they pulled my hair at charm school.
they
stole my guestbook during
rolecall.
see photo for full repeat + October 25. 2005 = 5:08 p.m.
Sometimes: Lost in a subway vortex. The last time this happened: July = first week of new job in Soho and I thought I had figured out a clever shortcut involving the F & the 4,5,6 but before I knew it I was lost in a bad game of shuffleboard. Last night. Down two flights of stairs. Down brownstone steps. Dusk. Candy wrappers on the ground. An old computer leaning into a signpost. Green beer bottles in a bright blue bag. A little kid (� they are like drunken ghosts�) is swaying home under the weight of a backpack twice his size. Light rain. The boy waits until I reach the bottom step and then he turns around,eyes me, and quietly calls out: Now is not a good time to go out. He turns around and his words snake towards me. Creepy in the Shining kind of way. To the F, transfer to a C in order to get to the Joan Didion reading at W 23rd St & 10th Av. C is actually an A. The A train stops somewhere in some part of Brooklyn I have never been to. As the train hurtles by all the familiar place names I feel my stomach drop out. What happens in a subway vortex is that I can no longer remember where the train stops if it is heading towards Manhattan or Queens or Far Rockaway or Smith and 9th streets. I may now know all of these routes by rote; however, my memory totally collapses and I end up getting on one train, riding two stops, realize it�s the wrong train, get on another train, realize it�s headed in the wrong direction� This can go on for forty-five minutes. Always, always too proud to ask someone because I know the answer is shockingly obvious; for some reason I can�t access the part of my brain which owns the bare bone logic of it all. So yes, left nearly an hour early for reading and all of those extra minutes and seconds which could have been spent finding a seat, finding a view, finding the book i had to pre-pay for admission even though I already have a copy were lost to a subway vortex. I think of the little boy and his �not a good time to go out�� The Paula Cooper gallery smells like wet wool. Umbrellas are scattered under chairs and tucked under arms. There is a girl in front of me who reminds me of my sister circa Marlboro College, 1994. Mud & long cold seasons & Vermont & piles and piles of books & hand-written letters. Joan Didion looks fragile and her voice shakes. She reads the part that I had quoted on Sunday to the 80yr old art professor. �God Damn it, Joan. Don�t ever tell me you can�t write.� (He�s just read a passage from A Book of Common Prayer out loud to her. ) "That�s my birthday present to you.� The hair on my arms had stood up when I said it out loud to her over coffee & black tea. At the gallery, someone asks: Joan, why Honolulu? ��..
And Joan replied: �Pfff. Why? Because it is all blue and pink and smells like flowers, what do you mean, why?�
prev/next
class
notes, file of pom-pom
ghosts!
