Intro Harold, Enter Miranda

The way I walk is considered by some to be amateur. I try to swing my legs in the left/right way, but it always comes out as self-conscious. I move my legs the way your voice sounds to you on a recording.

Anyway, yesterday I was walking through the railroad underpass by the Palisades Family Restaurant when a little curly blond headed thing about three years old and a step ahead of her mother looked up at me and said "Why you walk funny?" I said "What's that?" (a habitual response that I hate) and she said "How you walk like that?" I looked to her mother for real or feigned embarrassment to make me feel better, but she just grabbed the little girl's arm and walked on.

Sometimes I have trouble breathing because I become too conscious of the process. I inhale. I think "exhale" and I exhale. I think " inhale" and I inhale. I stop talking to myself and I stop breathing.

When I got back to my apartment the lock stuck. While fumbling with it an old woman came down the hall pushing a grocery cart. I live on the fifth floor. She is not homeless; she just pushes the cart all the way home, then pushes it back the next time she goes shopping. I'd seen her in the elevator several times. The cart carried two brown paper bags but no celery stuck out.

While grinding my teeth and visualizing the key breaking off in the lock I decided to kick down the door. Then it opened and I tripped in. It was too bright. The stuff was not mine. A short pale light brown haired woman between 35 and 45 looked down at me as I stood up. She held the doorknob in her left hand; she held her right hip with her right hand, and she said to me, "Can I help you?"