radio radio

A guy in a mesh cap and a moustache. It sounds like one of the twenty-somethings populating my neighborhood or Williamsburg or any of the relclaimed-for-ironic-youth old man bars in cities across the nation. But this guy was the proper age for this look. No irony, no shit. He had a portable radio - no headphones - on the train with him today that he pulled from a beat up old brown soft leather briefcase. He had coffee and a juice squeeze to drink and from the sound of crinkling paper, something to eat as well. I wanted to read my book, Imperial San Francisco : Urban Power, Earthly Ruin, that is my train-riding morning highlight. But this guy's lack of headphones was hindering my ability to concentrate on the old players, movers and shakers, scions and swindlers that built this city (I'm not sure that this city was actually built on rock n' roll, Grace Slick). I said, "Sir, will you turn that down please?" He complied. Thanks guy. It was kinda nice to see an example of the actual prototype that hipsters have been ironically mimicking for years now. But really that guy belongs in a bar, behind a cloud of smoke. Or at the counter of doughnut shop late in the morning reading a newspaper. Or maybe I am being too judgemental and wherever we go, including this guy, we belong. I don't know. I do know that that guy needs some headphones.

unauthorized autobiography

I came up with a new title for my autobiography: What I did and What I Ought to Have Done by Lauren Spiro.

it's a fairly unfortunate title now that I look/think at it. But I so could write that book. What if I did write that book and I lost track of what it was that I did and what it was that I ought to have done, and what I did actually ended up being what I ought to have done. Well, if I could do that, then I really would have done something.

It would be nice

To find someone nice, who knows the correct definition of vestibule and would never stand in a vestibule with me trying to argue about the meaning of the word, the meaning of the place.

Live and learn and so it goes and tea for two but all the sayings in the world won't rival actually saying something to someone that's true or real or at least purports to be.

That's all I have to say. The cleaning crew is coming to get all the cluttered thoughts out of my head and I'll have to leave the doors unlocked for them or leave the keys in a convenient if not obvious place.

moving on...

Fuck the Ides of March

Forever more and evermore I suppose. Beware and wary until unaware, and unbeknowst forces were at work when you thought they were out to play. Tonight someone asked me what do I do? as an opener to conversation. She was from LA she said and so I excuse her. I suppose. Cab ride up and cab ride down. A dance remix of Don't Stop Believin' by Journey. Needing a different dance mix from the one I got. Timing probably. If I hadn't left, if I had arrived earlier. I think about the good news that I got. I don't trust it. I assume that it will fall through and I will be disappointed again. I am letting my fear of further disappointment interfere with my shit, I realize.

This is what it's down to. What's come up and what I can come up with. I let loose ends dangle as I am at my wit's end. It's beginning to and back again. That's the name of an album. Oh, it's an album by Wire, I find out after a quick search. I guess I always liked that album title.

Of so many minds, try not to mind it, don't mind me, I don't mind if I do.

It's possible that I will be up all night tonight. In fact, I predict that that will happen. If what is supposed to happen this month actually happens, I will try to take it as an opportunity to relax for a minute. But I will not go on travels and squander an opportunity to stay relaxed for more than a minute. Crossing my fingers at the possibility - I can't believe it yet.

Storm settlement

Big Sur on Saturday morning. In an orange Volkswagen bus, an old one still running, veering from side to side because of great winds and pummeling rains. On the bridges, on the Bixby Bridge for instance, I thought we would tumble over into the ocean. But we made it with our brave driver and our strong faith in reaching our destination.

They said we were crazy to go on the trip, that it wouldn't be any fun because of the rains and the winds and not being able to keep a fire going or take a walk to see the ocean. But we went anyway knowing that there would be a shelter and that we would find some way to embrace the rain. At least, I knew this. And I think my friends knew it too. We did make a fire and keep it going. We even almost put up a tarp to shelter us from the rain, but, after much to-do with bungee cords and rope, it didn't work out. Umbrellas were in order and we were fine with or without them. My jacket got soaked through so I donned a sweatshirt under a sweater. We kept the fire going for hours. We saw the ocean during a detour on the drive back when we pulled over to a seaside road near Carmel and saw the huge waves tear at the rocks. I don't remember ever seeing bigger waves. The water was white with the violence of crashes and the sight calmed me.

We drank seven bottles of wine between the three of us. We danced in our cabin. We danced in the tavern. We were there to see a band. And we enjoyed the opening acts.

And inbetween bands, I saw someone that I hadn't seen in years. So out of place in Big Sur as I had known her in South Carolina ten years or so ago. We were never close. She was a friend of a friend really. But seeing her stirred up alot of memories that I've only just laid in a shallow grave again after another long haunting. But the stirring up didn't punish me as it has before, it only seemed like another ending, another epilogue, not a mysterious sign or signal. Only a coincidence. And as I sit here in the city in a coffee shop, I feel both more separated from these memories and more able to contain them somewhere safe inside me.

Life's a gas

Pine trees aligned dream-like. a sharp fade into day from a long, long night. I am looking for a job and dream moments brush by my logic-laden rationale. The one I want. The one I am trying to pursue. The glances that bounce from me now, the reverberations not quite silent. So, begins from today another week of cloudiness and rain in this Pacific civilization propped up from behind with two by fours, marbleized cardboard facade.

The job. there is nothing romantic about it. It might not even pay enough to justify my doing it. Well, it really doesn't matter at all, oh it really doesn't matter at all...life's a gas, I hope it's gonna last.

ghost of christmas past

I took Amtrak because I had always romanticized trains having grown up beside a railroad tressel. I thought sometimes I might want to take a train across the country to California and so I decided to try it out with a run from Chicago, IL to Columbia, SC around christmas 1997.

I remember having to stop and change trains in Washington, D.C.

I remember being so excited to get back to Columbia. It had been only six months. I was leading a lonely lonely life in Chicago. A life without a group of friends to cling to, to watch tv with, to eat dinners with, have a beer. Nope it was just my great uncle Benji and me living together in his apartment building on the far north side of Chicago.

When I got back everything was all the same and different.

One night there was a little party going on. It was at this house that had belonged to this couple - he about 21, she about 41 - and her kids when I had left. It was a nice house, it was a grown up house, but there were kids living there now. All around my age. Some I had known from working at the same restaurant. A few I did not know.

Those close friends who brought me to this house on this night (I don't remember when but I remember it was on this trip), well, this was their new group of friends to watch tv and eat dinner and drink beer with. But I didn't fit in with this group and I felt uncomfortable and so I went to go and hide out in the kitchen and sulk about no one noticing that I was not there.

That's what I was doing when I noticed a painting being painted in the breakfast area of the kitchen. The painting was of some rabbits ice skating in a park. I looked over the painter's shoulder and made an approving noise. When I realized that I had rudely intruded, I apologized, then introduced myself.

I am haunted by this memory and a dozen others.

I am waiting to be able to begin to hope to be free of this haunting.

I found the experience of being on a train for eighteen hours without a sleeping berth was too uncomfortable and claustrophobic to attempt again. I haven't been on a long train ride since then.