morning reverie

since ive returned i got this knot in my back. a twist of pain in the muscle below my right shoulder blade. the result of sleeping on floors while in san francisco and an accumulated build up of emotional stress. it hurts to take deep breaths sometimes, and when i make the wrong turn the pain's so much i almost collapse. im getting better though. this morning it aint so bad.

i was woken up from a dream. it was one i'd never had before. usually when i remember my dreams they are somewhat familiar. they are filled with friends or enemies or old acquaintances ive either forgotten or am trying to forget. often an icon of pop culture will make an appearance, even those whose name i dont know or remember [i once had a dream which starred the white rap group House of Pain, the black cop from the first Die Hard movie, and one of the ancillary characters from the Bob Newhart show]. but this dream was different.

i was in an apartment. im not sure how many bedrooms where in it or how big it was, but i do know that it had wall to wall carpeting and there was hardly any furniture in it if there was one piece at all. the carpet was a light brown, probably stain resistant, and brand new looking. the layout was modern.

now i didnt see anyone else in my dream, but i know i was with maybe three other people, and that these people were my friends, but not my best friends. they were people i was hanging out with, wasting time with, and aside from some quick company, i dont think they meant much to me at all. i liked them enough though, and wasnt bothered by their companionship.

you are aware of the strange omnipotence of a dream, i assume. like, when you are in a place you have never seen physically, but it is your home and you know it like the back of your hand. sometimes you will be at yankee stadium, but in your dream that is the backyard of a friend you knew in grade school. or you will be shackled on a pirate ship, but in your dream it is the bus you take to work everyday. the physicality of the setting conflicts with what it really is in reality, but you understand it. well, thats how it was in this dream. i never left the confines of the empty bedroom i stood in, but i knew the exact layout of the entire apartment.

the doorbell was one of those video ones that you see in penthouses and expensive co-op's on the upper west side, where you can see who the person is thats ringing the bell before you buzz them in. i didnt see this doorbell, but i knew the apartment had one, and i heard it ring. a loud, warm chirp. an aggresive, but unoffensive alert. i also heard one of my faceless friends buzz whoever rang it in, and i knew they hadnt checked the video to see who it was.

why the detail of having a video doorbell stands out so prominently, when it obviously wasnt going to be taken advantage of, is lost on me. dreams are wacky that way.

standing in the empty room, slightly unnerved that there was a stranger climbing the stairs to our apartment, i looked out the window. it had no blinds or curtains, and opened by sliding to the side. the view was of rooftops, we were on the 5th or 6th floor. the sun was setting but the sky was still a bright blue. there was about a 15 foot gap between us and the next building, which was about a story shorter than us and had wooden shingles on the roof.

then i heard the door burst open and in a voice that sounded slightly amused and alarmingly calm there was one word spoken.

"brooklyn."

and then there were screams. even though i wasnt in the living room, where the empty marble fireplace and sliding glass doors to a patio and the front door was, i knew that three guys had bust in and held shotguns and wanted blood. it was an ambush, a bumrush. i dont know why we were being bumrushed, but for some reason i wasnt entirely surprised. i heard clunks on the floor and thumps against the wall. a wailing, high pitch scream tore through the apartment and then i think, laughter. there was running and crying, from where i stood i saw someone dart past my door. then a spark of gunfire. then a gurgle. then more laughter.

knowing there would be no other way out, i turned back toward the window and slid it open. there was a screen that i then pushed out, and i sat on the sill and looked down below. the ground was far away, a terminal distance, if you will. but there was a tree. tall and thin and branches the jutted out from all sides. it wasnt a bushy tree, but it was sturdy, and it was there, and i knew if i jumped i would hit at least three of its branches [maybe even holding on to one] before i hit the ground.

behind me was mayhem and death and fear. i couldnt see it, but i knew. i leaned out the window, ready to drag my legs over the sill and fall toward the tree. i was completely unafraid. of the attackers of the fall of anything. there was something in me that was sure i would be ok. something content. all i have to do is let myself fall, i thought. and i took one last look at the door and i wondered if they were all dead. i didnt feel any loss. i dont think i cared much. and i looked back down out the window and i was about to let myself drop -

when i was woken by my landlady banging on the door. well, she wasnt banging, thats an exaggeration, but she was outside of it. calling my name and knocking softly. im not sure why it woke me up, i didnt get to sleep until 5am last night and it was still early in the morning, 9 oclock or so, but it did. i cursed her and threw on some pants and a tshirt. it was too early for anything, especially landlady crap.

i opened the door and let her in, she was with some big black guy that was holding a camera. i think shes getting the building appraised. i dont know if that means we have to leave soon or not. maybe shes selling it, maybe she isnt. i wasnt awake enough to formulate any questions, so didnt ask.

i was pissed though, that i didnt get to end my dream, or at least see how it turned out. maybe its best i woke. maybe i wouldnt have made it. oh well. strange, dreams.

[shrugs.]

mornings

when i wake up in the morning the bed is always empty. by then she already is zipping around the city on her merlot purple vespa teaching celebrities pilates or having lunch in the village. i crawl from under the covers and drag myself to my office and turn on my computer and hope for good news. usually, it aint there.

i head to the cafe, dodging white babies with black nannies and the four eyed lesbians of park slope the entire way. even though its spring a gray winter still clings to the sky as if afraid to let go and we all sit on our stoops drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes and waiting for the sun to break through the gloom. i sit there inhaling and exhaling and watching the smoke rise up into the city air and try to remember my dreams and maybe find some meaning in them. i never do but its a nice exercise.

after that i usually come back upstairs and try to write for a half hour. sometimes all i get out is a paragraph, sometimes i get out a full idea, on rare occasion i create a fully fleshed out post, but thats rare.

this is not one of those rare occasions. i need another cigarette. half hours up.

im back bitches

im back in new york and new york is back in me. there are still bits of san francisco that linger though. i will never truly shake that city. no matter what, ill never be free of it. san francisco is just inside of me. even new york, in all its brawling glory, can not fill in the holes that have been dug by the city near the bay.

and why should it really? this trip to san francisco was strange. bitter sweet. but if nothing else it was real. not just a slip of imagination, a boxed in fantasy that was brutally fleeting. no, this time san francisco had grown with me. i saw the scars of age in its beautiful face. the creases beneath its eye. san francisco was still the same, but this time it was older.

i will not go into it just yet. like i said, new york city calls. i am back in the saddle and the horse is at full speed. but there is a lot to say about my trip to san francisco. about the hills and valleys. the ups and downs. maybe tomorrow the words will come easier. or the next day. or the next.

packing light

by this time tomorrow i will be in san francisco on a couch or bed stoned and debating weather or not its too early to drink a beer.

im sure it wont be.

im going to climb the hills of the western addition. im going to prowl the alleys of the tenderloin. im going to walk around the lower haight looking over my shoulder, paranoid about ghost.

im going to drink myself blind and overtip the bartender and try not to let the ATM machine eat my card again.

im gonna get stoned. hella stoned.

im going to see old friends and maybe make some new ones.

im going to eat a super chicken burrito from el torro or pancho villa or balazo or somewhere and im going to wash it down with an orange soda.

im going to stand opposite the speaker and groan and sneer at the DJ.

im going to notice the changes in my old neighborhood and note how different it is now. im going to whine about how things have changed. how my youth -my past- has been stolen. im going to wince at every new store and then sigh as i resign myself into the dim shadows of age.

im going to hold onto my phone, but im not promising i wont lose it.

im going to break the day [letting dawn warm my skin] and find that one of my socks got lost in the pornography of the evening and curse myself for getting to comfortable.

im also going to read and write. just to ensure i keep it somewhat clean.

long weekend

i woke up pretty late this morning. later than usual. ive had a long weekend so i felt i deserved it.

saturday i had to wake up early for class. a routine i doubt i will ever get comfortable with. this was after bartending the night before and then wasting valuable time reading about LOST until deep into the morning. the class wasnt too long and because there was a guest speaker [the author of a book that was a little too proud of himself considering his writing left me unimpressed] they provided coffee and snacks.

after class i had to go home and finish putting my records together. then i had to load my decks and mixer and all what not into a cab and take them to the bar. i tried to take a nap afterwards but it was spotty and restless. eventually i just started drinking beer and concerning myself with adding more records before i hit the gig.

id already filled my crates with R&B and hip hop gems, not to mention some deep disco and even some balearic house from the ancient days of beach dancing in europe. i put in some dance rock, some bootlegs, some forgotten pearls from days gone by. i added some edgy tunes i felt i could squeeze in. i took out some filler tunes that bordered on the dull and insignificant. finally the set felt complete and i headed to the spot.

the gig went well. it never got ram packed busy but it never got dead by any means. certain bombs i dropped worked just as i expected them. Santogold did some damage, a Soulwax remix to a Stones song blew up the spot. certain funk jams turned heads and the old school hip hop jewels worked their magic as always.

i drank heavily throughout. first a manhattan then a jameson then another jameson and always beer beer beer. by the time my set was coming to a close i was playing old jungle tunes and howling at the dancefloor WHAT?? THIS HERE IS A MONSTER!!! and i wasnt lying because it was a monster and they all agreed and danced along with me.

after i went to a friends house with some other friends and we drank more and smoked more and drank more and smoked. everyone was loud and sloppy and falling all over each other. it was kind of a mess but the sort of mess you like to find yourself in. the sort of mess i live for.

i stopped by the bar afterwards and drank until the sun came up. by the time i hit the bed i was blind drunk and had forgotten all my worries. they just washed away with the tide. it wasnt until the next day that it hurt. by the time i woke up i had to be back at work in an hour and a half. whiskey was still brawling in my gut. sweat still clung to my chest. tunes were still spinning in my head.

the rest id like to forget. c ya tomorrow.

temporary residencies

for a while when i was a kid we lived in a dingy residential hotel. i wont write too much about this, but its got much more to it than im willing to go into now. not that i dont want to share, i just dont have that much time to write. otherwise id give you the full story.

anyway, i think the hotel was called the Winton or the Winston. it was on O'farrell street in the heart of San Francisco's Tenderloin District. this is when i was about 6 years old. there are a few different stories i have about living in the hotel, which, to my recollection, was only about six months (i know it wasnt a year, i dont remember celebrating a christmas there), but like i said, i dont really have the time to really go into them now.

i gotta put together my records for another gig tomorrow.

what i'll do instead is just bang out the highlights of my wondrous affair with the Winton [or Winston] hotel:

- i had a baby sitter. she was in her 20s and lived downstairs from us. her room was always a mess of clothes and empty fast food containers and ashtrays and cigarette butts. i would get dropped off there and we would just sit around doing nothing. she didnt have much interest in entertaining me. the tv would turn on and the first of a series of Marlboro reds would be lit and the hours would drag until my mother finally arrived to pick me up. she lived in a corner room and outside her window was a long open shaft that was the length of the building. i think at the bottom of it is where they kept the trash cans. one time while i was watching television and waiting for my mom to come get me, we heard a loud, sickening thud outside her window. someone had fallen four stories trying to break into one of the rooms. the babysitter didnt even bother herself with investigating it. she just looked out and down from her window and saw the culprit laying there, tangled up on the concrete. she took a drag of her cigarette and said, thats what he gets. and turned the tv back up.

- i dont know if my mother was working at the time, but i was definitely going to school. i went to an elementary school right off of Polk Street. i dont think i was the only kid there that lived in a hotel. in any case, i had to get up early every morning to get ready to leave and my mother would always have the tv on when i woke. on the same channel too. it was always The Great Space Coaster. to this day every time i hear the theme song to that show i am filled with the uncertain anxiety of my youngest years.

- they had communal bathrooms in the hotel. my mother would never allow me to go to them alone. there were a few times that i would go to the bathroom and someone would be in it but had left the door open. the shower would be running or a naked lag would be stretched out from the stall. i never thought much of it, assuming that it was a mistake. it wasnt until i got older that i realized it wasnt an accident, but an invitation. trust me, open doors in a residential hotel should not be entered.

- there was a big lobby at the main entrance. people would sit around on the many couches reading or staring or waiting. sometimes they just hung out there all day, watching as the residents came and went. the front desk people never spoke to anyone. they would usually just look up and grunt at you when you walked by. even me, a six year old. they had no time for pleasantries. no one really did there.

there is plenty more i assume. the culture of living in a residential hotel is something of itself. but like i said, i have to prepare for a gig, so im gonna cut this post short.

on being young and having perfect vision

i would wish horrible things upon myself as a kid. i dont know why, probably for lack of attention i presume. the irony, of course, is that 'd already been blessed with a pretty shitty childhood. i guess the grass is always greener.

i didnt really want pain to be inflicted on me. no. im no masochist. well, not through and through anyway. but i wanted the bruises. i wanted the tales of suffering. i wanted to be able to say, yeah, that happened to me, or yeah, i went through that. mind you, this was all when i was just reaching the age where i understood one could go through disasters and still live. the thing was, i thought all the kids did it. it wasnt because i wanted the hurt, it was because i wanted to be cool.

it didnt even have to involve pain, it could just be some stroke of discomfort. an ailment. a handicap. some flaw i could point at as a source for all my ills.

i wanted to get tonsillitis so id have to get my tonsils out. i wanted my eye site to go bad so id need to get glasses. i wanted braces. i wanted a cast. i wanted to break a bone so that i'd have to walk on crutches. i wanted to be hit by a car. i wanted stitches, and i wanted the scar it left.

some of these desires actually came to fruition. when i was seven years old i was indeed hit by a car. unfortunately, i didnt break any bones, just bruised a few ribs, but i got to take a few days off of school and when i got back into class all the kids wanted to know what it had felt like. im sure i exaggerated when i didnt need to. i mean, i was slammed by a huge Lincoln cruiser with four doors and enough trunk space to stuff a deer. i flew about 15 ft upon impact. i had to be escorted to the emergency room in an ambulance. i even had a scar on my stomach where the skin had split. but i imagine the temptation was too much to resist. i bet i added that, while in the air, i flipped a few times. im sure instead of "bruised" ribs the entire cage had been "fractured." i could promise that the scar on my stomach was poked and probed, and while i let the other kids admire it i beamed in pride.

truth is: i got hit. i flew. i had a few bruises. but i was fine. for a seven year old, my body was pretty tough.

i never broke any bones, but i did twist my ankle. that wasnt the same and, unsurprisingly, i didnt get much satisfaction from it.

i've also had a mysterious scar on my chin where, if memory serves correctly, i was told i had stitches. i dont remember getting them, nor do i remember why i had to get them, but you can guarantee that i bragged about it to everyone i knew, contorting my chin this way and that so others could get a closer inspection and, when finally locating the tiny blemish, adorn me with ooohs and ahhhs.

later on in life, when i finally recognized how miserable things can be, i grew an aversion to such wounds and disfigurements. i learned not to idealize these blights and misfortunes. i didnt need to. i still carry some of the scars with me, i dont show them off though. i dont wear them like tattoos or jewelry. they are just there to remind me, ironically enough, of a more innocent time. when i think of it, its all very typical. whatever.

***************************

also i have to add that i hate yesterdays post. i cant believe i wrote about Justice at the MSG theater and didnt mention how every song sounded the same or their set up looked puny and laughable on the large stage or how i saw a rick james impersonator taking a picture with some teenage white girl that was wearing a bandana. oh well, guess thats what happens when i post while drunk.

no justice

i was sitting in class when i got a text from a friend saying he had an extra ticket to the Justice show. the teacher was speaking to the class about a dead poet that drank himself to death in the 50's. he said there was a generation of poets that seemed to be racing toward the finish line bottle by bottle, and this particular poet nearly won the contest. i was trying to be interested but couldnt get past the low, effeminate voice the teacher spoke in. it was too typical, too routine. i imagine every poet of his generation, the generation that isnt drinking themselves to death but instead are doing poor jobs at teaching college kids about better, more dead poets, speaks like him.

i texted back that i would call my friend after class and i rubbed my eyes a few times and
looked at the clock. the rest of the students, mostly girls that, from what ive heard, only seem to write poetry about cruel men and clothes, seemed to be excited about every thing the teacher said. i wondered if maybe something was wrong with me. maybe my brain has defects in it that dont allow me to process correctly the words our low, effeminate voiced teacher says to us. i stared at the clock a few more times.

the class got excited about a poet from the Victorian era and there was an intense discussion about the merits of modern, as opposed to archaic, english usage in contemporary poems. before he let us leave he handed back our papers from last week. mine had the same things scribbled in the margins as they always did, "very good line," "i dont know what this means," "very nice," "could use something here." i shove them in my bag and while the rest of the class stayed behind to discuss their papers with the teacher i made my exit.

the show was at the theater at madison square garden. i'd never been there before. my friend met me in the front and handed me a hard ticket. no list this time. no troubles. we made a detour to the concession area and I bought a seven dollar beer. everyone looked 20 years old and wore skin tight pants and fake leather coats. my friend introduced me to some co-workers of his and i put on a charming smile and said very little. our seats were close to the middle but no one was sitting and we wound up on the stairs passing around a small joint and surrounded by young, thin white people pumping their fist in the air.

my friend works for the label Justice is on so i asked him for some insights. he tells me they hate being compared to Daft Punk and i say that sounds about right. He tells me they are very young, the same age as most of the audience, and to me they looked it. he tells me they smoke like chimneys and i noted that one of them did always have a lit cigarette dangling from his lips. to close the show they played a single of theirs that has become an anthem and about a third of the audience hold up their lighters or cell phones. i dont know how i feel about the cell phone thing, i find something genuine in a flickering flame. I suggested to my friend that maybe i should sell small movies of ignited lighters that one could download to their cell phone for just such an occasion. he laughed and immediately dismissed it. The show ended before midnight.

i had been lugging around my backpack for hours. my shoulders hurt by the time i got on the train. I stopped at the store and buy a six pack of beer and when i got home drank most of that with the rest of the Jameson i had. it wasnt until teo in the morning that i realized i hadnt eaten anything all day.

getting over it

its taking a while for my friend to get over losing his wife to another man. this is, of course, expected. hes doing better than most of us would. hes focused at work. he is making jokes. he is letting himself get distracted by music and television, gossip in the rags.

every now and then though, something will pry the wound back open. maybe a song or an advertisement. a certain series of words spoken or a faint aroma in the air. it doesnt take much to trigger a memory, even those buried deepest can be easily exhumed. he has been surprisingly patient with this, much more so than i would be.

yesterday we were having a conversation and i off handedly mentioned an old song. a favorite of ours. an ancient diddy that we havent heard forever. just the title of it sparked pangs of misery in him. He winced then paused, then in a sobering tone, said, -Thanks a lot, now you've made me sad.

I didnt apologize. there was no reason to. at some point in life the songs we love and the songs we hate become ghost of our past and we need to expect them to haunt us and be ok in that. they attach themselves to an age or a memory and capture those moments and become part of them. there are times in our lives that will be forever linked to songs, it would be as if they didnt exist if they werent. without certain melodies, we would have holes in our history. it is these ghost that make up who we are.

to lighten the mood, i called him a pussy [men have strange ways of comforting each other] and he asked me if these sudden woeful occasions would ever stop. i told him eventually they would, but that it comes in waves and just when you think the ache has passed another one swells and then crashes inside. -There is no other curse like a womans hips, i said to him, Those stick with you for a long time.

he just groaned at that piece of wisdom.

and really, there is nothing i could say that would relieve his worries. I know this. there is no logic, no intellectual answers, no stern advice that will absolve him of this disquiet. a man cant help but feel what he feels and sometimes he feels without reason. i know this too.

when he asked me, in all seriousness, if it would ever end, i said i didnt think so. but then i added that, from experience [and lord knows ive experienced the loss of a woman] i do know that he will eventually be able to live with it. its just time and logic and slow, gradual feelings of rebirth. eventually, i said, you'll look back on things and that black streak of mean on your heart will have paled and you will still be bitter but you wont feel lonely and you'll say to yourself, well, i guess i needed to go through that.

he said thanks for that advice and i said no problem. but deep down i was unsure if what i said was true because deep down i dont know. i dont know. but its nice to try and help a friend.

spare squares

there is a guy that lurks up and down my block, asking everybody for a cigarette. he doesnt look entirely homeless, but he also doesnt look as if he has the mental capacity to work or pay any bills. he is white and wears glasses. he must be in his forties or so.

now, my neighborhood isnt a haven for the homeless by any means. In fact, there are only one or two or three that i ever see regularly. There is a guy that stands in front of the corner market around the block from my crib, that always ask for change before you enter the store.

[He annoys the hell out of me. you cant walk through the doors with out him pleading with you to either drop him some loot on the way in, or suggesting you break him off when you exit. it bugs me to no end that he does this. i do not need a brief over view of my many options on how to distribute spare change to the homeless. i know that if i do not have any change on the way in, there is a possibility i will on the way out. do not remind me of this. it is as if i have to pay a toll every time i need a half gallon of milk]

and there is the guy who stands in front of the bodega at the Q train stop, who injects such a desperation into his pleas for money its hard for me to look him in the eye as i pass. He is even worse than the corner market guy, because he usually is wearing clothes that look slightly better than mine. and the way he begs, PLEASE spare me some change mister, PLEASE! he approaches it as if you are his last and only option. his voice and tone suggest that you are his final hope, that if he doesnt get any spare change from you, he will never get any spare change ever. He does this to everyone that passes, which reduces the effect, but still, it gets to me.

and then there is the cigarette guy.

ive seen the cigarette guy once with someone else, a woman that looked his age. He had a cigarette that day, and she was loading a car with groceries. he wasnt helping, just stood there taking his short, intense drags and staring blankly into the city streets. i wouldnt have even known they were together if she hadnt told him to get in the car as she piled away the final bag in her trunk. I still have no idea who she was, and it was the only time i ever saw her.

i always see him though, and he always ask me if i have a spare cigarette. he ask EVERYBODY that passes him. He stands on the stoops of our neighborhood and request a smoke from whoever walks by. Old women. Teenagers. Cops. Toddlers. Parents. Me. he doesnt care if they dont look like they smoke, you could be being wheeled by in an iron lung and he'd try to make eye contact and put two fingers to his lips and mouth the words "gotta smoke?" He is shameless. too shameless. Thats why i assume he isnt all there.

sometimes, if i have one, ill give him a cigarette. i asked him once if he wanted me to roll him one and he looked confused and walked away. i guess he prefers filters. i havent seen him in a while. maybe its been too cold. but the old lady got a carton of smokes from mexico and if i do see him i think im gonna run out and hand him one.

big kahuna burger

i stopped eating breakfast about ten or eleven years ago. not to say it was ever a cornerstone in my diet, but at some point i do remember waking up and having a meal on a somewhat regular basis. then i sort of stopped.

the way it happened was gradual. i dont know for sure, but i would guess the introduction of coffee into my routine helped curb my morning hunger. that is probably when it began. this was back when i was still going to raves, before i had both of my turntables, and a 3 bedroom apartment in san francisco went for just under $1000 a month. i was working at a new age gift shop in the marina district, selling zen rock gardens, tranquil water fountains, and crystals with promised healing powers to yuppies searching for their soul. i started drinking coffee then for the same reason i did most things, because i thought it was expected of me.

well, that and ive just never been a morning person.

anyway, once i would get my first cup down my appetite was wrapped. i wouldnt be hungry for anything save nicotine for the next five or six hours. sometimes, if i had to work long and i didnt have the time or money to eat, id just have another cup of coffee and be done with it. eventually, i just stopped caring about breakfast or lunch all together.

then came the drugs.

id already been indulging in a myriad of drugs by that time, from psychedelics to amphetamines to the daily consumption of weed and alcohol, but at some stage during this time -this new age crystal in a cheap, deckless apartment time- i upped the intake. we were young and excited about tomorrow. i was good friends and co-workers with this girl and her gay roommate and we would retire to their studio apartment downtown and drink wine and chop lines until the sun rose, then go to work together.

me and the girl would sometimes have awkward sex before we left to work while he would try to sleep in the closet, which was also his bedroom. or we would all just sit around polishing off bottles of cheap cabernet and wait until it was almost time to leave and snort the last line off the back of a janes addiction cd.

this got to be pretty regular, and eventually it would get to the point where by the time i ate anything, at any time of day, my stomach was so small from starving itself that i could only swallow a few bites before being uncomfortably stuffed and pushing back my plate. i lived on coffee and cigarettes and crystal meth. if i thought about food and it wasnt convenient for me to eat, i would smoke a cigarette. if it was convenient for me to eat then id get a toasted poppy bagel with herbed cream cheese and eat half of it before throwing the rest away.

this went on for years.

i just, through drug use, the reliance of coffee, eating in simple bites, and my own general indifference towards food, systematically crushed any semblance of a normal appetite i would ever have. even when my drug use lessened, and the excitement of being high was reduced from a joy shared with friends to an embedded habit that just came with the territory of my lifestyle, i remained uninspired by eating. it became utilitarian. something you did when there was nothing else you could do.

it actually grew into a nuisance. an obstacle one must hurdle in order to get through their day. i would dread getting hungry. i treated hunger like a thief. it stole my time. my day. my energy. i would try to eat the smallest, densest meal, as quickly as a could just to get it over with. i grew an aversion towards food in general. the very sight of a big, american plate of food sickened me. i began to drink fruit smoothies, just to stave off the threat of appetite.

this is when i was younger though, and now i dont have much of a problem with food. i actually look forward to a good meal every now and again. but i still dont eat breakfast. i just cant bring myself to that level of commitment. this morning, when i woke up, i made a pot of coffee and rolled myself a cigarette. i thought about maybe making myself a bowl of cereal, or even going to the coffee shop and getting myself a bagel, but figured that was more of a hassle than i was prepared to face. some things, i suppose, never change.

fools gold

ive got the night off. i havent had a thursday free in i dont know how long. ages, i guess.

i could use the money but i could also use the time. ive been out of sorts the last few days. its time to organize. its time to narrow down my focus, ive got too many peripherals, too many urges, too many distractions. i just have to focus on the real prizes, all the rest is fools gold.

and today the cold light of winter sun has attached itself to the streets of brooklyn. it will be in this crisp, damp weather that i run my errands and then sit on my stoop smoking cigarettes and decoding the future.

i got my hair cut yesterday. i look sexier than i did when i was eight years old and ask any pedophile that prowled the san francisco streets during the 80's and they'll tell you: i was a sexy fucking eight year old.

so tonight me and my new haircut and my new stern focus on life will be taking work off. i will watch LOST and, for a moment, try to decrypt the islands mysteries. then i will gather my wits and try not to lose myself in all that is meaningless. i will focus on words then, but only those with significance, only those with a gravity in them. and i will listen to music and in this music i will find some semblance of peace.

where my heart be at?

i think i miss San Francisco. i think i long for my home. i find my mind in dark places and just wish i could be there, starving and desperate, crawling along the hills on a crisp wet night. the city took such care of me for so long, and for so long i ignored it. i ignored the spectacular inclines, the miraculous sunrises and the bruised sky tangled between morning and night. i was young and i would ignore how safe i had become in the alleyways there, i would just parade up and down them searching for a charge. for lower class kicks. and i would get those too.

maybe its because i'm going to be writing about the city. about the years the city gave me and the years it took away. maybe its because i want to but cant start writing about the city. or maybe its that i cant stop writing about the city. maybe thats all i have in me and nothing else. the echo's of love and rage from a city thousands of miles away. but it rushes through me, the thought of san francisco. it shudders in my bones, and i cant help it. i cant help but miss her. im glad im going back in a few weeks. i wonder if its changed?

my head has been in a different place lately. ive been preoccupied with music and writing and working and women. always the same thing, it never changes. ive been writing poetry lately, which i havent done in years (since the days of suicide and painted fingernails), and listening to heavy songs over and over and over again. i cant seem to write prose though.

maybe thats a good thing.

ive gotta hit a meeting, this post may or may not get finished.