Compressed Time in Tucson

Egad.

In the span of about three hours today I came home from work, put the finishing touches on a pot of pollo con chili verde that had been simmering all day, went to Antigone to buy a birthday card and present for a friend at work, fixed dinner, checked e-mail, and read the first chapter of Fun Home. Put the book down, got up and stretched, toddled down the hall convinced it was close to bedtime, caught a glimpse of the clock.

6:45. Six-fucking-forty-five! Five years ago this would have meant I was looking at another five or six hours of evening left, easy. The night would have been but a pup! A cold, rainy night custom-made for sitting at Epic with a cup of chai and a journal or sketchbook would have had me out the door, energized by the night and the rain. Now 6:45 means eking out another two hours will be a challenge. The main hope becomes staying awake long enough to listen to the rain for a few minutes before conking out.

Sigh. I got so much done! But it was on the goddamn early-bird special schedule!

Scene from Antigone: A couple of nuns were browsing, accompanied by a couple of much younger women, probably 20-ish. The nuns were standard-issue solid older women with sensible SAS shoes, full navy blue skirts, crosses on long chains, and little Mennonite-style mesh bonnets. They mainly cruised around the staff-picks table and the shelves of knick-knacks at the front of the store. I wandered to the rear of the store and back up to the front, bumping into them again as one of the older nuns almost-squealed to the other one, "Hey, look at this!" and grabbed a large stylized goddess figurine off a shelf. "Oh, the goddess? Yes!" At that point one of the younger women said, "Uh, we better be going." And they traipsed out, the old nuns giggling as they followed the girls.

No idea what that was about. I hope they came back later after ditching the young chicks and bought their goddess statue.