Everything is eerie and wrong when I go for my mid morning walks. Dare I blame the daylight savings time on this one or is it global warming or is it just the fact it's been since January I have really been outside walking on my own. It's one of those. I am sure of it.

I walked out to the park and threw my body into an unfamiliar metal bench that sits by the pond- this isn't my regular bench and for reasons that are confusing I sit in this new bench and watch two men in suits eat lunch out of shopping bags. I am having a difficult time since one looks like my brother and I am pondering if I should wave or say something. I stay silent and I realize everyone walking around reminds me of someone somewhere I have met once before… no paranoia only a dull sick feeling as if I am standing on a very tall building when I look past faces flickering street light repetition of those lingering from the past. The feeling is so intense it hurts, your body rejecting everything soaking in around you from the sick molding air to the pointless burning sun.

I contemplate admitting my confusion, this endless vertigo that is the current state of my waked hours, my frustration growing towards every dead end personality and brick wall hand trying to beat you off your way. I hung it all on a tree and came home when the sun was still shining and fell asleep on the couch…

"The problem with advice like that is it's coming from a man like HIM," Gail howls at me pulling the hood to her fur-lined parka. She's leaning over the bridge as we break off sticks and toss them into the water running below us. It wouldn't be that lousy of a place if it wasn't for the sharpie graffiti etched in the woodwork cursing a world of pubesant pointlessness.

"That's what I mean. He acts as if I am totally won over with his character that I can't see what kind of total scum he really is," I say running my fingers over the word F-YOU. "I wonder if he realizes I am onto it."

"Onto what?" Gail Asks. I look at Gail's face nested in the opening of the parka and watch her lips spell out each word as she surveys the obscenities written under our hands.

"That I can see how phony he is," I say. "He tells me on Monday I should be strong, I should be a woman, I should be all what I can be despite what is around me… by Thursday all is forgotten and he's making excuses, telling me lies. He yells at me when I confront him with the proof of his true nature and wickedness like a coward. He usually gets upset and will give me the silent treatment for as long as he can resist whatever it is that draws him to me… a light that is unattainable to a moth wearing a dusty suit."

Gail's eyes slant and now she's smiling and leans closer to me, whispering, pointing to a line of graffiti. I look down, notice it, slant my eyes and laugh.

On days when the spinning is minor and the pain is limited I set up the office and paint. I am on basic supplies- all my brushes are chewed, the paint bottles hunch together in a cardboard tray lids half on and oozing with brilliance. I lined the writing desk with cardboard and slop paint as I source and read and read and read the history and essays that scholar's pen and students argue as I block out the sun with a towel in the window. It is spring- its life and death and rebirth and I paint as I wonder when will I get better.