Then Big Bad Monday comes along and devours the wonderful weekend, leaving a trail of poop behind that is known as Tuesday through Friday.

The soup man has become a part of my daily life.  Was he always around, and I just didn’t notice?  Here I am, sitting on my terrace…er, fire escape, and he is sitting on the stoop below.  Asking the passers-by for eighty-four cents.  He is becoming a gauge of my mood.  Like right now, I’m wondering how wrong it would be to give him some soup.  In the form of pouring it on his head from my fourth-floor perch.  Mood: irritable.

Ah, summer in New York.  I know that a couple of days ago I described it as hopeful, but then I left my apartment and dealt with people.  Now it’s just hot, sticky, and smelly.  High temps and tempers.  I just got off the phone with the billing office at a medical practice who charged me $100 for a procedure TWO YEARS AGO and later told me I didn’t have to pay it.  Today, I got a letter from a debt collector.  WTF? (Side note: the procedure was actually the reading of a heart monitor that I wore for two weeks after having a few chest pains.  The pains remarkably disappeared during the second week of my monitor-wearing, when I left my horrible job.  Moral: before wasting valuable health care dollars, it may be wise to take an inventory of all the crappy choices one is living with/imprisoned by and STOP BEING THEIR VICTIM.) It didn’t help that before that, I braved the sh#tshow that is Jack’s 99 cent Discount store.  All to save a few bucks.  That place is as crowded, fresh, and clean as Port Authority, but with more things for sale.  I am working on not needing others’ approval, but today I transferred all my purchases from the Jack’s bag to my gym bag and tossed the evidence of my discount shopping in the trash before walking home.  Growth: a lifelong journey.  I am still waiting for enough of it to happen so that I can burst out of my cocoon, brilliant and free and with a strong-to-very-strong portfolio.