A Little's Enough

I'm sitting in my room, trying to fit as many domestic tasks into my night before I am off to work. On these nights, when my roommates are home from their nine-to-five jobs, settling in for some HBO or quality time with their significant others, I feel unnerved. In a few hours I will drive to the BART station, pay a substantial portion of the money I will make tonight for my ticket, and head into the city. At first I could not shake the unsettling feeling which accompanied these tranquil yet desolate nights. Instead of my own bed, I would collapse on a hard futon, used by countless women for countless years. Instead of a lover, I would only have my own exhaustion to pull me into sleep. But now these nights mean something different. While reading my book on the train I will sometimes glance up to find someone looking at me and the entirely irrational question comes to mind: "Do they know?" And then I remember that this experience, this secret, this...job, belongs to me. While others sleep I continue to go into the strange and beautiful night and come home the next morning with something just as strange and beautiful, something all my own.