the best time

This moment: Last night, around 8:40, I had been sewing in my apartment all day and I felt headachy and feverish, the way you start to feel when you get tired of being surrounded by your own dumb stuff. I took my iPod and my keys and put on my new jacket and walked down to the legislature. The sun had already set, but it wasn't quite as dark as night-time yet, and I expected the government grounds to be deserted, but they were anything but. Couples sat on benches, obscured by the trees. A girl in a bikini and a boy in swim trunks splashed in the fountain, in spite of the nip of fall in the air. Some young toughs sat on the steps, looking cool and apathetic about politics. The grounds are well-lit enough that some people my age were playing Frisbee. The fountains were still running (do they run all night?) and the Legislature building was lit up and I detected the smell of chlorine mixed with flowers.

I feel like I am noticing all of this for the first time.

I take off my shoes and roll up my jeans. I walk up the slanted edge of one of the fountains, enjoying the distinctness of the rocks under my feet, the coldness of the water. I say hello to the security guard. I balance on one foot and stick the other into the gurgling water. At this moment, I am totally fine. Not ecstatic, not perfectly content, just fine. If I could feel like that forever, I would always be fine.

This morning: Someone in my building is cooking bacon, and its extreme breakfast-ish-ness puts my bagel to shame. Who are these people who cook real breakfasts on weekdays?

Today: I celebrate my first official day of unemployment by going to Wal-Mart. Seriously. (I'm making an orange swing coat, and I need buttons for it--pictures to come later in the day.) I did apply for a job already though, and it's only 9. I wonder whether, if I didn't have to worry about money, I could be unemployed forever, or if I would get bored. A question to ask the independently wealthy.