I've got writer's block, and that is a bad thing because my job pays me to be, of all things, a writer. So I have to get something finished, but everything I try to write sounds muddled or cliched. This is the crappiest feeling... I feel paranoid that someone will come down from management and fire me for not writing fast enough. So I try even harder to spit something out... which, in turn, ends up backfiring because it this always turns out to be my worst writing. I think I need to get hypnotized into being a focused, calm and prolific writer.

The theme for today appears that it is going to be "we're watching you, because we know you're gonna screw up." It began when I was walking Malcolm this morning. The landscaping guys were already there with their loud leafblowers and hedgetrimmers, and they had spread out throughout the complex in their hooded sweatshirts and white face masks like some sort of dusty army. Malcolm is skittish, to say the least, and won't go near these guys or their loud, smelly blowers and trimmers. So we had no place to walk. We finally found a patch of gravel they weren't assaulting, so Malcolm was doing his bidness. This one landscaping goon stops and STARES at us. Literally just stands still, craning his neck to see if he is going to shit, and if I am going to pick it up. I felt like I was already guilty of something. And Malcolm only lifted his leg, so there was nothing to pick up. Unless the guy wanted me to carry around a turkey baster and siphon the urine out of the gravel. I shuffled away and tried to get Malcolm to hurry up so we can go back inside and escape the stares.

Next, I am driving up Hayden to go to work. A straight shot at 45mph all the way up to work. Meaning you can normally go 50-55 no problem and shave some time off the commute. This morning however, a cop was driving along in the fast lane. Just crawling along at exactly 45mph. everyone else in the other two lanes, as a result, began to crawl, too. I was behind a schoolbus at one point that was only going 40mph. I escaped and ended up behind a truck for a heating repair company. My guess is the driver was deathly afraid of cops, because even when it got to be a point where he could have safely passed the cop at the speed limit, this guy wouldn't do it. He slowed down to 35mph. And I couldn't get away from him because everyone else was going so goddamned slow, too. Cars were passing in the slow lane at a pretty normal pace, but because everyone was cutting over into that lane, I couldn't manage to get my ass over there for a good ten minutes or so. The whole time, I felt like this cop was really having a good time watching all these nervous rush-hour drivers and having some power over them... making them all slow down, making them scared to pass (what if he were to jump over behind you-- ahhh, cop following you! Probably running your plates and seeing you once smoked pot out by the dumpster with those guys from the IT department and also you look a lot like that dude who's wanted for shooting the driver of the Wells Fargo armed truck--).

I just felt like I was already guilty of something, what with the way everyone was slowing down and that cop was just playing with us, trying to catch someone. It reminded me of the Middletown cop days, and how often I got pulled over without good reason. And that one time when I was pulled over at night and didn't have my license on me, and the cop said, "Now look, I am not playing around here. If I get back to the station and find you don't have a license, I am gonna be at your doorstep with a warrant for your arrest!" Way to put a scare into a 17 year old driver. I was tearing up as I stood there, with his lights flashing all over the front of my then-boyfriend's house--where he escorted us to get us off the streets-- watching as lights went on in the houses nearby and the boyfriend's parents got a good look through the living room window at the juvenile delinquent teenager their son was involved with... getting brought home by the police! Horrors. (I didn't get arrested, by the way.)

Then I get to work, only 7 minutes late (due to the slow traffic), only to find my boss' car was already in the lot. Crap. He is very rigid about being exactly on time and not leaving until it is exactly 5pm, or even better, 5 to 10 minutes after 5. The funny thing is, he himself is normally late to work, strolling in at 8:30 most days. But he has already given me shit about being late in the past so I know I am being watched. I felt terrible as I walked past his office to get to my cubicle and turn the lights on. He didn't say anything since he was in a meeting already with someone (probably another late-arriver), so I skated by. But I KNOW he is keeping track of the days I walk in after 8am sharp. Already I am doing bad for the day.

Now I am on strict deadline. I need to finish up an article today and I need to write a magical 500 more words to wrap it up, but can't think of how to do it. My brain is basically rattling around like a pebble in a jar. At least, while I am typing the blog, it sounds like I am writing at a furious pace over here and my co-workers and boss will think I am working hard.

I hope I don't make any more mistakes, get accusatory looks from anyone, or say anything else dumb or anything like that today. I just need to coast by and make it to dinner time. I should be home safe by then, and from there it will just be potential misfires at the gym. I can handle doing something wrong in front of the gymbos. They are way more concerned with themselves to watch me. What a relief that is.