So...I didn't get to you yesterday. Sorry. It was a hectic day of cooking and entertaining. I set time aside in the morning to start this story, but instead called my grandma. (She's reading Going Rogue.) It seemed a better use of time. At one point during our conversation, I could have sworn she said something about a new package of red dots she just bought to price her homemade baked goods she was selling at the Christ, the Redeemer Bake Sale. But I could be crossing my wires. All I can think about are the red dots.
Which bring me to the beginning of my story.
It all started when I opened an old notebook and saw the dot. I had just gotten home from the dentist and was slightly out of it. It was around 3:00pm, a time when the only goof television on is People's Court, and I wasn't about to watch that trash today. Actually, I did turn it on only to find out I had just watched the episode about three weeks ago when it was shown at the 11:00am time slot on a different channel. (I do like trash tv.)
I had just finished all of the books on the bookshelf and all the magazines in the bathroom. There was nothing to do, so I put on a Magnetic Fields' album and grabbed my memory box from the hall closet. The yellow college-lined notebook sat on top of everything else. I picked it up and thumbed through it.
That's when I found it. It was large, raised, and bright red. It was hard to miss and looked trapped. I don't know why I thought it looked trapped -- it was just a dot -- but something about it seemed sad and lonely, like it might be on of many. Indeed, it is.
The journal it was in was the one that chronicled my break up with my girlfriend some three years ago. I remember the day I wrote the page vividly. It was a bright and slightly crisp day, and the fall sun was low in the sky. I sat on a cliff overlooking the ocean, feet dangling below me. It's one of my favorite spots in The City because you can always find a spot to yourself. I needed to be by myself.
I had just finished my joint and took a swig from my flask of tequila and began writing this:
I did it, fucking finally. We're no longer together. I told her I just couldn't lie anymore. It was all a facade anyway. She was a dyke. She just never wanted anyone to know, especially her family. I couldn't continue being her excuse for not coming out. Sure, I knew her family would disown her. But that's not my problem. I played along long enough.
Yeah, it still fucking hurts. We were together eight years. Eight fucking years! Why the hell didn't I see it earlier? Why? I guess it had something to do with....I never finished that sentence because just then I dropped my flask down the side of the cliff. There was a small beach down there, so I knew I had a chance of finding it still. So I set off down the pat to my right to try and find the flask. I never finished the entry. I did find the flask.
Now, there was this big red dot after the "with". Totally weird and random. I know. At first, I thought someone might have been playing a prank on me -- that maybe someone might have sneaked into my apartment, found my memory box, opened it, found the journal, placed the red dot in it, and put everything away exactly where it had been and not taken anything else. But that seemed somewhat implausible when thought about in any depth. Who would really do that? I still can't answer that question.
It puzzled me for a few more hours, so much so I had to put the notebook back into the memory box and then put the memory box back into the closet. Hoping out of site, out of mind.
At around 7:00pm, I turned the television on as I prepared dinner. People's Court was on again. You know what happened next? I couldn't believe it: There was a bright red dot on Judge Marilyn Milian's nose, just like a clown!
I flipped the channels thinking it might be some static or crossed signal or some other freak accident of the cable box, but when I turned it back to People's Court it was still on her nose almost like it was staring at me.
The case involved some sort of dispute about an unpaid carpet cleaning bill. The defendant argued that the carpets became moldy after the cleaning, and so she didn't have to pay the bill. I don't remember anything else, partly because I had to change the channel and partly due to the fact that the red dot disturbed me so much that I fot out the vaporizer and inhaled deeply. The rest of that night is a blur.
Well...that's it. That's how I first saw the red dots. I would have put them out of my mind, but I saw more the next day. But that story is for another day. I'm off to work.
Ciao for now.
p.s. - 10pm - I saw one red dot today. I left work with a very hot vanilla latte, and it was on the coffee cup. I didn't notice the red dot at first because it was under the cardboard sleeve. As I was about to throw the cup away, the sleeve slipped revealing the red dot. I brought the cup home and added it to my growing collection of "things with red dots" in my home office.
