Not My Day

08/11/05

Because, I repeat, wiping your ass with newspaper aint easy. Little pellets of lizard shit drop on me from the roof as I write this. Today is not my day.

I am depressed because I am inactive. I don't have anything set up for today, because I am supposed to be in Kampala. And it's not as though I can just go walking up and down the roads, knocking on doors and asking for interviews. Language barriers and issues of sensitivity and safety stand in the way. So today I have to be contented with research, writing, and reading. Maybe snapping a few rolls of B&W. But I want to be filming. I want to be making marked progress on the documentary. I want to go to sleep tonight feeling like I have accomplished something significant. I want to be in Kampala, touring Pfizer's new hospital, watching workplace training, meeting and interviewing aid workers. Not sitting on my familiar stool, eating the familiar passion fruit, writing in my familiar journal. I am restless, and unhappy because of it. Two days wasted. If this were a two week trip, it would be a disastrous set back. But its not, I know that. Losing two days in the midst of hundreds isn't the end of the world. But right now I just feel… ineffectual. And I don't like it. Passion fruit isn't as sweet, the sound of the landscape isn't as magical, the smell of the kitchen fire isn't as intoxicating. I feel flat and dull. I need to break out of this. I've got a whole new respect for the homeless in LA, because wiping your ass with newspaper aint easy. And I've seen some of them laying out their whiskey shits, that must make it twice as hard. Or do they not clean up? Do they just walk away and let it crust over? Is there some trick I haven't learned yet? Because, I repeat, wiping your ass with newspaper aint easy. Little pellets of lizard shit drop on me from the roof as I write this. Today is not my day.

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