Living in Clip

I never understood that phrase, but since it came from an Ani DiFranco album cover I guess clarity was never in the cards. Even so, I'm living in clip these days, by which I mean one scene to the next without much connective tissue in between. "Work" is a clip where I joke around with my chums and we sneak out to eat lunch together because we mustn't be spotted by the mucky-mucks enjoying ourselves on the job. "After work" is a clip where I try to convince people to do what's fun instead of what they want to do, which is usually lift weights or go to the bathroom or something. Then there's everything else, which is sort of a meaningless all-meaning question mark where I try to decide what direction to go in for this or that couple of hours, only to decide, ultimately, that I should do this and make it a priority only to change my mind lying in bed that night and think I should have done that instead. I should write more. I should read more. I should go into the District to that cafe I like. I should cook for myself because it's healthier. I should call old friends. I should join the gym. I should keep doing pushups on the floor while I watch a movie. Ya da ya da ya. After god knows how long here I still haven't really settled, is the point. There's no groove; I feel like I'm just here on extended leave, or some kind of indefinite sufferance plan, which sounds so much more pathetic than it really is. In fact it's easy to cope with and has the following advantages: I don't have any bad habits or feel any pressure to keep hanging out at that one boring place all my friends have settled down at (thankfully there is no such place); I don't have easy access to or familiarity with joints that would hurt my wallet or add fat to my face; I don't have the slightest idea what the world's TV schedule is like any more, so I just never bother to watch any; and so, on any given night, I am faced with the terrible but liberating existential freedom to choose what will happen. A fine case in point would be Tuesday's adventure into the U Street corridor, where the other two musketeers and I had a fine time hitting the local wineyards and home distilleries, eating delicious piles of cheese that kept coming as long as somebody paid for them, rambling all over a part of town I'd never seen before and sort of enjoyed, and eventually flagging down a cab after some brief menacing from some guy in the distance who looked like he'd try something after my friend got some cash from the ATM but left us alone after I started making a show of practicing my ancient eastern arts. In my defense, I just wanted to scare him and I was drunk. True story.

Also it was unseasonably warm that night. I love warm cloudy nights. They feel pregnant or something.

Long story short, tomorrow will be a piece of cake day at the office because I wrote three stories on Thursday and haven't got any new reporting to do except for the next next issue, which is two weeks off. I look forward to an extended lunch break. With a plate of fruit and that same damn veggie sub on wheat that I always have to eat. Every time. Trust me, the soup is bad for you.