I was fantasizing about the lecherously organic delights in my two Whole Foods bags when I realized I’d missed my stop.  Half stumbling half running like Jessica Tandy in The Birds, I screamed something incomprehensible – “Shit!  I missed my – could – shit!” “Do you need to get off here?”  The driver helpfully offered. “Yes, could I?  Thank you, I was in a totally different world.” He gestured toward my neighborhood.  “I don’t blame you.”

I have to get out of Staten Island.

There is only a month or so left on the lease, but I am certain it will either be rewritten to include “until tenant(s) die(s)”, or we will be imprisoned in the landlady’s basement and kept in cages.  Now you know why Myron Breckinridge committed suicide on the ferry.  It’s just that suffocating.  One could say I’m just mad because I’m unemployed; that it has nothing to do with the harmless island.  But one wouldn’t live for long.
    
Pause for sigh.

The fact of the matter is, friends, I’m afraid.  I have so many stipulations, excuses, expectations for my future.  I completely trust Him, but I don’t trust myself.  It seems like I’m constantly looking for Bill Cosby and settling for Richard Pryor.  But what’s so bad about Richard Pryor?

It’s like today at Subway.  No, it really is, listen.  I had a $5 gift card from my grandparents that I planned on using for a 6″ classic B.M.T. on Italian Herbs and Cheese bread.  The woman at the counter ran it through five times, with no result.  I very easily could have said, “I’m not going to pay.  This is a valid card and just because you’re machine isn’t working doesn’t mean I have to hand over an Abe.”  But I didn’t.  I just paid for it, because it looked delicious and why cause problems?  Does this mean a lack of assertiveness, ambition, courage?  I don’t know.  Will this have any impact on my future?  I don’t know.
    
What I do know is this: God loves Richard Pryor just as much as Bill Cosby.
    
And I’m out of milk.