Thursday, June 15, 2006
random weirdness - in here, and out there
Fun night tonight, we saw Swingers and followed it up with the short subject, Swingblade. We ate pizza and drank cheap wine. It was a hoot. Also a hoot, please enjoy:
cyberhippie – just try to lose him!
ninja wisdom and related chazzerai
I don’t even know what to say about this one
Wasn’t that fun? Oh shut up about it then. My god, you can’t please some people. Well, if you came here for transit tales, here’s a few from a recent commute to work:
On the way to the terminal, 8:05 am: The sidewalk pulses with cellphones and caffeine; the world is going to work. Business caz, business dressy, all manner of office-proper garb…. And, of course, the occasional misfit, the one who puts the “odd” in “odd man out.” This time, he’s just outside my bus window. His scowl sucks the sunlight from the morning. His hair is lank and greasy as it trails out from under his rancid hoodie, dark and pale at once. His overcoat is unseasonable, and thick with grime. His pants are a wearable disease and his boots soil the sidewalk. He walks fast with bitter strides, cutting purposefully through the pedestrians, pacing himself with a worn crookneck cane that mirrors his own twisted, battered nature. Moving slowly in traffic, my bus passes him by, but then we stop at New Monty and he catches up, rage running cold in the deep lines of his too-tan face.
As we sit at the stop he stops short too, just outside my window. With suddenly redirected intensity, he drops like a rock to one knee by a “no parking” sign that’s bolted into a low metal curbside frame and swings his cane recklessly forward, grabbing it near its rubber boot-stop, which he presses hard into the center-point of the top of the white and red sign. He drags the rubber stopper down the center of the enameled rectangle with visible force, drawing a faint vertical line with his cane from the top of the sign to the bottom. Then he immediately, urgently repositions the cane-stopper to the center point of the line he’s just drawn and draws a second line diagonally to the lower left corner of the sign, and then another to the lower right. His handiwork complete, he stands sharply up, his coat and hoodie distinctively dingy, and resumes his abrasive powerwalk. He leaves behind him, faint in the bright morning, something very like a peace sign, mumbling a gritty plea to the grumbling street.
Just outside the terminal, 8:15 am: She is short and snarling, dressed in black from head to toe – her shawl and sweater and chemise and long woven skirt a uniform blot in the dawning day. I see her coming toward me on a crowded stretch of sidewalk, stomping stubby black boots as if beating insults back into the strangled earth. On this sunny spring morning it’s pretty easy to pick her out amid the crowds in flowing clothes of cheerful hues. She, stocky and stunted, partakes none of that. A sneer twists her wrinkled face into ever deeper rifts. Even her hair, a charcoal pageboy streaked with bone, seems to hurl a challenge to the world.
Pigeons congregate here, near a tiny patch of grass. They preen and strut and search for casual mates in a cooing flock that scurries hither and yon across the sidewalk. They are grey and brown and blue and white, each subtly distinctive, all functionally identical. They are brave in the face of the towering humans who stride so intently through their coveying. These pigeons ignore me and all my brethren… but the bitter woman, they do not ignore. As she reaches the edge of this sea of pigeons, pounding along with unconcealed disgust suppurating from her every pore, one bird beneath her feet takes fright, takes flight - and then they all erupt in an ovation of wingflaps and rise up heedless of direction, seeking only the escape of the sky. In less than a second she’s spooked a hundred streetsquab into the air. They batter their wings in furious fear; they collide, panicking. They begin to buffet her, striking her hair, her shoulder; one flies into her back, and another is trapped in the strap of her bag. Her eyes bug from her livid face, and she shakes a pudgy fist at them in impotence.
One block from the terminal, 8:20 am: I’d seen them on the bus, but I’d been writing something and didn’t much attend to them. What I had noticed was their butts – they were both toting wide loads. Not so big as to cause a problem, but big enough to be noteworthy – two undercarriages that swelled broadly from either side of their fleshy hips, stretching their respective denims to drumhead tautness. He wore a buttonup business shirt and his paunch hung softly over his waistband; she wore a stylish spring blouse that accentuated her voluptuousness while effectively masking her extra poundage, her face pretty and shimmering with light cosmetics lightly applied.
I’d ignored them on the bus, but it was harder to ignore them as they dawdled before me, taking up the full width of the sidewalk with their own full widths. They held hands and walked as if time was too precious to be rushed. Once they reached the corner they paused, embraced with heartfelt tenderness, shared one quick kiss, and parted company – he, crossing north up into the heart of downtown; she, waiting with me to head further east. She gazed ahead fixedly into the street and the path before her.
I watched him turn three times as he crossed the street, looking over his shoulder for a final nod from her, hope written legibly on his face that she would glance his way and cast him a parting smile. The light changed again. She walked forward, eyes still locked on the crosswalk. He shrugged his backpack higher on his shoulder and watched his feet as they carried him reluctantly to work.
Back next week with, oh, maybe some dad’s day stuff? Or a motel marquee? Or that charming lady with the mutt dogs at the supermarket? Play your cards right and you may find out soon enough! Till then, enjoy your weekend. Remember, in South America, it’s Wednesday now!
