Before the song birds turn to crow

the distant siren of a police car jams down Fessenden Avenue, i live in NoPo. you remember, where you need a gun to walk outside—

Conflicting emotions are a part of the natural adult experience. I find that it is normal to feel confident and solid for hours, then to get stuck in traffic and lose control of my zen-like calm. The beauty of this is that I recognize my rapidly shifting emotions as a product of this culture of instant gratification. I am not pleased about being in traffic, therefor my world is not working for me. WTF? why am I even stuck in traffic for an hour?

A recent conversation went like this (and I am ever the person who realizes hours later what I should have said): "What kind of computer do you have?" a person asked me. "An old G3 I bought in 2002," I replied defensively. "Wow! is that as bright as your screen gets?" Evidently, my computer is ancient. "I guess so." I said tapping the brighten key on top of my keyboard. "Well, ours gets a lot brighter. That makes me feel a whole lot better."

That's when I should have said: "Why? because your consumer product is new, better, and more expensive than mine? does that mean that your life is also better and more fulfilling than mine?" But I didn't because I was ashamed that my computer (which works really well) was older than theirs, so I left and got stuck in traffic and wanted to slam my hand in the door because I was so bored and mad about being poor and having to pay my own way through life.

I used to shop exclusively at goodwill because I thought it was cheap, that was until I went to the mall. I hate malls; the florescent lights make my eyes shiver, the pumping of canned music is sickening, and I hate the smell of cinnabun. I had not been to a mall in years, maybe a decade. I have to admit that I was really tempted to buy really cheap T-shirts—two brightly colored shirts for ten dollars seems to be the norm—I wanted the shirts because I wear T-shirts everyday and I am tired of wearing the same four, but I couldn't stop imagining the tiny fingers that make those tiny stitches. Now that I know how cheap the mall is it is going to be hard to go back to the goodwill bins, but now I have convictions.