A Strange Day on Planet Earth

Drudgery, n.:

When your desire for a late night walk leads past street harassers on every block, scurrying like gutter rats between the night’s trash bags, whispering in your ears and shouting at your back, until some upper region of your spine begins to tighten and tighten, and even sight of a solitary police officer in the neon glow of a bodega makes you jump, and you turn the key in your lock stiffly, and stand stupidly in a cold shower for a long time, and do not feel clean.