echo in my head:

"Get busy living... or get busy dying."

Last night in bed, deprived of sleep by the churning of frustrations and dissatisfactions. I had to consciously force myself out of a hopelessly negative train wreck, only to have it creep up on me again and again. I feel pushed to some mysterious, cliff-like threshold. Every irrational, passionate ounce of me wants to dive off, even if I can't see the water below.

On Saturday night I passed an ominous black door on 11^th Street between 1^st Avenue and Avenue A that had simple silver lettering that spelled out:

m i r a c l e s

I stopped for a moment and imagined opening that door and being washed of all the potential energy in my life. Right now my miracle isn't descriptive or conclusive, but it's definitely kinetic.

What's your miracle?