soup

Maybe it's the smoke hanging over the entire Bay Area, even burning trees and crackling into Big Sur, or not being able to fully rest in a room of my own, or residual stress leftover from my recent housing hunt (shit, it only ended yesterday), but I am in a cranky mood and when I went to the grocery store to get some lunch and decided on a whim in favor of soup, chili actually, and some old dowager-lookin lady wearing dark sunglasses started to ask me questions, like, "which is your favorite soup?" and, "is this soup or chili?" I responded, "I don't know, I haven't tried them all." and "chili" and she goes, "is it spicy? it looks spicy.." and I just move away to the register thinking, "do I look like I work here bitch? do you see the words 'soup expert' or 'soup authority' anywhere on my person???" and now I am typing about it.hmm. It wasn't very spicy.

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.