last night i was walking down 59th street with friend after purchasing two 40s and a pack of swisher sweets at the deli (you can take the girls out of brooklyn, but...)
i interestingly noted that thus far on our walk not one but two expensive cars had pulled over onto the shoulder and gestured and honked at us. friend was talking, friend didn't notice. we kept walking. i didn't say anything, but thought to myself, "damn! and here we are, mere blocks from the UN. crazy."
we both saw her at the same time - loitering in the doorway, neither hunched nor brazen, full of a quiet confidence. she had mounds of fake blonde hair, a perfect spray-on tan, and (of course) high, spiked heels. her dress was tight, but not skin-tight; the pale lavender lame clung to her curves and had cutouts in all of the right places. i was immediately struck by how genuinely pretty she was - her round, eastern european face had a simplicity about it, a fresh youthfulness, even under her makeup. and her expression sticks with me, even now: she did not look ashamed, she did not look reticent. instead, she looked exactly like what she probably actually was - a young girl, aware of her own mind, slightly bored, calmly waiting for her next job. her john. her trick. (i wonder what she calls them in her own mind?)
a few beats past her we exploded into whispers.
"i wanted to ask her how she was, how her night was going!"
"i know, wow, i wish we could talk to her!"
and why couldn't we? after all, as my favourite lyric goes, "the space between people and things is empty." this is true. but, i am also a foucauldian. this means - this means what? what is the space between objects filled with, and who dictates it? (exactly. the space is filled with this question, and in each interaction we decide the answer for ourselves. of course, a lot of different things tell us what to think).
subjectivization ain't easy, but it's necessary (?)
...depends, of course, on who you ask. psychoanalysis says yes! but how would one define "necessary?"
i've been doing more art lately. i thought, somehow, that picking up pencil and paper would school me in the basics, ease me back in slowly, help me feel less like... like this image i keep getting in my mind. i'm a philosopher, sure, but i've cut off my left arm. it's on the floor, lifeless. i didn't want to do it, but it seemed necessary (there's that word again!). and i'm looking at it. i want to pick it up, graft it back on to me, however crudely, but i seem to know that that is impossible.
and doing more art made me feel, at first, oddly enough, like a torso with no arms, looking down at all of these starts and beginnings (and arms) on the ground. and i kinda got freaked out about it, after that. but now the arms are back on, and they work, although it still hurts excruciatingly at times. i tell myself to think about it like jogging, that it always sucks ass in the beginning. (sucks ass, i'm so nice to myself.) okay - what am i talking about? and why i am blogging about it? both are excellent questions.
those guys that honked at us looked like such douche bags. i hope she's ok, that her night was okay. what else can i do, say?
serious friend is coming to town this week, and i'm busy working out the itinerary. this is the sort of thing one blogs about, i suppose, where one plans on taking good friends who come a-visiting the five boroughs. i will definitely say that the places one thinks of while planning this sort of thing is quite illustrative of the relationship one has with this fair city. interestingly i sense a real aspect of escapism inherent in all of my choices - a picnic in the woods of central park, a walking tour of my neighborhood, fetish clothing shopping in the village, coney island, a between-the-wars-themed costume party in park slope, my favourite vietnamese restaurant, my vintage shopping trail, drinking on the staten island ferry, etc.
but i suppose that is the magic of the city - that one can escape it while never leaving it.
hmmm. i like that. i like that.
i think i'll end on that note.
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3 comments:
Hmm, I like very much this idea of escapism in the city. Good show.
I said hi to the ocean for you, but it did not say anything back ... though there were many clear-and-brown-stained jellyfish this time. When they die, the brown disappears and they wash up on the sand and look like an Asian gummy. And then I want to eat them.
There's perhaps some symbolism there, but the dog is making me take him to the park. We can work on it later.
what's to work on? i think that asian gummies, much like fashion hot dogs, stand on their own.
now say hi to trumer-pup for me. does he still like to give the other dogs oral pleasure?
You know it! Only in his advanced age, he has begun to initiate the pleasurin'. So going to the dog park is always never embarrassing. How could it be, when my dog has his face up another's behind?
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