I can’t say what I mean. I don’t always mean what I say. I try to express a thing, and it comes out to be another thing entirely. I start talking mid-thought, as if you can read my mind. This must be why I always wanted to be a writer. If only there were time in life to write things down first before having to say them, maybe I’d do better. I might be in conversation at a work lunch, say, or at a work party, and say someone says something possibly false and misconstrued about my personal life, and say I want to address that, I could hold up a finger to indicate give me one moment please. Then I could pull out a notepad and write down some possible responses:

That did not happen.

Please don’t talk about me when I’m sitting right here.

Are you demented?

Then I could cross out all of the above and come up with a coherent deflection, return to the conversation, recite what I’ve written on the notepad, and be done with it.

In reality, I stumble, end up agreeing, or at least not telling the person s/he is demented, and soon enough I am off on a tangent about what life was like when the tourists went home and how I do not like trees.

What?! I mean, that isn’t even true! (At least the part about the trees. Really. They are quite pretty.)

When I am more careful, I keep my mouth closed. This is the best solution. Just let the other people talk. Let them ramble, extrapolate, run themselves into walls. I will nod and smile and say yeah and uh-huh and really? so they keep talking. The pressure is off that way. I know I can always write down what I’m really thinking later.

I don’t need to do any soul-searching to realize that I’m bored with the turn my life has taken. When the world slows, when the deadlines are met, when there is time to breathe… that’s when I come to face it. There I am, numb in the brain. I cannot stand to do this with my days any longer. I’m standing here before the dressing-room mirror with a dress I really don’t even like stuck over my head. No matter how I twist or turn I can’t get it off. Which has happened to me—more than once.

But that situation doesn’t fully express my boredom. What’s boring is standing in line at the post office. I have been standing in line at the post office for almost four years.

I want a change.

I want a shot at something new.

I want a challenge.

I got a call on my cell phone yesterday from a number I didn’t recognize. Someone was with me at the time, so I couldn’t pick up. All I heard was the song I’ve set to play when a call comes in from an unknown ID: the carnival music from City of Lost Children. I hit silent on the phone to not interrupt my conversation, and I waited. Only when I was alone could I check my voicemail to see who called. But in the minutes that passed, I felt an itch of excitement, a jolt of nerves, the good kind. That phone call could be a chance at something new. Yes, yes, it had to be. No one ever called my phone. I waited until I was alone and then I went to check the voicemail.

Nothing.

No message.

No news.

The phone call was a hang-up, from a 718 number. Any call I’d be expecting (hoping for) would not come from a 718 number. Still, I did reverse lookup to see who had called. It was a woman named Maria C— from the Bronx. Clearly, a wrong number.

That’s my problem: I feel like I’m waiting for something, I’m just not sure what. I’ve got to yank this dress off my head, then I’ll be able to see clearly and know what to do next. I could use a little help this time, I think.

For now, lunchtime is over. I have to shut down my computer and go back upstairs to work.