Meat-based psychic predictions. (originally posted October 26, 2006)

I'm not a morning person, and this point has been magnified since I moved to my new apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. My room is in the back of the apartment. Therefore, I never receive much light into my bedroom in the mornings, or ever for that matter. So imagine being snug in bed, warm and cozy, in a dark room. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. You wouldn't want to get out of bed either.

Because of this lack of wanting to go outside and function like a normal human being in the morning, I tend to be somewhat groggy until I get to work and actually start having to use my brain.

My typical commute consists of a five to ten minute walk to the Bedford Avenue L train stop, a 10 to 15 minute ride into the city (which only consists of four stops, but with the crowds, it feels like a lot longer), and in the end, I end up at 14th Street and 6th Avenue. I then walk up 6th Avenue, take a right onto to 17th Street and walk about half a block, and presto. I'm at work.

On my journey from the subway station to the office, I walk past a multitude of businesses, restaurants, fruit stands, bagel carts, etc. But last Tuesday, I saw the most glorious business ever. Outside of a shop located between 14th and 15th Street on 6th Avenue, there was a sign. And this sign, as if singlng from the heavens, said the following: "Ham and Tarot Card Readings."

My god! What could a ham possibly have to say?! What a magnificent idea! Perhaps my future lies in the honey glazed predictive powers of a lunch meat! Sadly, the preceeding statements were actual thoughts of mine. And what's even more depressing is that I actually stopped on the sidewalk and thought this. I wasn't counting the seconds, but this lasted all about 30 of them. After I focused in on the sign again, I realized it didn't say "ham," but instead said "palm." Palm and Tarot Card Readings is what was being advertised. Well that's pretty fucking boring.

I think the most shocking part of this is that I actually considered going into this place of business when I thought they could read a ham. Was I supposed to bring in a ham? Is there such a thing as "my ham"? What constitutes a ham being close enough to me that would it allow it know my future? Would I tell this ham my secrets? Would I confide in the ham when I had a bad day? Would I take the ham with me when I ran errands? How deeply would I be with this ham? If you've made it this far into the story, or just this far in this particular paragraph, you've essentially just taken a field trip into my brain. I know, it's sort of weird.

Now excuse me, my pack of frozen hot dogs and I are going to watch Law and Order.