A portrait of the author on a Monday in mid-2008

Alarm clock goes off at 5:44 AM.
Wake up with a heartburn from last evening's champagne.

Belch.
Curse.
Stretch.
Get down to push-ups.

Cold shower.
Anti-perspirant.
Corn flakes low-fat cheese then prunes.

Bus:
On the radio: Outfield's Your love-- "I like my girls a little bit older" (so do I!). Book: Thomas Pynchon's V. Borderline unintelligible.

The office:
Briefings. De-briefings. Post-briefing briefings. Slidewares and spreadsheets, then methods and procedures. BCPs, FPLs, PMOs and a whole orchard of acronyms irrigated by rivers of sugarless coffee. Modern-day myths out of last-minute Gantt chart re-workings bring together a migraine then more heartburn.
A cereal bar during the morning, lunch over somebody else's desk at noon, with a pear shutting down the afternoon.
Not working late today.

Train:
Overcrowded as usual followed by the old Superman routine changing clothes in the bathroom stall at the mall: a smile.

T-shirt.
Sneakers.
Take it to the streets: Relax.
Grind down the cartilage in the knees by jogging uphill with a full backpack.
Out of breath.
Sweat.

Pit-stop at the bookstore: Ex Machina, Legion of Super-Heroes and reprints of old Marvel handbooks.
Browse over something by Joseph Heller but stick to the comic books instead.
Brains rot.

Home at last:
Weightlifting and abs-crunchers for about 40 minutes.
Another cold shower.
Dinner and the news.
Call mom through Skype then fool around on the Internet for a couple of hours or so listening to the same Joy Division album from the day (week?) before.
Read comics.
Watch TV.
Brains rot a lot more!

Two-thirty in the morning:
Hot shower then the sack.
Lights out, then dream weird shit.


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Ready for tomorrow: Boy you move fast enough and the bad stuff will never catch up with you.