She looks at me like I should have something to say. But did I even start this? So I begin with the most obvious thing. "What's with the ring?" I say, meaning the one on her left ring finger...which usually means you're married or taken or taken about being married. "It's to keep everyone else away." I chuckle into my drink and then say, "But how do you meet anyone that way?"

These people--these artists--they all expect it to be easy. But nothing is easy. And nothing is getting easier. Everything--even the free stuff--costs money. It is built on human blood and flesh and yearning. You put that together and everyone feels like they've been whores. They are selling their souls for a piece of a pie that no one has even baked yet. And they do it willingly because there is a chance, when that pie has been cooked, that it will do something--anything would be astounding--to further their artistic dream.

The expectation is that everything will last as long as it needs to. The little CD boombox you pay $50 for will last for two years. The CDs themselves, well, they'll last forever (ha!). The candle will burn for three months. The bottle of wine takes one night. The bottle of beer is gone in a half an hour. The TV show is done before it even gets started.

Things I wrote years ago, they are piled and boxed and waiting for a time when they can be destroyed. There is nothing left for them to do. They have no more life than the roach I killed two weeks ago and then left on the floor--smashed--a warning for all the other roaches who might wander past. Roaches, the live ones, don't understand the make-shift crucified roach. There is no learning, only living. And then there's not.

"What is it about little girls?" he asked me as we drove to lunch wherever. "We all want to feel young--or feel something young," I answer. He thought I was joking.

The hot pants are younger than my middle finger. My middle finger learned how to talk when I was ten. Sometimes it would spout off at the most inopportune times. Sometimes it got me black eyes and busted lips. Sometimes it went in first--probing, pushing, checking to see if someone turned the juice on. Sometimes it stuck to typing i, k, and a comma. And once it was in the way when I slammed the door. Always, after that, it's had a shark tooth scar--like it's some kind of special middle finger.

The intercom beeps and a heavy sigh slips out--because every time anyone uses the intercom they are apparently so tired and worn from using the intercom that they must make a heavy sigh--before the "Mark, you've got a call on the blinking line," bursts forth with the voice of a 13-year-old coming from a 60-year-old's mouth. And the use of "blinking" is not in lieu of "fucking," it refers to the line on the telephone blinking green, tempting anyone who might watch the telephone lights all day to pick it up. Pick it up now!

There are only so many times you can say you want to quit before you actually have to follow through. It's kind of like suicide. Either the repetition of "I wanna kill myself" becomes a mantra you can't get out of, or you just stop saying it and everything becomes something else. Something manageable. And so the ebb and flow of "I'm gonna quit someday" goes in and out. Some days it feels like there is no other solution. Others I wonder if I'm just trying to get a little sympathy. It could just be the normal wear and tear of working eight months without a vacation.

I can feel the energy going out of her voice on the phone. And I realize that I am the mean guy who is taking all the wind out of her sails. That I have set myself up for this and I should have known. Maybe I said something that I knew was never gonna happen, but felt like I should say it anyway. I just wanted to make her feel good. Make her feel good about me. Without realizing that just saying it meant that this conversation would have to happen sooner or later. She's not calling again. She's losing my number before she even hangs up the phone.

When did life become about all of these failures instead of what might happen someday when everything is better and working on all cylinders?

Someday we will all walk around with spy cams continually showing a captive audience exactly what is going on within our navels. That strange dust collection will finally be explained, analyzed and given a grade by Entertainment Weekly.

Someday our middle fingers will hold all of our credit card numbers, social security ID, insurance and driver's license information. All the authorities, cashiers and bartenders will merely ask us to flip them off and they will know everything they need to know about us. We will be an open book thanks to our prankster middle fingers.

Matt Worley needs to take a bath.