Morning Routine

The worst days were when he woke up early; he woke up about 10 minutes early; at 5:50 am instead of his set alarm of 6:00 am. It was the most bitter sweet moment of the day; on one hand there was enough time to slip back into the sweet slumber where everything was blocked out, raging beauties flocked over him(most of the time he didn’t even recognize their faces, better that way), his punches could vanquish any asshole he had come across the past week(those fight dreams were always the weirdest; he didn’t know whether or not to feel good or horrified at himself), the monsters never caught him and he sometimes got to say he knew how it felt to get shot. He told off his dick friends that he would never have the courage to even think horrible things about and he yelled at his boss; serenading him with outrageous comments about his horrible ties, bad jokes, and inability to even sound mildly interesting. The whole dream was as sweet as cookie dough, the cake frosting tins with the fat little Michelin man on it, the 100,000 calorie chocolate triple Decker, die upon ingestion chocolate cake.

Ya, this helpless prick was living in dreams; dreams where his prick was the happiest and Obama had paid for everything; ya, one of those fantasies. The bitter, though, was filled with the sour taste of priests fondling helpless kids, degenerative politicians webcaming pricks to 30-something year old mother’s of three(the word mother is used loosely), dickless Fox newscasters telling the wives of 9/11 heroes to piss off. Well, maybe not that bad but the bitter outweighed the sweet.

The bitter swayed over him, bringing back the tasks of a new day; the dullness of the Monday morning script around the coffee pot; the lunch hour haziness of badly rehearsed small talk.  He had more interesting conversations with the corpses at the DMV.  All he wanted to do was roll through the day with a broken ore; wanting to do his thing without having to fake a smile or act interested that they had puppies for sale. God, to think that he had loved the idea of working, of having a career; those mad folk who had said college was going to be the best time of his life might have been right. BEEP! BEEP! The morning set in.

You might think that this man is a helpless soul caught in between a trash can and a dog pissing on his newspaper in some back alley your mom always told you not to go down. Instead, this is Robert Evans as mentioned earlier in a touching eulogy that some kid wrote with a skeleton talking and smoking a pack in the background. It is the same Robert that might or might not blow his brains out in a couple of week’s time. A couple of week’s times that preceded from this morning which started off like any other; with a hazy walk to the scale and the bathroom in a one bedroom, modestly decorated apartment. Small apartments make for hazy mornings.

It took at least five weighs to get it right because you had to play with the averages of a Sunbeam, 15 dollar scale. Not bad, 5’10 and 150; a good muscle from a workout program that had been passing the time in the evenings and getting Brittany off his back. Brittany was his friend, girlfriend, maybe acquaintance. There wasn’t really a classification for it on Facebook so Robert didn’t think it warranted a classification. He might have to figure that out soon, he thought, turning the knob most over used in an effort to find that perfect temperature that never woke you up in the morning in the shower. A number of scratches took place, making sure everything was still there, before the water swept over him and 20 percent of his needed energy for the morning came back.

No snooze, so no need to rush the temperature of relaxation; it never woke you up it just put you back to sleep.  It would be so easy; turn the knob, dry off, and slip back into the coma, the only place that had seemed to offer the needed level of unpredictability in his life. The thought of the blessed period of five days from now; the greatest day of weeks used and used again, the day of unpredictability because it offered the thought of free days; the thought of Friday entered his mind. Robert’s thoughts ran wild in the forest of discontinuity until some small over used little geek student on his shoulder told him that the necessaries were done and it was time to move to get out of the shower.

He hadn’t planned on shaving that morning but the promptness of the awakening, the non snooze, presented the opportunity to go clean shaven. A clean shaven face showed some people you cared or it garnered eyes from all of the so-called non-conformists who showed up to work in Steve Jobs remembrance wear and laughed at people who even mentioned or tried to wear something they wouldn’t wear to pick up their to-go meals from Applebees.  Robert had been fed the food of intuition, of “dress right, step right” thought his whole life; it was tough to kick brain wash. Maybe that’s what the Nazi’s had said too. Was he becoming a Nazi? Don’t think too much; you got to get out of here in thirty the little geek said.

Shaving was always so tedious; down with the grain, tap at the sink, insert short breath if needed and repeat. When he had been a kid, the first sights of facial hair produced oohs and ahs from all of his envious friends. Now, it was ludicrous to think of shaving as a broadway play but only instead in as a shallow, hard Jack on the rocks at six in the evening on a Monday. It became necessary to keep up appearances in front of the mirror you were trying to impress; to conform to invisible rules that some drunk conservative had wrote down 100 years back.

Sit up straight, eat your veggies, call your Mom once a week, and always open the door for your date. It was amazing, though, how strangely good it felt to stroke the smooth skin and feel like a square peg in a square hole; fitting in just barely.  He didn’t want it to feel good; he wanted to express to himself the discontent of the mundane and live in a moment where he was man enough to throw it all the way and feel the rustic scruff. But, before he could, the water had drained and the tinge of disappointment that accompanied him through the morning routine had decreased.

His blue eyes turned to the mirror, a slight smile poked though and his eyes redirected to the gel; to gel or not too, it was always the question. The brown hair hadn’t been cut in a month’s time and the shaggy look sometimes didn’t sit well with gel. He would probably wear head phones later too, so what was the point? He shouldn’t have spent so much on the gel, he never used it; he was always a sucker for cute Asian hair stylists. She had been right, though, those gels didn’t always go on sale damnit, and he jump on it. He had said he had to because he didn’t know what was going to happen tomorrow but wasn’t surprised when the mornings were the same.  She had played right into his paralyzed advertisement warped ‘90’s kid mind. So, no gel this morning, as he removed the towel and swung into the closet; hearing the beeping of the coffee pot awaken the child in him. Almost as good as getting socks on a Christmas morning.

Because Brittany had said he looked good in bright colors he went with one this morning; a short sleeve baby blue to pique the interest of anyone walking by. The black slacks would soften the eyes when they ventured below or above if you went off the notion that the first thing you should look at in a man was the shoes. Buttoning the shirt, though, made him not want to wear it; just because Brittany said it was good. He needs to be more open but a little more distant. He has to keep her close but keep her interested. What was this thinking in riddles? He shouldn’t have to think to think. Baby blue, ya, it looked real good.

The pants were a little loose due to the weight loss. A good problem to have but one that always made him skeptical of committing to any new pair of jeans.  His body just couldn’t figure itself out and jeans were always complicated. He sounded like a damn women; man up and have some black coffee, he thought. The morning was turning to the homestretch; to a point where he would share his sorrows with a few lucky souls of the working force; until he remembered the broken coffee pot that had been on his to do list since he had had a to do list.  The coffee pot was leaking some brown substance that could be mistaken for coffee but was just brown water and it was holding back all the good stuff for itself.

He stepped over the puddle to get to the paper towels; he hadn’t forgot those on his to do list.  The mess was all gone but the machine had won another regrettable morning and had led him to the door marked “10 Minutes to Go and Still have to eat Breakfast”. Maybe sub-consciously he didn’t want to lose weight so that pair of jeans that fit just right would continue to fit right. If that happened, though, everything would be suspended in this one moment that he had now forgotten he had ever despised. He had to start changing the little things so the whole circus tent would become a little more nuts. Circus tent; like it was even nuts to begin with? Or was it just his dullness that made him think it was ever nuts? He had to have that calorie packed toaster strudel; the guilty pleasure that he had hid away ever since the whole food, non-dairy, Brittany invasion of his pantry had taken place. A blitzkerg of epic proportions that had been less tough then he had initially thought. But, the strudel had survived the onslaught; the little refugee that could.

Seven minutes to go; and the whole apartment smelled like burnt toast. Just flip the toaster over and let those little specks go into the trash can. God, you little piece of shit, clean your apartment, it’s not that tough. His mom didn’t really get it though; it was that tough. God, don’t even think about your mom this early in the morning and enjoy the strudel. Optimism, optimism; any person who calls himself a piece of shit is either insane or the sanest man in the room. You got to write that one down. POP! The strudel had just the right tinge of brown on the edges; enough to nimble away at before the best part of the warm filling came out. That might have been the gayest thing he had ever thought.

Munching on the strudel he went down the mental list; remembering what he might have missed. Notepad, no lunch on account of laziness, wallet, cell phone, and enough money for a crappy lunch. He didn’t need gas money; that came at the end of the week. It was that precious time; the last two to three minutes before he got the call and thought about not picking it up; just for a second. Where, again, that tinge of forgetfulness, uselessness, and mediocrity came back  and all the things he had just done in the 30 to 45 minutes odd minutes made the most and least sense. His mind had enough in the front to keep munching but the rest went outward; all over the place. What could he do today; just lie around and do nothing and have the best day he had had in years? What was more pathetic; the thought or the sad truth that he was right? No, no, no….. his mantra now needed to come forth. The same thing he had been saying to himself this past year; the year these thoughts had come into his mind, stirring the pot of what he thought was his career.

“This is your life, you are in control. It’s all okay if you’re in the norm. You’re 24, its all ahead of you. You’re getting paid and sometimes getting laid; so put your chin up and go seize the day. Cause you got to take it day by day and remember that you sometimes got to ride the train to get to where you want to be. Never lose sight of your goals and grab life by the horns and direct the bull.”

Ting-da-ting; the phone went off and the day got a little cheerier.