I got up and went to work today.
Everything about the commute was different and weird,
but it wasn't till' I got to the building that I realized that it was saturday.
I didn't have to work.
I didn't have to do anything.

So I walked around the park.
I need a hobby.








photos by Michael Hart

During my one hour lunch break my thoughts were consumed by her.

The first thing she said to me when I walked into the office this morning was,

"Why didn't you shave today?"

I felt my face and said, "Sorry, just slipped my mind."

That was a lie. When the alarm clock went off at 7:30 this morning I made the conscious decision to try and snooze until my hangover was gone. But that never works. When I finally got out of bed, I still had a hangover and I didn't have time to shave.

I knew she would say something about it too.
She always comments on my appearance.
How am I supposed to live up to her standards?

She is always perfect.
She is so pretty.
She is so clean.
She embodies the protestant work ethic.

Sometimes I watch her through the glass wall of her office.
I can tell that when she is on her computer she is not surfing the web to waste time until 5 o'clock.
She actually cares about accounting.
She has a passion for it.
I can see this passion in her face.
It's like she is figuring out complex riddles that reveal the key to happiness.

How does someone have passion for accounting?

My parents do as well.
They are passionate about accounting.
I understand it, I went to school for it, I'm an accountant
But I have no passion for it, it's a job.





I went to a restaurant in Battery Park, where I always go, becuase I like to look at the water and the Statue of Liberty.
But I couldn't eat. I couldn't stop thinking of her, and what I could do to make her see the goodness in me.

I lie on the grass imagining her apartment.
I know she lives in the financial district.
It must be really nice.
I bet it smells good.

My apartment is a shit hole way out in Queens.
It takes me an hour to get to work, and I'm always late.



I continued lying there, and I realized the major transformation that I have gone through the past two years as an accountant.
I am becoming a Bob. My entire life I have reffered to myself as Robert. No one ever called me Bob until I entered the lower rungs of the American white collar work force. And now, I can feel what has been slipping away the past two years, my Robertness. My Bobness is taking over my Robertness.
I don't want to be a Bob.
I don't want to be fat like a Bob.
I don't want to be stressed like a Bob.
I don't want to be tired like a Bob.

And most of all, I don't want to be lonely like a Bob.
I am lonely, and I have been lonely for two years.

I need a change.
I need to abandon the elements of my life that nurtue the Bob within me.

photos by Michael Hart

It was so hot today.
The heat made my Bobness boil, and I just had to get out of that office.
When she looked at me she could tell, and let me go early on account of my business trip to Boston tomorrow.
We both know it was because she didn't want to smell me anymore.

I don't know what it is about sticky summer days that makes my B/O so offensively potent.
I put on extra deodorant this morning. Didn't matter.
I still stank, and I know that she smelled it.
I got out at 3 p.m and walked in battery park, like always.





I've been thinking about taking a proactive stance against my loneliness.
Making friends has always been hard for me, but I have never had that kind of aggressive personality that can attract friends.
So I decided to put myself out there.



The combination of heat and my desperate situation may have led me to irrational action.
I thought, if I lie down somebody is bound to talk to me.
No one talked to me.
I could have been hurt.
I could have been passed out.
But not one person stopped and said, "Are you okay?"
It would have been nice if someone asked, because I wasn't okay.

I tried again by lying next to two girls that were sunning on the grass.


It was a bold choice to lie next to them because if they had recognized my existence and said something to me, I would have Bobbed all over them.
They probably smelled me anyway.

I moved on.


Then I noticed that I was sharing a moment with someone.
The man with the towel on his head who was standing like a soldier whose job was to absorb the heat and stickiness and awkward tension that existed within this day.
He could feel it just like I could.
We never spoke or made eye contact, I don't even know if he saw me at all.
But we shared an energy, a feeling, a presence.
His presence recognized my presence and found understanding.
Its been a long time since I felt understood.
It made me happy.

Maybe I don't need to take action as much as I need to allow those moments to happen.

photos by Michael Hart