1.28.2011

PROCESS IS DISGUSTING

I went to the social security office today to get a new card. I was thinking for some reason I was thinking this can't possibly take too long I mean really how many people have this problem I mean I'll just run in and get it done.

I did not bring a book.

I had stack of papers explaining what I needed to do to get my replacement card, my wallet, my passport, my phone and a pen.

Cell phones must be turned off: XXX

I stared at the screen telling me how to get my social security benefits. I listened to some other people. I thought about a dream I had where I am always mad at you because you ignore me and then when I get upset you don't get upset and sometimes I hit your arms and this one time you got on your bike and rode away even though I ran after you screaming your name. I think I said please, too, but I don't remember very well. Only that I was sad and you were on a blue bike wearing a red sweater.

I looked at the numbers: still 2 til me.

I looked at my lap.

I realized I had a pen and paper but nothing hard to write on.


2 comments:

JT said...

process is disgusting,jenn. I had a similar event a few years ago at the USCIS office in New Orleans when I was getting my green card renewed. There's something about those government buildings that makes me want to take a pen to the walls. it feels like a doctor's office.

i ended up writing like 10 poems on the back of some form and thinking, god, this stuff is pure genius. and then reading it later and realizing it was not. it was just regular garbage.

SK-S said...

{heart} the narration of the waiting room thoughts and the posting of the makeshift journal

{heart} regular garbage

re: process is disgusting
{do not heart} the word "craft"
ewwwwwwwwww. useful sometimes but
often the word that means
"I've been to a program"
(nothing against those; that's the place where we can all appreciate each other's regular garbage until it composts and grows flowers; it's just the word and the confining theories of writing that emerge when complacency/snobbery replaces experimentation/growth. One reason I value this blog and all of you is that we are inventing different ways of executing and speaking about art {heart})