she watches the cats

there is a lady in this neighborhood. no, let's start elsewhere. there is a bodega in this neighborhood run by some really nice southeast asian guys who always make a point of telling every girl that comes into the store how pretty they look. and next to that is a pharmacy that i rarely visit and a cell phone store that i've never set foot in and then there's a chinese place and a hardware store that sold me the wrong lightbulb once and then the photo store where i got my passport picture taken and a dunkin donuts.

well, behind those stores is a fenced-in vacant lot full of grass and whatever litter the wind carried over the fence but then abandoned. and cats. there are a lot of cats in this lot. which is why when you get towards the back of the bodega where they have the beer it always smells like cat pee. i think they feed the cats sometimes. or the cats just root through the garbage. and pee.

so there is a lady in this neighborhood. i think she's new. either new or newly obsessed with the cats. because she just stands there on the sidewalk, blankly staring at them through the fence. i've seen her a few days in a row. she doesn't seem to be doing anything with them. she doesn't have anything with her. she just watches the cats. and she looks so sad standing there but i wonder if she is or if maybe she's the happiest lady in queens with those cats and i'm the one who needs to pep up.

i am frozen. and there are big things afoot. someone turn a hairdryer on me.