The Shits Just Keep on Coming

The other day, unbeknown to me, I stepped in a huge pile of dog shit. I walked over to the smiling happy couple with their three giant hairy dogs and politely made conversation while I petted the dogs and then made my way home. I live close enough to work to walk and usually the little bit of exercise I get on the way helps me decompress before I get home. Lately I've been spending my walks trying to hatch different plans to motivate myself back into the working world. At present I am a shop girl at a retail store. I wear an apron and have been classically conditioned to greet anyone at the sound of the bell. Most of the day I think about Socrates in his prison cell and at lunch I read Dante's Inferno. It's not so bad as all that, at least I have a job. But in the grand scheme of things, if anyone asked me what I was planning on doing after college I don't think I would have ever planned on responding with a sigh and a contempt filled 'nothing'. I don't think I've even taken a picture since July and I'm beginning to wonder what the hell I'm waiting for. When did it get so difficult to do what I'm supposed to love doing so much it should be compulsive? When was art ever a forceful activity? And when in the fuck did I start putting off writing until the goddamn dishes were done?

I get home, pull off my shoes and turn on the news, it at least makes me feel better to know something. The couch is saggy and comfortable, but after standing for only seven hours I have enough energy to stretch. I move my shoes and put my head in their place so that I can push my legs against the wall and I notice the glaring unmistakable stench of dog shit. My shoes, which are so close to my head that their laces are touching my hair, are covered with dog shit. Both of them.

Shit.