You won’t need directions.

This, right here.

• I can see now why you rarely open your mouth.
• Even still, that doesn’t change the thing about the wine.
• No. I don’t want to.
• Because being here is hell.
• Sorry. The last time you saw it is the last time you’ll ever see it.
• I never guessed as to why, but if you want me to it’s because you need the attention.
• Don’t talk about your wife that way.
• Look it up.
• Might be harder if she was pretty.
• Take a step back. Then 40 more.
• Do you want to die this way?
• Tell her yourself, fat ass.
• Every day. All day, and I can’t stop.

A thousand words.

<3

In reading this horrific story about a man who, high on PCP, bit one of his young son’s eyes out and injured the other (he was also “in the backyard of a nearby vacant home hacking his own legs with an ax”), I see that the Father of the Year was charged with “mayhem.”

I did not know that mayhem is a crime. What do you have to do to be charged with mayhem? It’s not causing a riot, it is, according to this:

[A]ssault with intent to maim, maiming, malicious disfigurement, or as a form of aggravated battery.  In order to be guilty of committing mayhem, you must unlawfully and maliciously:

• Deprive another human being of,
• Disfigure another human being’s, or
• Render useless another human being’s
• Arm, hand, finger, leg, foot, toe, tongue, eye, nose, ear, or lips.

Informed.

Also, after this incident and that time that Big Lurch (or Big Lunch, whatever) ate that woman’s lungs, I think it is safe to say: Don’t do PCP, kids!

A woman awoke yesterday, put on a black dress and jumped from the Dumbarton bridge. Dressed for her own funeral, she landed on the concrete base of the structure. Blood spread out from her body, which was forever broken, but it looked from high above that with a little effort and a washcloth that it could right itself.

The entire newsroom gasped when the helicopter found the source of the traffic hang-up on the bridge near San Mateo. I had to ask what the collective horror was about. I was told, and chose to look anyway. Legs splayed, arms above her head, her image came to me on a 15″ television, piped in by a camera on a helicopter sent to investigate. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t look like something out of a movie. Partly because of my unedited bird’s eye view of the scene, partly because of her long, dark hair, spilled out onto the cement slab as if it were a pillow, partly because the blood pooled in an unreal shade of red.

She got up yesterday morning, just as you did, just as I did. She got dressed. A lot like you. She drove a car. Then she hurled herself over a bridge.

It really did look like she could just dust herself off and walk away. I wonder how long she hurt.

All was quiet on the train ride to work this morning, as if the sunny, warm weekend left every rider rested and content to sit in silence. Not even one note slipped from beneath headphones.

The bus was also particularly serene. I sat next to a small Latina woman with close-cropped hair, a pretty smattering of freckles across her lined face. She looked worried — very worried — which I suppose accounts for some of the wrinkles at he corners of her mouth.

She seemed worried about the fact that a man came onto the bus with three very large plastic, lidded storage boxed and an enormous plastic shopping bag that said BIG LOTS and was filled to the brim with something soft, like pillows or the stuffing that goes inside sewn animals. She frowned at his load. It did seem to take up the entirety of the aisle of the bus, but he had to get his stuffung and the plastic containers to store it in home somehow.

The man with the big lot of things got off the bus first when we arrived at 24th Street. I eased by him on the left side of the escalator going down with no problem at all.

On my walk to work after the train ride I kept hearing a bike bell. I use the bike bell ring tone for text messages on my phone, so I kept checking my pocket. I heard it again and again, looking behind me for the cyclist on the sidewalk, but there was none. Soon enough I discovered it was a jackammering hitting something metal that made a tinny sound, much like that of a bike bell.

It warmed up at least five degrees on my way from the front door to the newsroom. Seagulls were the last thing I saw before I ducked inside.

I was wandering around after getting off the bus last night, not really wanting to go home, but with no real idea what to do. I went into a tiny Mexican grocery and looked around. I found what must be a two-year old box of cereal, as well as some Real Coke with Real Sugar in a glass bottle. I bought neither. I considered a pastry, but they looked as old as that cereal box. So, I grabbed a tall can of Tecate, resigned to drinking that and watching leftovers, when my night got super shitty. I reached to pay for my single-serving beer, but my wallet was missing.

Everything stopped. I dumped my small purse onto the counter. No wallet. I checked every pants pocket five times. No wallet. I apologized for not buying the beer, explained I had no wallet, walked out the door then called my boyfriend in a fit of tears.

I’d had my check card canceled by my bank for no reason they could ever pinpoint, and it took them a month and half to rectify it. In that time the financial headaches I incurred were many. My heart sank knowing I’d yet again be without access to money, as well as my Zipcar card, my Wage Works card, cash, stamps, receipts I needed to pick up dry-cleaning, credit cards and my California Driver’s License. HOW WAS I GOING TO DRINK THIS WEEKEND?

I placed a call to Muni, filed a report, made an appointment for a new license, canceled my check card, ordered a new one, all the while pouting and occasionally bursting into more tears.

This morning I realized I’d need that ID to fly to the East Cost in just a week or so, and that sent me further into sadness. I was pretty inconsolable, blaming myself for my carelessness and cursing the fates in the meantime.

It took me forever to get to my work email this morning, but when I did a tiny little beacon of awesome shined at me from the inbox list. “I found your wallet,” it said.

The wallet was at the assignment desk. I left it at work, someone found it, and they put it in an envelope for safe keeping. All the piss and vinegar turned immediately into Kool-Aid and champagne. My mood instantly lifted.

Just after that the intern brought in tiny mini-cupcakes with chocolate frosting.

Taken this morning near Pine and Battery.

On my way up the hill to the park with the views of the Golden Gate Bridge and it’s steely gray sister, the Bay Bridge, and all the splendor the lies in between, I saw the head of a vibrant fuschia flower sitting fat and stemless on the sidewalk. It was a big blob of color on an otherwise boring beige sidewalk. I wondered where its stem went. I liked it sitting there, looking beautiful and in just the right spot.

After my run I came back down the hill the same way. I’d taken in the sights of the bay waters and Twin Peaks and because it was clear, I could see all the way to Oakland today. My cheeks were flushed and but my breath was slowing. I didn’t see the pretty hot pink flower on my descent. I kicked it, unawares, with the toe of my sneaker, and it rolled like a wheel all the way to the foot of the steep slope and slid into a mucky gutter.