No More Bailing Boats For Me

I took a friend to the Algebra tonight for her very first time. I neglected to inform her that trips to the Algebra, for me, average about four hours. She had a good time, nonetheless, and we came back, watched Mean Girls, and she headed home. I went back looking for chapstick, and found buckets all over the floor.

I'd known about the leak; it'd been there for a while and it was supposed to be fixed. However, a record amount of water was now coming through the ceiling and threatening to flood the place, ruin the original wood flooring, the countertop, the beautiful stupid kelley green and purple pressed tin ceiling. I ran around for a while with Phil putting buckets under drips, and then I turned tail and fled. I ran away from Phil, from Mark with his guitar, from a roaring fire and a night just like every other spent at the Algebra after closing. I ran away from the Algebra. My place. My second home, the place where I feel most comfortable. Just smelling the Algebra--wood smoke, tea, wood--calms me down. And I ran away.

I ran away because I felt like I was going to hurl. I mean, I am Scarlett fucking O'Hara and this is my Tara, and it's completely at the mercy of the tons of snow threatening to collapse its roof and I can't stand it anymore and the thought of leaving the Algebra and Cleveland and graffiti and cobblestone streets and free premieres for stupid movies and museums and markets and the smell of exhaust and unshovelled sidewalks and poems and trains and shopping bags and everything, everything, everything is pressing down on my roof and tonight I started to leak.