A guide to being by yourself in strange places.

At the Supermarket
Pretend to be homeless.  If you were homeless and earned about 5 bucks a day, what could you buy to eat?  A tub of alfalfa sprouts?  A quarter pound of raw fish?  20 grab-bags of Ranch Doritos.  You can buy a lot of things.  You would be set.  What shit it is to think that you can afford things.  You want the challenge to survive and be fulfilled that you bought 10 Twinkies from collecting recycled cans.  As you calculate which is better to invest in, a crock- pot or a microwave, you discover that Amanda Sunshine is scanning your food.
“Hey, I know you!”  “You went to my elementary school,” she says.
Nod.
“Where are you heading?”
Answer.
“Oh, good for you, you were always the smart one.”
Smile.
“That’s eleven twenty-eight please.”
Give her exactly eleven twenty eight.
“Bye, thank you for shopping at A&P.”
Smile.
Forget the crock pot.  Question yourself.  Why didn’t you ask her about what she was up to?  Why didn’t you look interested?  Why didn’t you feel interested?  You obviously do now.

At the Bus stop
Picture everyone bald and that you could crush any one of them with your thumb and pointer as you wait for the bus.  Or.  Try to look busy.  Try not to look like you are bored or engaged in the outer society of people.  Write in your pink, pocketsize, unicorn-decorated notebook. Try to look like you are some sort of great writer and you just got a “moment” and you must write it down to mold a story.  Even though all you are really writing down is:  So hey, I am writing.  I am waiting for the bus and writing.  I wonder if this hat makes my butt look big.  Everyone deserves to have something bad happen to em’… hmmmm wow, that’s a damn good line.  I don’t know what it means but I sure will use it somewhere.  Blah blah blah… I am writing weeee.    The bus comes just as you finish a page.  Feel productive.  Sit next to someone with the same CD player as you.  Whenever a stranger shares a same possession as you (CD player, car, child, etc.) you always feel obligated to acknowledge that fact, smile and say “Yes, haha, we have the same thing!  Hilarious!  Isn’t life just crazy like that?”

In the Bathroom
Walk to Exxon because Maria’s taco stand’s bathroom smells like a mixture of horse urine and French fries.  Go to the first stall.  The door has no lock on it.   Go to the second stall.  Same.  Risk it.  Sit. Tip: Check for toilet paper before you actually do your business.  Because there is no toilet paper.  But you cannot shake it off and jet now because you just took a dump.  Quite a messy one too.  That’s okay.  Don’t panic.  The next step: check the paper towel dispenser.  Oh look at that, no paper towels.  That’s okay.  The next step: check your pockets.  You should have the napkins you stole from McDonalds earlier, except you fell asleep in the car with the Coke can in your hand and you had to use all the napkins to absorb it when the can fell.  Wait.  You are saved.  You have a snotty napkin you blew your surgery prone nose with in your left pocket.  The same nose that is made up of 75% of plastic.  The same nose that cost you your social life.  Use it.  Think that the snot will now go into your body and defunct you somehow.  Risk it.  Make sure to leave a drop of pee on the seat for the next unfortunate soul.

Walking aimlessly down a Street
“It will be my birthday present,” you say to yourself as you look at the forty-dollar designer green jacket.  Of course, your birthday was two months ago.  Reason with it.  Daddy did not buy you anything… yet.  This will make up for it.  It makes sense.  You don’t need rules.  Money, guilt, worries: you don’t need any of that.  And just as that thought enters your mind, something is caught in your eye.  Begin to tear.  Begin to cry.  Public drama is your specialty.  Observe to see if anyone notices your sniffles, your red eyes, your snot.  What will they think if they see a stranger with an expression of grief?  Know exactly what they would think after you talk to yourself in 2nd person.  Talking in 2nd person will make you feel important.  You walk down the streets as your heels click, clock, click, clock.  You feel depressed, however, by feeling depressed, you feel confident.  You cannot explain it.  You feel like if someone looks at your depressed face they will stop and think to their selves, “oh, I would love to know about that girl.  What a great story she must be carrying with her. I want to be her friend. I want to sympathize with her.  I want to love her.”  However, you know you have no story at all.  You are just regular depressed, not extreme- story- to- tell- deluxe- depressed.   Fool people.  Feel self-assured.

And Bored
Stare out your window and zoom into a girl.  She looks like a Lucy you say to yourself.  Maybe a Melissa.  Observe how she walks… or waddles.  Observe how she could look so much better if she was a boy.  Observe tears rolling down her cheeks as she realizes that someone is never going to show up.  Feel bored.
Develop social problems by talking to yourself too much.  So much that when it comes to talking to real people, you run out of things to say.  You create too many scenarios that might happen.  But they never do.  When you are constantly alone, do the following things (pick one at a time):
A) Lie on your bed as you pick your belly button lint.  Smell your fingers.  Feel guilty about it.
B) Create a desire to star in your own independent movie because you are able to cry… out of nowhere.  Because if you can really feel upset for no reason, the world can see how genuine your emotions are and you would win an Oscar.
C) Create the desire to have wild sex in an elevator that got stuck on the 11th floor but you cannot seem to match the right face with the right actions.

With a Guy
Close your eyes.  “Just pretend,” you say to yourself.  Just pretend.  Nibble on his ear and glance at him.  He closes his eyes.  Perhaps he’s pretending as well.  Or perhaps he’s just tired.  Or maybe he’s wondering about his dog, Princess, and why she keeps digging up her old bones in the backyard.  Touch the back of his neck with your lips as he finally finishes typing a reply to his mother’s email.  Reach for his belt buckle with your hands as he says, “I have to go.  It’s late.  David is waiting for me at the movies.”

At Home
Notice that the lint trapper in the dryer is clogged up again.  Decide that Mom has got too much on her mind.  Or maybe it’s Dad.  You don’t really know who does the laundry anymore.  You are home.  What do you look forward to now?  Another new pair of jeans?  Horrible but still home-made food?  The fact that you can masturbate in peace?  Look forward to the intellectual conversations you overhear from your parents.
“Black people are the worst.”
“Yeah, I know, they drive me insane.”
“I have an analogy about them to prove my point… want to hear it, darling?”
“Mmmm.”
“Okay.  So, if you mix a drop of white paint into black paint, the overall color of the paint is still pure black right?”
“Mmmm hmmm.”
“Okay.  So then if you mix a drop of black paint into the white paint, the white paint is all messed up and it’s not pure white anymore right?”
“Hmmm.”
“Goes to show you that black people will contaminate society and mess everything up.”
Love your parents.

With Mom
Wonder if you should tell your mom about it.  It’s a small thing.  Still wonder.  Then think… or worry rather, what she would think after you told her.  Wonder what exactly you want out of it by telling her.  Wonder what she thinks you want out of it by telling her.  Decide not to tell her.  Decide to keep to yourself the fact that you are expecting.  It’s just a small thing.

In your Memories
Remember wanting a pony for Christmas but Mom giving you sweatpants instead.
Remember the first time you said, “Fuck you.”  It was to your sippy straw because it got trapped inside your juice box.
Remember masturbating to the cover of Tales of a 4th grade nothing.  Peter was quite good looking for a sketch.
Remember being turned down by Edgar Fuller because you had no boobs.
Remember your house almost burning down because you did not clean the lint that kept building up in the dryer.
Remember celebrating your sweet sixteen with Allen Ginsberg and anti- depressants.
Remember Amanda Gerkins stealing all your Cracker Jack surprise toys that you patiently collected all through your middle school life, because she thought “you were too loaded to mind.”
Remember having the same pink, pocketsize, unicorn-decorated notebook as half your 5th grade class.  The same notebook your Dad said he specially picked out just for you.
Remember hearing your Mom and Dad yelling at each other.  You were just trying not to color outside the lines.  Trying not to blend the yellow with the blue.  Trying not to ruin the point of the crayon.  Trying not to listen.  But your Dad suddenly turned to you.  Remember how your nose broke along with your significance.

Tell yourself that everyone deserves to have something bad happen to them.  It was just your turn.

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