Monday
Life has become a little more tolerable in the Loop this past week. While security is tighter than ever where I work and will probably remain so for awhile, it has an air of temporality about it. Card tables manned by rent-a-cops checking IDs, cheap paper ribbons used to corral the visitors away from the building tenants, second floor restaurant flyers shouting, "We ARE open to the public! We ARE! We ARE!"
It just doesn't feel like life will remain this way for long.
I'm not suggesting my personal freak out sessions have stopped, and I nearly got off my train today due to an altercation between one of the conductors and a shrieking woman, but they've subsided a bit. I don't cry myself to sleep at night anymore and I don't wake up with the towers as my first thought in the morning. While I remain hyper-aware of exits, who's around me, and unfamiliar noises and smells, my world has opened back up to include more than just my immediate surroundings.
Ouija, the yes yes dog.
That adorable puppy up there? The one you wish you could pet right this minute? That's Ouija. He's been instrumental in grounding my obsessive thoughts about Saran gas and truck bombs filled with Anthrax. No matter how crappy I feel or how scared I am, he has needs that must be attended to. For example, he must eat and he must shit. Unless I do something about this, an item I care about will either be eaten or shat upon.
I assure you, he has other, far more palatable needs also. Ouija must play and Ouija must be petted. I enjoy these pastimes immensely and they never fail to remind me that life, as fucked up as it is sometimes, does go on.
In light of the addition to our little family, please don't let me become one of those pet obsessed journalists who chronicle every chew toy and bowel movement their dog becomes acquainted with. Yes, yes. He really does do one new cute thing every day, but I'm going to try hard to refrain from subjecting you to it.
