Tuesday, May 27, 2008

please while shopping


Seen on the door of a major department store at the Fox Hills Mall in Culver City.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

sniffl

[refer to last post] ...or simply catch a cold:


Last night, cocooned inside a knit blanket, multicolored and beautiful in its ugliness, just big enough to wrap my body, in the folds of my roommate's couch, against the inside wall of the living room in the middle of the apartment where I pay 48% of the rent with my own hard-earned money, in the middle of an 8-unit building (top floor, resting near the floor that divides top from bottom), inside the complex of buildings surrounding a green lawn inappropriate for my city, in the middle of my city, on earth in a solar system towards the edge of a spiral saucer-shaped galaxy.

Contained. Dark. Soft. Warm. Resting, enclosed in protection I've created for myself, safe to drift off at 8pm on a Saturday night.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

marking time

From the Saturday evening that I collapsed, viola in hand, in the tiny closet-room of my studio apartment, so exhausted I could hardly draw a breath, to the night I prayed for the first time - actually prayed - passed one year and one half, only. Since that night that I prayed, has passed over two years. The one year and a half looms many multiples of time larger. That one year and a half has become mythological. It was a time of rebirth - and even so, after rebirth, I've learned quickly, stagnation is possible. In that year and one half, so much change happened - and so much of what happened before it becomes murky, irrelevant, part of a past life.

And tonight a new, tentative friend told me, "you should do everything you want to do." And I should know that by now. I knew that two years ago, in the time that I started praying. But stagnation happens, and now I am in a gray time, a time not to be remembered. A non-mythological time. But all time could be mythological because it could be lived that vividly. It could be that honest.

And also, a wise and learned advisor told me patiently, over and over, life is a marathon. Life is a marathon, not a sprint. If it were all to be that vivid I'd soon be collapsing once again...

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

tourism

But the question, really, is: where to start?

Yesterday's trip to the yuppie movie theater? Or today's experience of slumming it on MTA, amongst the common folk on public transportation?

Chronological:

Yesterday, crossing Westwood Boulevard on foot, heading east on Pico, in the crosswalk on the south side of the street, feeling urban, feeling alive and present and amongst busy people with places to go, the feeling that sights and sounds are justly slightly more vivid than usual, tasting the air and the particular shoe style of the person to my right and slightly behind me.

I feeling I recall briefly having in New York. Inspired the following day's bus trip.

Wandering through a chain instrument store, bobbing my head like a duck to a recording and smiling to see a salesperson watching me. Rows of shiny guitars that a teenager would probably find heavenly.

Things change slightly inside the movie theater, where the people selling you tickets are standing at a level just slightly lower than yours, causing them to appear as dwarves or munchkins. I hypothesize that the owners want the patron to feel superior, as apparently art-film watchers desire. The restrooms are enveloped in an indigo glow, so that, sitting on the toilet, I feel as though on a well-done futuristic amusement park spaceship ride. They are always empty - each time I've been here - and a faint metallic sound as would fit the hovering of the spaceship is audible. I decide to name them the "beam me up potty," and I find this so amusing that I actually laugh out loud at myself. I am glad to be alone in the glowing metallic restroom.

Planning out a blog ahead of time does not seem to work. Writing at the moment does. Writing the same day as the event does. Writing just before leaving to be social, so as not to end up alone - alone with writing? - what could be more heavenly? - does not seem to work unless...

Today, waiting for buses, riding buses, listening to music, feeling self-sufficient, feeling self-righteous, smelling a most putrid stench that seems to follow me onto the bus but I can't tell - the kids in front of me can, though. I wonder if it's me.

Almost tripping over a man in a wheelchair, twice. Watching a woman with a preschooler and an infant, struggling again and again to open the stroller - it keeps collapsing on itself, threatening to flatten the child. I struggle with an urge to help, a feeling I ought not look, so as not to embarrass the mother, and end up staring.

Mostly, it's boring, and long, and somewhat hot. The morning ride is pleasant, sparsely populated (after morning rush hour), faster than expected. The afternoon is long (no longer than the morning but I'm not enamored with the vehicle any more), stinky, confusing. I fall asleep in a window seat, unable to stop nodding off, then wake up, move my leg in, and my neighbor says clearly, "thank you." I mumble, 'sorry' and make sure my backpack is sitting on my lap and not leaving my half of the seat. I begin to sit up when a middle-aged woman walks on and stands next to me, but the person across from me moves over to make room for the older rider.

I don't play "spot the other white people." I don't know, and care quite a bit less than I used to, if I'm the only one. I mostly try hard not to show my privilege but it's impossible. Plenty of kids on the bus, and a woman in a business suit in the morning, listen to tiny headphones (different colors, but the same shape that I find difficult to describe without using a term probably trademarked). So I listen too.

I only feel slightly self-righteous. I don't even mind that I'll drive tomorrow, though it likely costs more, though I'm helping secure my post-apocalyptic future.

I no longer am obsessed with apocalypse.

I'm not sure what I'm obsessed with. Riding buses, like so many other things, is an old occupation. The thrill is gone.

Maybe with blogging? No revelations, today.