Purgatory

I'm sitting here, at home, relaxing before I have to leave for work. Tonight is allegedly going to be a "big" night, and everyone knows how much I love "big" nights. I love them so much because I'm due for eight straight hours without a single minute to myself. Eight hours of lines, and crowds and stupid, pint-sized, punk-assed Guidos asking me stupid questions about stupid shit I won't want to talk about. Eight hours of girls going into the mens room. Eight hours of knowing why. Eight hours spent kissing mob guys on the cheek, as if I know these motherfuckers from a hole in the wall.

Eight hours of self-congratulatory promoters telling me how hard they'd worked to make my night a royal pain in the ass. Eight hours of absurd door protocol, and expired licenses, and shitbags from Franklin Square telling me everything I've never wanted to know about their DWI arrests. Eight hours of thinly-veiled prostitutes, off-duty strippers, drug merchants and transvestites -- all of whom wanting a word with me at some point about still more stupid shit I couldn't care less about.

What do you have to look forward to in the next ten hours? Anything as interesting as that? What are you doing tonight? Going to sleep? Watching a playoff game? Grading papers? Finishing a report for the overseas account? Getting laid?

The weather's getting colder. They're telling me it's gonna be in the forties tonight. Nice night in Manhattan, the kind I like. Autumn in New York with all the trappings, and all that's left for me to do between now and the time when I'll be unconscious, five easy paces from this chair, is to keep chopping wood, you know? So I shower, I shave, I get dressed and I head in.

Try not to think about me.