on the long roster of new york city summer, there are countless museums and parks, bike procurement, outdoor performances, restaurants, and a fling.
last weekend i was at one such outdoor event at one such park. flying solo, so it’s sink or swim. either you step up and start talking with people, or…you don’t, and the whole thing can be a bust unless you put on those x-ray observation glasses and simply sit back, but that’s often just a copout anyway. but this evening was on, and it was easy, butterfly easy. and so, among others, i met one particular gentleman with whom i sincerely enjoyed the conversation - architecture and design, the joy of an old man sitting on that which you have built. he lives in new york, but he also had lived in san francisco. so, you see…
at the end, a pleasantly awkward exchange of information, because yes, we’d like to keep talking.
then ensued a week and a half of email and phone tag after an initial proposal to wander. this is a new game for me, enjoying the wait and see of it all, appreciating the days inbetween, the slow progress but underlying sureness that eventually. and then today…today? okay. it had been long ago and brief enough that i had begun to lose his details, and i wondered if he had similar difficulty. so laughed as i conjured up my best memory – form and colors and wire-rimmed spectacles - to spot him in washington square park. it sufficed and the challenge was fleeting.
and then the ambling commenced.
through the meatpacking district, we found ourselves on a pier overlooking the hudson river. new jersey looks pretty from afar. i asked about the high line project, which will turn an old elevated railroad track over 20 blocks on the western coast of manhattan into a sort of floating park. well, he’d done a project on rotation there with 2 bicycles and a 10 foot tower and videocameras on a spinning axle. Oh. and so we set off, but you know, it’s under construction, and so the first staircase we get to, sneaking past snoozing parking lot security guard, is locked and surrounded by razor wire. similarly the second. we near the end of the line, and down into a lot where truck containers reside, slipping in darkness between their slender corridors, to gravel embankment, and then …there we are, wooden slats and metal rails, above the city. walk to one side for a while, to avoid the glance of security man, and to our left is a slumber party of subway trains, then a private tented party to spy. and on and on, down the tracks, overgrown with knee deep weeds, and talk of this and that...i start to realize he has an understated quality, reminiscent of a dear person past that I have not seen the likes of since, it causes an innate shift in the whole way i see things. oh dreamy city lights so strangely seen from wild, meandering peaceful path above it all – it is the best place I have been since I arrived. thank you for bringing me here. it is secret and slightly surreptitious and an incredible treat.
so you see, it already has the makings of a quite special date.
upon our return from the high line, ready for food, so we entered an old diner. the traditional silver fancy pre-manufactured kind, with the red round counter stools and vinyl booths. the cheyenne diner. we order a breakfast dinner, with glasses of fresh squeezed orange juice. conversation continues – friendships with old people, figure drawing. apt words are chosen.
now you may recognize, this date is bordering on classic.
but, no, none of it is planned.
and wait!
halfway through the meal, a spectacular lightening and thunder storm. sheets of rain. each person walking past the window a delightful amusement. one well dressed woman is running down flooded sidewalks barefoot with high heels in hand. shall we wait it out? for a bit yes, but eventually it just seems time to go, and so we set out, getting sensationally soaked, walking to the station together.
clearly, this is an exemplary date, bar none.
down into the subway, and sit down, wet tousled hair and he removes his watery glasses, and well yes, he is quite handsome. some banter, it’s coming to a close soon. and then:
“i suppose i should tell you, i have a girlfriend.”
(apparent awkwardness from him)
“oh,” i smile, “i appreciate you telling me that.”
(pause)
“yeah… i don’t know if this is a date…this feels like a date to me”
(he’s thinking, and then)
“when we talked last week…i wanted to continue the conversation. i enjoyed talking with you…i like you…i’d like to hang out again.”
(our stop approaches - ah, dear rushed conversation-of-import)
“yes, i’d like to, too” my reply, and still smiling, “good job.” which I really meant.
which gets a thankful laughing smile in return.
then a mild hug on the platform and a reassurance that I will see him at his party on friday.
and he departs and I await my transfer.
7.12.2006
5.25.2006
5.02.2006
hold the mayo
it came. it's coming. i didn't ask for it, and neither did you. but it's here, and making itself known. it's calling, lulling, singing sweets in that ear of yours that longs to be licked. and when that tongue all gushy and warm fills the sound and the touch and the eyes go blind...then you will know its coming, too. and so swept away you and i will be, each and all to sidewalk cafe and sunnied lawnspot, to the ignorance of what must be, to the answering of what is, to the hourlong happenstance of here we find ourselves, though we've never met before.
i wondered and questioned, indeed i prayed. oh bestow upon me your aromas, your unspoken wanderings, lead me to where i know not. i doubted and floundered, aimlessly i treaded. but baa, twas not for me to decide - no, never for me to grasp in ringless fingers. need only i wake into each day, grass growing, leaves sprouting, petals blossoming, air breathing...i will your in out in out.
i wondered and questioned, indeed i prayed. oh bestow upon me your aromas, your unspoken wanderings, lead me to where i know not. i doubted and floundered, aimlessly i treaded. but baa, twas not for me to decide - no, never for me to grasp in ringless fingers. need only i wake into each day, grass growing, leaves sprouting, petals blossoming, air breathing...i will your in out in out.
4.13.2006
taking the turtle for a walk (for mlle ff)
okay. in the past week, the word Flâneur has popped up twice.
first, on the project for public spaces listserve, a back and forth about the spanish translation of the term 'placemaking'. since placemaking is the theme of my thesis, and i'm still gnawing on my spanish, this was of particular interest (not to mention the implications for cultural perceptions of such activities). apparently there's no spanish equivalent, and in electronic discussion one person tangentalized, offering something akin to Flâneur, for which there is no english equivalent. the writer went on to suggest that calling one a Flâneur was not necessarily complimentary.
the second just happened, in reading on "the significance of the memory of urban spaces", the author writes, "he refers to benjamin's remarks on the tendency of the Flâneur in nineteenth century paris to "turn the boulevard into an interieur" turning public space into a living room sounds good to me.
then i looked up Flâneur, and found that simply, the Flâneur is an idler, a stroller, and an observer of street life. but there are historical and class associations with the bourgeoisie and on one site the mention of "intellectual parasitism"...it seems some pretty -ugh- stuff. i've got some more to learn here, but if we strip away these associations, at first glance i think i like the Flâneur. enough to have been one many times.
and i wonder at the role of the Flâneur in the present day. it seems like this person certainly walks in the world of another current fascination: psycho-geography. i do like the mixing of the tattered old smelly with the bleeping blipping now.
all this, and i'm supposed to be writing my thesis. isn't this it? discovery of new words and ideas and put them together, i'll stop the world and melt with you? i went to school and became a Flâneur? (oh, curses. forgive me my historical oversights, i know not how i implicate myself). but above all this bullshit, get this:
"The Flâneur is typically well aware of their slow, leisurely behaviour and had been known to exemplify this state of being by walking turtles on leashes down the streets of Paris"
first, on the project for public spaces listserve, a back and forth about the spanish translation of the term 'placemaking'. since placemaking is the theme of my thesis, and i'm still gnawing on my spanish, this was of particular interest (not to mention the implications for cultural perceptions of such activities). apparently there's no spanish equivalent, and in electronic discussion one person tangentalized, offering something akin to Flâneur, for which there is no english equivalent. the writer went on to suggest that calling one a Flâneur was not necessarily complimentary.
the second just happened, in reading on "the significance of the memory of urban spaces", the author writes, "he refers to benjamin's remarks on the tendency of the Flâneur in nineteenth century paris to "turn the boulevard into an interieur" turning public space into a living room sounds good to me.
then i looked up Flâneur, and found that simply, the Flâneur is an idler, a stroller, and an observer of street life. but there are historical and class associations with the bourgeoisie and on one site the mention of "intellectual parasitism"...it seems some pretty -ugh- stuff. i've got some more to learn here, but if we strip away these associations, at first glance i think i like the Flâneur. enough to have been one many times.
and i wonder at the role of the Flâneur in the present day. it seems like this person certainly walks in the world of another current fascination: psycho-geography. i do like the mixing of the tattered old smelly with the bleeping blipping now.
all this, and i'm supposed to be writing my thesis. isn't this it? discovery of new words and ideas and put them together, i'll stop the world and melt with you? i went to school and became a Flâneur? (oh, curses. forgive me my historical oversights, i know not how i implicate myself). but above all this bullshit, get this:
"The Flâneur is typically well aware of their slow, leisurely behaviour and had been known to exemplify this state of being by walking turtles on leashes down the streets of Paris"
4.04.2006
knackyard
lately i've been ruminating on the nature of the davis foodie. appreciating such a creature beyond the bay area variety, beyond the candied cherry chockolate cake sophistikate. it's a different league here, and one that deserves more applause, in my opinion...more savoring, more reaping and crafting of one's own. and so this morning, i was invited to dinner by a new friend, she who had a martini party due in large part to the readiness of the fall olive harvest in davis, wherein there were perhaps ten or more varieties of olive, each cured differently by he or she, orange zest or kosher salt, and all the martinis sipped sipped sipped slowly, because that was the only way possible, with the smelliest of cheeses (oh ye fine camembert) along for the refined ride.
but tonight, bean pated and i shucked english peas, an hour of english peas, from the backyard garden right_outside_the_door, and the parsely picked, and oh, how- i've-tried-to-love-you-grapefruit, but finally, yes finally you are divine with aguacate and the perfect wine. and wine, so funny how the perfect wine to pair is german, with such a tropical treat, but it was the wine with the pink and the green that made it so delectable.
and wine, yes, how i have downed you and drowned you so many times, but tonight, how it seems so justified and apropos to open eight bottles for four persons, because each one so different, and taste, smell (smell, the oldest sense, he said, it forms in the brain before consciousness) and so we should drink down each one. this one with the olives, this one with the cheese, does chilling this white in a sink-o-fied swamp cooler do it justice? how about this red with...
the sausage.
the saugage, the pig, the pork, the free ranging pink breathing beast, wrapped in casing which just today mlle fishfry procured for art, yet we reaped the cured rewards. and oh, bite of salty and fat, you meat, you flesh. only 3 little bites, only one little round circle of muscle and wandering, snout to the ground, of carcass and smoked and hanging in the freezer, of sizzling in the pan, one two three tubes, and yes, tonight i learned to de-glaze, whether meat or onions it is the same. these bites sit long on the tongue, and the belly churns and rolls them over and over, working them and wondering, what is this? what is this hoofed somesuch? what have you given me now to digest diversify and dive into? tiny forkfull, eyes closed, for this is not a seeing thing. nay, none of this is a seeing thing
but tonight, bean pated and i shucked english peas, an hour of english peas, from the backyard garden right_outside_the_door, and the parsely picked, and oh, how- i've-tried-to-love-you-grapefruit, but finally, yes finally you are divine with aguacate and the perfect wine. and wine, so funny how the perfect wine to pair is german, with such a tropical treat, but it was the wine with the pink and the green that made it so delectable.
and wine, yes, how i have downed you and drowned you so many times, but tonight, how it seems so justified and apropos to open eight bottles for four persons, because each one so different, and taste, smell (smell, the oldest sense, he said, it forms in the brain before consciousness) and so we should drink down each one. this one with the olives, this one with the cheese, does chilling this white in a sink-o-fied swamp cooler do it justice? how about this red with...
the sausage.
the saugage, the pig, the pork, the free ranging pink breathing beast, wrapped in casing which just today mlle fishfry procured for art, yet we reaped the cured rewards. and oh, bite of salty and fat, you meat, you flesh. only 3 little bites, only one little round circle of muscle and wandering, snout to the ground, of carcass and smoked and hanging in the freezer, of sizzling in the pan, one two three tubes, and yes, tonight i learned to de-glaze, whether meat or onions it is the same. these bites sit long on the tongue, and the belly churns and rolls them over and over, working them and wondering, what is this? what is this hoofed somesuch? what have you given me now to digest diversify and dive into? tiny forkfull, eyes closed, for this is not a seeing thing. nay, none of this is a seeing thing
3.15.2006
class dismissed
yes, we were sitting first outside, then inside. during the inside, our professor bought all of us a glass of wine. all of us except the mormon. and during the outside we talked about books and blogs and china and iraq and mexico. and inside i talked about going to talking with tijuana and san diego...why? because i want to write about what i know - or i want to know what i write about. that's it, okay? i want to do what is a part of me. (an aside) the sun shined through the red and window. and then we went around the table, and each of us, all six of us, talked about each thing - landscaping day laborers, why do we call it unskilled labor, mail order wives, iranian nationalists in the us, the westernization and popularization of tibetan buddhism, women's businesses exports from ghana to hungary...and then she had to catch the bus, and then he had to TA a class, and a few of us sat around including the professor, and the boy sitting nearby finally spoke up - why, he's a somalian refugee who lived in san diego. he's studying managerial economics, but just so he can learn the system, and then go back to his home and change it.
and i stayed back, to meet with the project committee...only 2 weeks away and we will be putting stone on stone, then feet on earth, then rocks in clay, and months of waiting and planning and wondering will come to be..and finally, when waiting is full
and when it was over i walked back outside and the bursting moon was rising in the east, behind a haze that projected it even bigger, and i mounted my trusty steed, and on the way home i rode farther than ever with no hands on the handlebars, sitting straight up and straight ahead.
and so passed the last day of class
that i will know this time around.
and i stayed back, to meet with the project committee...only 2 weeks away and we will be putting stone on stone, then feet on earth, then rocks in clay, and months of waiting and planning and wondering will come to be..and finally, when waiting is full
and when it was over i walked back outside and the bursting moon was rising in the east, behind a haze that projected it even bigger, and i mounted my trusty steed, and on the way home i rode farther than ever with no hands on the handlebars, sitting straight up and straight ahead.
and so passed the last day of class
that i will know this time around.
3.13.2006
chosen ones
*we chose it*
))intake inhale((
we chose it
we chose squares instead of circles
we chose mobility
we chose a hole for each leg
we chose speed
we chose beige, cream and khaki off-white
we chose flat and smooth instead of bumps and irregularity
we chose regularity!
can you believe it?
who would of thought? but look it's everywhere
around amazed at the amassed
))intake inhale((
we chose it
we chose squares instead of circles
we chose mobility
we chose a hole for each leg
we chose speed
we chose beige, cream and khaki off-white
we chose flat and smooth instead of bumps and irregularity
we chose regularity!
can you believe it?
who would of thought? but look it's everywhere
around amazed at the amassed
3.03.2006
biting a rose
wide steps solid pace face forward cool giddiness ready
get on that plane again and go some place. starts in the normal way, a locale with a familiar face and welcoming doorstep. a launch pad. look around a little, peripheral vision see whats on the sidewalks. it's not too long though, before my little toe leaves the welcome mat. tres dos uno...blast off. senses electric. all pores open for maximum intake. yeah, i'm new around here, but i know where i'm going. generally. i'm willing to be sidetracked down a sideways sidestreet.
getting ready to do it again. it's the only way i can get that feeling. put me on the spot. see how i perform. thinking and winking on your feet, chica. just you and the whole wide world busses bums gesture traffic greasy high heels futbol catcall park bench orange stand a-ha this time it's brief, but i can use the taste, just a bit on my tonguetip:::::::for now
get on that plane again and go some place. starts in the normal way, a locale with a familiar face and welcoming doorstep. a launch pad. look around a little, peripheral vision see whats on the sidewalks. it's not too long though, before my little toe leaves the welcome mat. tres dos uno...blast off. senses electric. all pores open for maximum intake. yeah, i'm new around here, but i know where i'm going. generally. i'm willing to be sidetracked down a sideways sidestreet.
getting ready to do it again. it's the only way i can get that feeling. put me on the spot. see how i perform. thinking and winking on your feet, chica. just you and the whole wide world busses bums gesture traffic greasy high heels futbol catcall park bench orange stand a-ha this time it's brief, but i can use the taste, just a bit on my tonguetip:::::::for now
2.27.2006
cervezas a media
i haven't been to a bar before noon since the viewing lehigh/layfayette game at the final final in the marina in 2001. at least, not that i can remember. but today, today it was justified. even business. or at the least schoolwork. (what's the difference?) after 'interviewing' 12 6th graders for approximately 15 minutes, me and my 2 collegues/coworkers/cohorts needed a place to reconvene. castro's hideaway being the obvious choice, because my cohort/casamate has been itching to go there. besides, there's not many options in west sacramento.
the sixth graders are all conflict managers. they go out onto the playground during recess, donning really cool denim vests with a red C on the back, and make themselves available to students in first through sixth grade. somebody called you a name? go to a conflict manager. a boy threw a football in the girls bathroom? conflict manager. the pint sized conflict managers learn not to interupt, not to take sides, to be good listeners, and importantly 'not to laugh, since some of the conflicts are pretty funny' according to the teacher leading the CM's.
CM's are supercool - we never had anything like that at st. thomas aquinas elementary school, although i could see those red C's really complimenting our already mandatory
navy blue vests. plus the teacher in charge noted that grown-up playground monitors don't really want to deal with fallout from kids calling each other names - let them take care of it themselves. fair enough. CM's are really playing an important roll during recess, and i commend them. nonetheless, talking with a dozen of them of them at once in a class room with 20 other CM's is tough, and i didn't get too much information from the ladies i was with. they want a mall and ice skating rink in their town. they want more swings at the park, and maybe a football team (for girls, rock on). there's a lot of drunk people on the street, and they don't like that. they have elderly neighbors with funny ears.
so clearly, distilling this information as soon as it was recorded was in order. and castro's hideaway fit the bill. perhaps the more fruitful interview was held within, with castro's proprietor, frank. at 11:46 am, frank's sister, 40-something nephew, and a few other friends were already patronizing. after the first round, our drinks were on the house. frank told us about the police barging into his house, pulling him over because of his lowrider vintage 60's car, and general harrasment for no good reason that's lead to a decline in customers at his bar. frank talked for a long time, while his friends teased him for ignoring paying customers so he could talk with the ladies. a good song was played on the jukebox. i silently questioned the differences between morning and evening metabolic rates. i listened to frank's stories.
lately, mostly in bathrooms, i've been making a new list in my head. the list starts, "community development is..."
today's addition, skyrocketing to the top: going to the local dive at noon
the sixth graders are all conflict managers. they go out onto the playground during recess, donning really cool denim vests with a red C on the back, and make themselves available to students in first through sixth grade. somebody called you a name? go to a conflict manager. a boy threw a football in the girls bathroom? conflict manager. the pint sized conflict managers learn not to interupt, not to take sides, to be good listeners, and importantly 'not to laugh, since some of the conflicts are pretty funny' according to the teacher leading the CM's.
CM's are supercool - we never had anything like that at st. thomas aquinas elementary school, although i could see those red C's really complimenting our already mandatory
navy blue vests. plus the teacher in charge noted that grown-up playground monitors don't really want to deal with fallout from kids calling each other names - let them take care of it themselves. fair enough. CM's are really playing an important roll during recess, and i commend them. nonetheless, talking with a dozen of them of them at once in a class room with 20 other CM's is tough, and i didn't get too much information from the ladies i was with. they want a mall and ice skating rink in their town. they want more swings at the park, and maybe a football team (for girls, rock on). there's a lot of drunk people on the street, and they don't like that. they have elderly neighbors with funny ears.
so clearly, distilling this information as soon as it was recorded was in order. and castro's hideaway fit the bill. perhaps the more fruitful interview was held within, with castro's proprietor, frank. at 11:46 am, frank's sister, 40-something nephew, and a few other friends were already patronizing. after the first round, our drinks were on the house. frank told us about the police barging into his house, pulling him over because of his lowrider vintage 60's car, and general harrasment for no good reason that's lead to a decline in customers at his bar. frank talked for a long time, while his friends teased him for ignoring paying customers so he could talk with the ladies. a good song was played on the jukebox. i silently questioned the differences between morning and evening metabolic rates. i listened to frank's stories.
lately, mostly in bathrooms, i've been making a new list in my head. the list starts, "community development is..."
today's addition, skyrocketing to the top: going to the local dive at noon
1.16.2006
carrie
danielle (judge of god) asked me what my name meant. i'd forgotten. an internet search turned up, inevitably, the shortened version of caroline (not me), coming from charles (particularly fitting given that my mother's name is charlene). a couple of definitions that didn't ring a bell: manly (on this danielle agreed), song of joy (french), and then, there it was, the one i recognized from baby paperbacks past: free man. yes. but alongside, "It is also suggested that there is an alternative meaning - creative beauty." a little too much, there.
and from one site "Cultural & Historical figures with this name: Carrie Chapman Catt, A feminist and advocate for women's suffrage." surely there are more notable persons with my name? true, carrie fisher was also listed as a "Sports and Entertainment figure with this name," and certainly princess leia and postcards from the edge were not lost on me. but then, finding more about ms. chapman catt (*3 Cs*) why look, she was born on january 9, one birth day shy of this carrie. after her first husband died she worked as a newspaper reporter. with her second husband she "signed a prenuptial agreement which guaranteed her two months in the spring and two in the fall for her suffrage work." they had no children. she lived for a time in san francisco. she was key in the passage of the 19th amendment, allowing women to vote. after, she organized the league of women voters.
go carrie, free man
and from one site "Cultural & Historical figures with this name: Carrie Chapman Catt, A feminist and advocate for women's suffrage." surely there are more notable persons with my name? true, carrie fisher was also listed as a "Sports and Entertainment figure with this name," and certainly princess leia and postcards from the edge were not lost on me. but then, finding more about ms. chapman catt (*3 Cs*) why look, she was born on january 9, one birth day shy of this carrie. after her first husband died she worked as a newspaper reporter. with her second husband she "signed a prenuptial agreement which guaranteed her two months in the spring and two in the fall for her suffrage work." they had no children. she lived for a time in san francisco. she was key in the passage of the 19th amendment, allowing women to vote. after, she organized the league of women voters.
go carrie, free man
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)