Outside tropical Mellow Mushroom...

I hate the fact that I feel like Jay and Silent Bob when we smoke outside of your work. 

We could go to the parking garage if you want, princess. If we stay out here though, your exboyfriend can see us through the window while he tosses dough. 

Dough slinger hahahahahaaaaaa 

Cute. 

This is how our conversations always go.

I would like to say that I come here to bullshit with Alicia on her breaks
But

She's probably right.

He's probably got something to do with it.

You know, he's going to get fired soon.

What a saucy story, do tell. Hah. 

Hah. 

Not if you're going to keep being punny. 

I'm sorry but you know they'll just hire him back. 

They always do.

Silence sort of settles between us, then.

I feel like I can almost hear the not-too-distant waves crashing on the beach

But it's just the sound of traffic

Whooshing by.

Traffic mimics the ocean in a lot of ways, but its mostly the sound of evening traffic

Periodic whooshing. 

Regular though it should be random.

I look through the window and I do see him staring at us

Slinging dope I mean dough. 

I remember breakfasts in that pizza place

Eating blueberry pancakes from the cafe next door

Drinking whiskey and coke out of Mellow cups.

I certainly didn't get that look then.

When you didn't have stupid facial hair.

The hip I'm-always-going-to-work-at-a-pizza-shop goatee.

I decide to wave at him. 

Turning back to Alicia, I see a fine diner and tourist from the great state of Who Cares speaking to her. 

I tuned in just in time.

She was talking about paradise:

"You must be so happy to live here. I'd seen oceans before, sure. But this...

When I was on the beach, the entire experience felt like magic."

Alicia, trying to earn potential tips: Haha yes, it is beautiful here. Nothing else in the world like it.

"When I closed my eyes and breathed in the salty air of the shore I didn't smell fish, or garbage like the man-made beach back home. This place smelled like harmony. Bittersweet paradise. As Andre Breton said in Nadja: 'Beauty will be CONVULSIVE or will not be at all.'"

You probably should've inhaled a little deeper, ma'am. As Joseph Conrad said in Heart of Darkness "The horror! The horror!"

Before either of them responded, I got on my bike

and rode away.

No point sticking around for an awkward conversation.
(or an awkward pissing contest
about who could irrelevantly apply
the most famous lines from famous books)

You wake up and you smell bad

(that's a given).
I just want to know what time it is; I just want to know where my bike is; I just want a glass of water with ice in it and I really don't care that's it's from the tap; I just need to get to work and see how that goes.

I walk outside and it is

too

damn

bright.

It's the Heat and Houses.

The scorching heat. And here, it sticks around for most of the year.

The scorching heat that sticks to the sidewalk

and sticks to the blisters on your feet

and sticks to the houses

sticks to the light

And that's really going to suck TODAY on THIS bike ride.

I'm just going to bike in this heat and light until

I'm not left with anything, until I don't notice the landscape 

or remember my childhood anymore.