moleslog04152007

It kills me that I can't ask the librarian for change: moral training at its finest, I suppose, that leap of faith, that fall -- not a drop of reason in the business, leap or fall with no pity for the flesh-monsters born to carry it out. To set it right. "right."

I stood by the machine and tried to look like I was considering something else, anything. I could just walk to the desk and say I need it -- some reason -- I have a class that starts tomorrow, whatever. And come back and pay the next day. But no, I can't. Sheet in front of me with a diagram: "Jumpers" go in to clean the pressure chamber. They wear "badges" that "go off" when they exceed their lifetime exposure limit. Usually takes about 45 minutes.

There's a sketch, but it looks like a cartoon. The original's got a T-shirt sketched in clean black lines, with a baseball cap floating discretely above it. It looks like the drawings we made at the sporting goods store to lay out where we would print names and numbers on jerseys.

[Here pic of T-Shirt & baseball cap. X on crown of cap, x between shoulderblades of shirt, x on back of cap]

Badge in back of head.

Badge on top of head.

Bade center high on the back.

The worker leaves when the last of three badges goes off. That's life as a pop-tart. Ticktickticktick : done!

It takes about 45 minutes, on average. The drunks on the beach off El Castillo de la Republica pretended they hadn't worked before to go back. And if we know that, who pretended to not notice?

As I sit in this room tonight -- the room I pencilled homework in --I can't remember what this librarian looks like. I find that odd because she's female. I walked by her desk today; I know she is about 35 or 40 years old, caucasian, brown hair, light eyes of some sort, curls. I can see her hair from the side, the hairs on her neck. Her face is slanted away -- my memory covering its faults? The curls are probably set. My question -- can I pretend that I care in any way about her opinion? Can I pretend she matters more than Fabienne? Or what do people matter whom I'll never see again.