Time and Volunteering

For volunteering, I put forth the option of the Ali Forney Center. The center takes care of gay and lesbian homeless kids in the city, and we both agreed that this would be a good place to start as we have often walked past said kids on Christopher street and really ought to do something. But what could we offer? We should offer our skills, the Contessa said firmly. What are our skills? I asked. You could teach them Word and Excel. (Don't I have any other skills?) What would you do? I asked. I'll teach a makeup workshop for the trannies. I hate to admit it, but the Contessa had pinpointed our strengths exactly. She couldn't type a letter if her life depended on it but she did know about wearing too much makeup. (question: why is it so hard to focus on the moment at hand? I am at work, getting paid to work but all I can think about is television, the end of the world, and Helping Others. While discussing above, I kept seeing the pile of expense reports on my desk, causing bile to come up, and finally had to hide expense reports in my "pending" file, which got put away in the desk, which enabled me to continue living outside the moment.) Now, at this point we'd done a lot of talking so it was quite a surprise when the door to the New Man's office opened. "When did you get here?" the Contessa blurted out. Had he been there all along? What had he heard? It was only at the very end of our morning chat that we'd gotten to anything even slightly worthy. The New Man was sitting in his office thinking we were nitwits. (How long had we talked about the Nick & Jessica? Years.) "I like to get an early start on the day." We gaped at him.