2000-08-19

Children are out in the street riding on their bicycles and yelling to each other in spanish. When Deanna (Heather's friend and ex-girlfriend) Heather and Drew and I walked to get some food several hours ago, I went into a store looking for tea. The menu was in English but the people weren't. It took the help of the customers sitting at the counter to help explain to the lady behind the counter that I wanted tea with lemon and two dollops of sugar. It was only 50 cents, but it was well worth the memory.

The only thing that takes the midwest out of this residential area of town is the catcalls and whistles from the men in the passing cars, the graffiti in most public areas and the row houses with a teeny bit of grass that qualifies as a backyard. Deanna and Heather are out in the backyard right now laughing and talking. I was taking photographs of them, but the roll ended and I have been dying to write like a mother fucker.

Jeff called me this morning and said, "I've been writing 2000 words a day recently in my journal." Now that's some serious writing. In all honesty, I'm fucking jealous. I really want to go buy an old fashioned typewriter with no internet access - so that I'm not distracted by the net and write for the sake of writing not for the sake of entertaining anyone.

Speaking of Jeff, He told me that he has been counting down the days until I come back. I'll be back in Ann Arbor a week from tomorrow. He is as giddy as all get out. Actually, so am I. I can't wait to see Jeff and Jai and to move into my co-op and to have a bedroom and to take classes and write papers. I have made several proposals for myself for the coming months. They're more like goals. Here they are. 1. Smoke no cigarettes and drink no alcohol. Smoke only pot. 2. End my credit card bill. Pay it off in its entirity and then use only cash/checks from then on. 3. End whatever dependancy I have to the net. 4. Get a typewriter. Write more. 5. Stay anti-social. Be anti-social. Relish in anti-socialness, and still friends. Only hang out with friends whose company I enjoy. Namely Jeff and Jai. 6. This is the kicker. Fall in love. You know it never happens, but I always make room for it in my schedule, cuz you never know when it's going to happen, and the beginning of another school year is the perfect time for that kind of thing to happen, right? I know, this is completely incongruent with my anti-socialness, right? Whatever.

(completely random side note: Sasha, guess what CD I was listening to this morning... First name is Tori.)

Anyway... my life has been strange recently. It's strange because I want to tell you about the things I did but I'd rather discuss the politics of the subway and the way it is the perfect metaphor for everything in New York City, or this comment that Heather quipped yesterday when she said that American culture is totally Utilitarian and lacking in spirituality. I'd rather tell you about all the beautiful children I passed on my way to Deanna's apartment and how I wanted to photograph them all and how I felt completely unethical doing so. I would love to paint you a picture describing this woman I saw running down the street today in a green hippie dress with colorful facial paint on. I would love to describe for you the awe I felt staring at the Statue of Liberty as I walked around the island marveling at the sheer beauty of every fold in the fabric and of her feet and how being there with Heather made everything really beautiful. And I'd like to tell you in great detail how Heather makes me feel and how confused and delighted I am to be with her. I would like to tell you what it was like to walk down Wall Street and to be sexually harassed by these three rich assholes. I would really like to tell you about this beautiful woman that Heather and I encountered the other day at Bluestockings, a woman's bookstore. She had long red yarn braided into her hair and she had a nose ring and she was a high school biology teacher and was really beautiful. I wonder if she knew that I was totally crushing on her. I wish I could take a photograph of the smell in our apartment last night when Matt made his famous dish called pussy, which is basically glorified baked ziti with lots of cheese. The smell was so delectable that our feet, tired from walking over the Metropolitan Museum of Art, began to smell the pussy on their own without the use of nostrils. I would like to tell you how the Empire State building looks when it's covered in fog and how the glowing reds and greens from the lights emanating off the monumental skyscraper make me so divinely happy. I would like to take a picture of every person I've seen on the subway and show them to you and say "This is New York City." It's amazing because on the subway, we're all reduced to rats waiting for our turn to get on and get off. We're all reduced to ego-less nothings. We're all reduced to the ground-zero-ness of being human, and how sometimes ethnicity and language and economic standing mean nothing when you're sitting next to a big sweaty man, or when you're holding onto the steel poles hoping you won't fall down. Everyone is beautiful on the subway and everyone is ugly. I would like to be invisible and take pictures of people without making them feel self-conscious. I would take so many photographs that I would make myself bankrupt because I wouldn't be able to pay for all the processing fees. I've already burned through nearly 14 rolls in the time that I've been here. I've got two or three more rolls left. Most of the pictures have been of Heather. She's a most splendid partner because she's so beautiful and natural in front of the camera. I can't wait to see how the pictures turn out.

Heather and I have walked everywhere! Several days ago we walked from the very bottom tip of Manhattan (Battery Park) all the way up to 14th Street. It took us several hours, of course -- seeing as it's probably about a 4 mile walk, and we took dinner breaks and bookstore breaks in between. But we finally saw the Statue of Liberty the other day (the only touristy thing we've done so far) and we saw Wall Street. I took pictures of some sign that said Wall Street. I also took plenty of pictures of the twin towers, from strange angles no less. We walked through Chinatown, Little Italy (where we had dinner) and then proceeded through SoHo and ended up at home late at night.

Two days ago we visited the Statue of Liberty. As I already said, it was nothing short of beautiful. Yesterday we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We saw as much of it as we could possibly see in 7 hours, without reading every label and by-line for every piece. We spent lots of time in the European art and 19th Century/20th Century art areas. We spent massive amounts of time in the Islamic Art, Asian Art and Musical Instruments area. We totally skipped the arts of Africa/Oceania as well as the Medieval arts and the decorative arts of Europe. Our patience and our feet were well worn thin. But it was worth it. We saw such beauty as we've never seen before. I think I may have seen 20 Van Goghs yesterday, an entire room of Rembrants and many paintings by Modigliani, Hopper, Gaugin and Monet. I ended up buying the sexiest poster by Modigliani. Check it out:

It's pretty funny though, yesterday Heather and I were at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and we were walking through the section on art from Nepal (which consisted mostly of LOTS of statues of buddhas, boddhisatvas, etc...) and there was this one statue of a buddha.. Anyway, I looked at his eyes, and I said, "OH I understand now! He's not attained enlightenment, He's on Ketamine!" I swear if you had seen his eyes you would understand..

Omigod, when me and Heather were in lower manhattan in the Financial District (at the tip of Manhattan.) And we were walking around. She needed cash from a bank. I needed to get my film extracted because it was being a bitch putting it into my camera so I rewound the film, only i guess I wasn't watching and pulled it in all the way into the film... It hadn't even been used, really... So, I went around all over the Wall St. area looking for this one hour photo lab that a police man directed me to. We eventually found it. It was a literal hole-in-the-wall. I don't know how they managed to run a one hour photo lab out of it. It was so small and cramped. They were extremely busy and the guy was sitting down and printing what looked like 15 rolls of film. The film processor was right next to a wall and so was the printer. I wondered if they had to pull them away from the wall every day so they could do maintenance on them, or if they are just too lazy to do that kind of stuff... I don't know, but it was pretty crazy. Anyway, I extracted my film and left. Soon afterwards, we were walking down the street on our way back to Battery Park to take the ferry to Liberty Island, and we noticed 1. a photo shoot for this band that my mom really likes called Indigenous. They're a Native American Blues Band. I totally freaked out. The woman in the group is totally fucking hot and I ended up taking several photos of the band from a distance of about 15 feet. 2. We also noticed a movie trailer in the middle of the road, so we figured out someone was filming... And the other night we walked by this bar that is going to be featured in that new movie with Winona Ryder and Richard Gere, "Autumn in New York." We were just walking along Houston St, and it was just sitting there... We looked around for a minute.

other portions of my recent life read like snapshots of a movie, such as:

The adventure always begins on the subway. The subway is the gateway to everything. We walked up the stairs that took us out of the subway and entered onto 33rd Street, home of the Empire State building. It was time to do some touristy type stuff. So, we walked into the Empire State Building and the sign said "Adults $9." We scoffed at the price and the line which brought back memories of our family trip to Chicago and thus the Sears Tower. We took the elevator up to the 77th floor and got off. We got weird looks from the employees walking around on the mostly-barren floor and stepped into the stairwell. This was my idea. We walked up two flights of stairs and was greeted by a middle aged Indian man asking us, "So where are you going today?" I said, "We're just walking around." He escorted us to the elevators that went down to the bottom floor and our stay at the Empire State building was quickly over.

We took the subway down to Battery park and when we got out of the subway, the sky was blue, the clouds were few and far-between, the sun was shining. The Statue of Liberty was within sight and we went down to the edge of the river and looked at it. I think it was at this time that Heather pulled herself around me and kissed me, and shortly thereafter we were approached by a guy with an accent. "Hi. Can I take picture of you. I'm from Montreal. Want to take picture of Artsy New York girls." So he stepped into a picture with Heather and Me and his friend took the snapshot with the Statue of Liberty in the background.

When I was at Washington Square Park the other day, I sat down in the fountain and waited for Heather to meet me there. She had to go to some interview for a position this fall as a "Peer Advisor." I was sunning and trying to read "Tropic of Cancer." I was waiting and avoiding strange stares from passing men. All of the sudden, this dirty, long black haired man of Sicilian descent (he soon told me) walked into the middle of the fountain. This man was obviously drunk. You could smell it steaming off of him. He shouted to the fountain-sitters, "I am your entertainment!" and proceeded to badger various people sitting there into telling them portions of their life and their name, etc... Spilling money into his lap was a plus. He told me, "I used to be in David Bowie's band." For some reason, I didn't believe him. His four front teeth were missing. Meanwhile, the old black British dude sitting next to me was telling me about his job as a photographer and asking me what it's like to live in Ohio as opposed to living in the city. Heather showed up in the middle of this whole scene and the drunk dude came over to ask for money. He looked at me and Heather and said, "Now, can I have some money? Just a little bit for food.." He looked at me and said, "You've already given me some, right?" I looked him in the eye and nodded yes. He fell for it. I hadn't given him any money. Heather proceeded to give him thirty-five cents. He seemed pleased. I nodded to the black British dude and we were on our way.

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