Dumpster Diving

This may be my paranoia: I think there is a dirty message that people are trying to relay to me lately because my path has been inexplicably disturbed by dumpster divers. They seem to be proliferating faster than rats lately. They are literally keeping me up at night and blocking my way during the day.

Sunday, November 25, 2007
Picture this -- I am typing study notes in my bedroom from morning until evening. I hear the dumpster cover slam open. I look out the window. There he is. That guy who rifles through garbage... my garbage! I gaze at his dirty hands as he scrutinizes my waste. I feel violated. He is there getting intimate with how many times I blow my nose, my menstral cycles and what I chop from what I eat. My eyebrows knit together and I want to shout, "I see you!" I don't say a word. I just stand there and stare. Then boredom sets in and I walk away from the window.

Monday, November 26, 2007
I am trying to fall asleep at my boyfriend's green Victorian home. It is a chilly night and my stomach is trying to digest suspect ceviche. My mind is racing. I close my eyes in the darkness listening to his breathing. My thoughts start to slow down and the undulating current of sleep tugs at me. Suddenly, I hear the clanking of glass and know without looking that Anthony's neighbor is sorting Anthony's trash again. I fixate on the sounds she creates and obsess over why she chooses to exhibit this behavior almost every night. Sadly, her home burned down months ago and yet she was doing this well before that. She takes an old half-eaten torta and feeds it to the neglected dog next door. She moves the recycling to the blue bin. She covets broken trinkets and stacks them in her nieces front yard next to the dog that howls in agony. This makes me feel sick inside.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007
I park my vehicle a couple blocks away from work as I do every work day and briskly walk to my destination. Almost every morning I ritualistically travel down Max's alley, which is inevitably teaming with rats hiding in vines and crows perched on building tops. Sticky dumpsters line the alley, so I've learned to breathe through my mouth and I see him almost every morning extracting bottles bare-handed from the bins and tossing them into his trusty shopping cart. He never looks me in the eye, but he knows I am there. I silently wonder if this is his main source of income. If it is I postulate how simple his life must be and for a split second I envy him.