Always Saturday

In typical Maryland fashion, the promise of spring was drowned in days of rain and now we are rushing headlong into the stifling heat and humidity of a premature summer. Those glorious days of dry, cool weather that we characteristically associate with April and May were crammed into one week early in the month. Okay, I should stop bitching. At least it isn't snowing.

I'm afraid I've been in a horrible funk for the last few weeks. My job has lost its novelty and now I feel like I'm just serving drinks and killing time. The jokes from the regulars are as stale as the beer stains on my T-shirt, and there's nothing to stimulate me mentally. I've become lazy and feeble minded. The other day, I stepped on a scale that was on display in a store. I couldn't believe I had put on 11 pounds! Even when I was wallowing in Las Vegas, I worked out five days a week. For the last month or so, I haven't even practiced my yoga, which at least keeps me limber and toned. Geoffrey tried to console me by saying it suited my cover, but I can't stay on top of my game if I'm overweight and sluggish. It could get me killed.

So I've been trying to rally myself, but it's a struggle. I can't ignore how unhappy I am in this interminable assignment. The longer days and sunnier weather makes me yearn for times when I was truly happy, even if the emotions are just a trick of memory. You know those times, when everything just seems so perfect your heart aches. Songs can make me feel that way sometimes. The first time I remember it happening was when I was seven or eight. I was playing at a friends house. She had an older brother who was listening to an alternative rock station. They were playing Always Saturday by Guadalcanal Diary. I was too young to fully appreciate the lyrics, but there was something about the music and the singer's voice that filled me with a weird feeling I can only describe as melancholic happiness. I wanted to live in that song forever, holding on to the feeling, but of course it ended and the outside world of Barbies and Strawberry Shortcake on the TV encroached.

God, where did that come from? I guess I'm just sick of the people I have to associate with right now. Chester's girlfriend Amber miscarried her baby. I was at Chester's house when it happened and had to help her through it. Not an experience I care to revisit.

She hadn't told Chester about the pregnancy yet, so this was all a big surprise to him. The next day, Amber visited me at the bar. She had some bruises on her face. I finally got her to confess that Chester had knocked her around a little after I left. Not really sure what was going on in that twisted head of his. Apparently, he was mad that she hadn't told him about the pregnancy and even more mad at Amber for losing the baby. Either he thought she did it on purpose or she wasn't strong enough to bear his child, I don't know. I was about to go over to Chester's house and kill the little bastard, but Geoffrey talked me down. We still needed the creep, no matter what I thought of him. I had to be a good soldier and let it go.

I was so tempted to call The Colonel and ask him to reassign me, but that would shoot my career right down the toilet. I haven't earned the right to pick and choose my cases yet. Maybe I never will. As it is, Geoffrey and I have worked our way into the inner circle of this strange cult of Ryan Mayhew. They have multiple terrorist plots in the works. Everyone is assigned specific tasks related to each plot. No one knows too much about each plan and no one knows which plan Mayhew will ultimately command us to carry out. He says this is for security purposes. He's paranoid as hell, but given the fact that Geoffrey and I have already infiltrated his little clan, he has good reason to be. So far, Mayhew has had me researching the price and availability of various chemicals and mechanical parts online. Lucky me, I'm now an accomplice to a crime.

Anyway, with all this going on, I had to make a change. My dreary apartment, which suited me just fine when the winter weather was equally dreary, seemed hopelessly cramped and depressing now that the sun shines for 14 hours a day. I needed a little space and someone to prop me up, so I moved in with Geoffrey. Yes, his trailer is pretty small, but there is a little land around it, so I can sit outside on my nights off and watch the stars. I even planted a little flower garden along the side of the trailer that faces the sun most of the day. It feels sort of like a home, and I have a man next to me in bed every night.

Every day doesn't feel like Saturday yet, but maybe Friday afternoon.