Get Street Poetry Off the Street.

Today I went to the bank. Generally it wouldn’t matter where I went today but I swear there is a story here.

So, today while walking to the bank, I saw, from across the street, a hippie (with a dog), pestering people. He was basically standing right in front of the bank so I knew there was no possible way of avoiding this guy. I had no idea what he wanted (besides money) or what his special skill set was in which to acquire the money (because in Boulder you can’t just ask, you have to dance for your dollars).

I wait at the light. I look behind me to see if there are any suckers that can distract him from me.

No one.

I know he sees me, like it’s the fucking national geographic channel and some crazy animal shit is about to go down.

The white-light-man tells me I can walk. When I am almost to him:

“Can I read you a poem,” The Hippie asks.

A poem? Really? That’s your dance? You want to read people poems?

Dude, don’t you realize that people go out of there way to avoid poems, and they are definitely not going to stand on the street in 35 degree weather to listen to one.

“No.” I replied. Because I did not want to listen to his stupid ass poem.

“What?” he asked as if he was shocked and appalled by the idea that no one wanted to hear his poems.

“NO!” I repeated.

He shrugs and asks someone else who has so graciously decided to walk by.

I enter the bank.

The tellers at this particular bank are so incredibly friendly it’s almost disgusting. I’m depositing a check and the young woman asks me about the weather.

“It’s cold.”

She then proceeds to ask me about my weekend.

“I have no plans.”

The teller is surprised by my answer as I must look so much cooler to her than I actually am.

“Well, she says, “sometimes it’s nice to not have to do anything and just chill out.”

“Yeah,” I reply, “except that’s not really…um, well, sure. Actually I’m just lame.”

The young teller woman, must obviously have a girl’s night out planned with margaritas or martinis followed by late night dancing at the club/grinding on some hotties followed by a late hot tub dip, and then concluding with passing out on silk sheets—Only to wake up to mimosas and a spa day followed by another night (with her man this time) full of martinis, fancy dinners and tango dancing.

So the Teller with the Plans hurries up my deposit as quickly as her fancy fingers can, smiles, and says, “well, Happy Friday!”

Happy Friday indeed. I left, did some other shit. Then of course, on my way home, I had to encounter the HIPPIE again. This time I was stuck right next to him at the light.

“Want to hear a poem this time around?” He asks coyly.

“No. I sure don’t.”

“Why? Are you afraid you’ll fall in love today?”

Yes. Hippie. That’s exactly it. I’m afraid I’ll fall in love with poetry and then I’ll have to go to all those fucking open mic nights and slit my wrists and dye my hair black and talk while snapping my fingers. How did you guess it?

Actually the real reason that I don’t want to hear your hippie poem is because I don’t want to have to tell you that it sucks. Because it does. I can already tell just my looking at your haircut. And after you read it to me, and look at me with those sad hippie eyes, well then you’re going to ask for a dollar. And I can’t pay for bad poetry. Why don’t you go inside the bank and ask the Teller with all the Plans if she wants to hear your poem.

Because I could tell by looking in her fancy eyes that she is totally ready to fall in love today. In fact, she was ready to fall in love yesterday. And there is no other way to fall in love then through hippie street poetry.

A Moment to Remember: A Redline Tale

On the redline today, two semi-to-completely retarded men were having an obnoxiously loud conversation that the entire train car could hear. Most of the riders immediately began ignoring the men. But then about 3 stops in, out of nowhere really, this woman screams "WOULD YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP???!" She then goes into this minute long rant about how annoying they were and how they were giving her a headache. It was perhaps one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. This woman has completed a very common fantasy of mine: telling the annoying people around her exactly what she thinks...--a vicarious moment sure-but none the less a worthwhile experience.

Now, if I could only find someone who would push cement-hogs off sidewalks...

Color is Necessary for Life

Walking down the street in Andersonville last Saturday I was pounced upon by two men looking for interviews, besides them really just assuming I wanted to talk to them and rushing the recording process, I was intrigued by the topic. What did these two men want to bother me about in the dead of winter and what would make me actually stop in the dead of winter and stand in it longer than expected? COLOR.

Wearing a purple coat, green scarf, carrying a rainbow beaded bag, I am sure I stuck out as a perfect candidate for an interview on the subject. The men claimed it was to determine my "color" personality, though when I finished they didn't tell me what my color personality was--I probably don't want to know...it probably means I'm narcissistic and egotistic and overly sentimental or some snap-shit I don't want to admit to. But I do like the idea of thinking about how color affects one's day, one's life.

And I do believe you can tell quite a bit about a person by the colors they choose to align themselves with. I for one, like bold rich colors. Others like pastels, others like beiges and browns and grays. The colors I choose are dynamic. They can stand alone, they can accent or be the center, they don't fuck around. I believe that when people stop thinking about color their lives become boring. I'm not talking about color literally--though that is important too--I'm talking about glitterizing one's life--about making sure there is sparkles and shimmers and radiance every day...that even when it is cement gray outside that there is yellow sunshine happening in the glimmer of one's eyes.

So, in the end, when they asked how color affects my life--the only thing I could think of was that it is completely necessary... and I can't imagine living without it... this isn't a Leave-it-to-Beaver-world, life isn't in black and white, it's full of vibrancy, which makes it beautiful and worth breathing through every day just to see it.

A Maniac in Green Eye Shadow

We had to take public transportation to band practice because it was finally too cold to walk. On the bus I sat in the very back. I did this because Ryan was carrying a lot of shit and because I like to keep an observant eye of the bus crowd, just in case.

The bus was in no means packed. In fact, it had many open seats. But for some reason, out of nowhere, this older woman came all the way in the back and sat down right beside me. At first I was pissed. Why do people have to do that? Don’t they have any concept of personal space? But, then I started to get creeped out. I looked at her. Then I looked at myself. I was wearing a purple coat with black gloves and dark pants. She was wearing a black coat with purple gloves and purple pants. We both owned black off-brand chucks. I immediately begin thinking that she sat down right beside me because she was a symbol of my older self. Then I really wanted to know what she looked like, but I didn’t want her to catch me staring. I started to get paranoid. I begin wondering how I could casually look over there without her noticing or thinking I was doing it deliberately.

But I really wanted to know what my hair was going to look like 40 years down the road. So. Finally. I did it. The woman was sporting a dyed red beehive… she had on green eye shadow. How could this not be my future?

I didn’t really know what to do next. Should I initiate a conversation and ask her about her life? Her likes, dislikes? Her eye shadow provider?

I didn’t know. I then begin to think that I must be going nuts. I begin to come to grips with the fact that in the future (if not already) I must be nuts. This woman next to me, must be nuts and I probably shouldn’t talk to her. So, I didn’t.

Later, I brought up this whole situation to Ryan. He told me that woman always sits there no matter what. I thought aHA, she is a crazy person, a crazy person who has given herself an assigned seat on public transportation.

And I guess I’m just an egomaniac for thinking the crazy old lady in the purple pants with the green eye shadow has anything to do with me.

(Now, if only I could lose the ego; I’d just be a maniac, and then I would have been right all along. muhahaha.)

Dare to Dumpster Dive

Opps. I did it again. I fell in a dumpster and came out with a bunch of badass shit. Here are just a few of the examples. My ugly red floral shirt that I transformed into a cute strapless dress, a new skirt and of course this rockstar jumper dress that I can barely move it, but makes me feel moviestar chic...
so there you have it kids, 3 of many amazing finds. Stay tuned to see more. When I say stay tuned I mean hang out with me some day and I'll probably be wearing one of the other items. It's alleycat fashion and it's FREE. Besides the whole washing and drying expense.

Another day another dumpster. (techinically found in a box of clothing outside a dumpster, but techinicality is not an issue here).

Perhaps some day I'll tell you all my semi-profession dumpster diving secrets, but not until I leave the beauty that is wasteful-captialist Chicago.

Homeless Hamperings

I have to be completely honest here. I may be the only one of this opinion, but I am offended and slightly perturbed at homeless men and their sexism. I don not understand why they are being picky about who they’re getting their money from, but they seem to not care to get it from women. For example, every time I am walking with Ryan down any street in the city these are the three sentences we hear from homeless men:

1) Sir, can you spare some change.

2) Excuse me, sir, change?

2) Change, sir?

It makes no difference what side I am to Ryan or whether he is ahead of behind me. Homeless men assume that women have no extra money to throw away. I don’t know how to take this. In one way it makes me think that they’re just trying to be respectful, but in another way I assume they think of me lower than men and incapable of making my own money and deciding on my own free will what I want to do with it. I know these men have a strategy surrounding where they locate themselves and who they target, but does it hurt to ask everyone all they’re going to do is deny or hand something over.

I know it’s heartless and probably a bit egotistical for me to be offended by homeless men, but they’re the ones sitting around on every street I walk by reinforcing the patriarchy and the system that helped get them there in the first place.

Walking with the Angel of Death

I went on the strangest walk today. It was raining, not pouring down rain or sprinkling rain but regular rain rain so I brought an umbrella. Not my umbrella mind you, an umbrella I need to return to a friend but haven’t because I haven’t bought another one since mine died.

In any case I decided to go for a walk and return my Netflix movies all the way to the post office instead of just down the block. I thought it would be refreshing and help cure my hang-over since the dude leaf-blowing for three hours this morning didn’t really help (as if there are so many leaves in the middle of the summer, ass).

So, I’m walking in the regular rain, just a regular walk no one too irritating, no one from England etc. and I get to the post office and this woman is sitting in her car parked in front of those blue things that eat envelopes and she yells at me out her window. She asks if I mind letting one of those blue things eat her card she’s mailing and I oblige and put it in the blue thing’s mouth. She thanks me and I think I’m doing a good deed, helping someone out, but then my mind turns cynical and I think about how freaking lazy that woman was for not being able to get out of her own car and walk two steps, how she was probably sitting there waiting for the next innocent bystander to walk by so she wouldn’t have to. I sigh, and let it go and try to go back to my original thought about me doing a good deed, but it was nevertheless futile.

Then I start walking back towards my apartment and I hit a red hand in my face telling me not to cross the street so I wait. And as I wait this man strolls up beside me in a black cloak with the hood up. He has a big brown beard and big bushy brown hair (I imagine that’s what it looks like with the hood down anyway) and he’s wearing sandals and you can see that his toenails are too-many-cigarettes yellow and gnarled like the roots of a very old tree. The red hand turns into a white dude and allows us to cross. The hooded cloaked guy scurries along, walking way faster than me which is odd because generally I walk faster than everyone, but also odd because of the horror movie monster way he’s moving—as in it doesn’t look like he’s walking fast, but somehow he’s already a block ahead of me.

Right when I start thinking about him being the next Jesus another dark figure appears behind me, like the shadow of death. Then I start thinking how the black cloaked dude probably isn’t Jesus but is probably the Death Angel and the dark shadowed dude behind me is going to kill me and I’m going to die hung-over not wearing any underwear.

Then I understand why I don’t smoke weed. I am paranoid enough as it is.

The dark shadowed dude disappears along with the Angel of Death (obviously after someone else today and I just got in their path) and some old white dude yells at me across the street wanting directions. Which I then had to ridiculously yell back over the traffic. But I can put that down as two helpful deeds in one day, which means I don’t have to be helpful for at least another year (although I’m sure I will be just out of the goodness of my heart).

Yay to strange walks in the rain!

I'll Roller Blade You!

Yesterday

Walking to the lake I came across a mob of children. Children in mobs, as you can imagine, do not know how to proceed in a linear fashion and enjoy dilly daddling around the sidewalk in no hurry to get to their final destination—which sounds beautiful in theory, but is awful to encounter in person, especially when there is a big chunk of them in the way.

Anyhoo, in this group two of the boys were on rollerblades. Rollerblades. Now, what mother in their sane mind believes it appropriate or even half-way safe to put wheels on 10 year old boys’ feet? And who was in their sane mind to invent wheels on shoes? Sure they’re great on bikes and work decently well on automobiles, but do we need them on the bottom of our feet? Don’t most humans have a hard enough time walking properly to begin with? Do they need extra encouragement to proceed down the path of destruction and pain?

Because that is exactly what happened to this ten-year old child. He didn’t quit know how to blade in the rollers and was more stomping the ground like an angry meek monster than moving at any type of flowing pace. He saw me coming. But there was a mob remember and I couldn’t exactly move out of each and every one of their ways. They were coming AT me I tell you. And, of course, he fell down, right on his elbows. It was rather an eloquent thump to the ground and he didn’t even cry, he was stunned, and I believe slightly embarrassed. I just looked at him like he was crazy and attempted to keep walking as if I didn’t see it, but the mob just stopped in its path. They were frozen, starring at a friend lost to the dooming antagonistic sidewalk.

The “grown-up” of the group (obviously not grown-up enough as to allow ten year old boys to put wheels on their feet) ran over to reassure, protect, and comfort him. It was one of those philosophically brain numbing events where I play it back in my head over and over thinking how rude I was to just watch him fall and not even ask if he was okay; but then again I don’t like children.

They frighten me, the worst thing would have been if we had to have a conversation and if that conversation led him to wanting to be my BFF. Or if he would have said it was all my fault because he saw me right before he fell, then the “grown-up” would try to sue me, when all I was doing was trying to go to the lake and get a little fucking relaxation, which alas can never happen because to get to the lake I have to walk by hooligans with wheels on their feet or homeless people who want 50 cents for a hamburger, for which I wouldn’t give for multiple reasons besides the fact that I never have 50 cents on me when I’m going to the lake for the very reason so I don’t have to give my money to homeless people and so I can’t feel bad about it because I don’t have it on me. Whoo.

And so that is what happened yesterday.

Oh and speaking of rollerblades, the other day when I went for a walk, another woman thought it was a good idea to put her 4-year-old boy in rollerblades, never mind the fact that he could barely walk or keep his pants above his ass. Plus she had to push him as she was holding him upward; it was in every sense of the word awkward.

Move Over or I'll Plow You....

My biggest pet peeve is people and since that’s vague my second biggest pet peeve is people who do not understand sidewalk etiquette. They drive me absolutely mad and it happens on a daily basis. I cannot leave my apartment without someone being incredibly and totally obnoxious. Since I find this so problematic I decided the best way to release my anger-filled energy toward them is to write about them. Sometimes funny, weird or interesting things happen as well so I’ll include those to even things out. I plan to do this as often as it occurs but here are the ones from the last few days.

July 11 2009

I was walking to the Devon market (the best grocery store for fresh products around) and as I was crossing the street and I ended up behind this woman about my age in a bright red dress, she had big curly brown shoulder length hair and was drinking a cold coffee beverage. Everything seemed normal at first and she was walking a decent pace, but then she started singing to herself. She didn’t have a i-pod, she was just singing and walking in really loud flip flops.

Now perhaps I’m prejudice about people who sing to themselves in public without any music, but I’m pretty sure everyone who does it is crazy. Singing alone in the privacy of your own apartment while cleaning the dishes or taking a shower makes sense, but out in the open is too Disney Princess for me.

Finally I got around her thinking she was just weird and perhaps too happy, but then all I could hear was her swooshing flip flops following me and my brain about imploded with the sound and the idea that birds and squirrels may actually follow her around until she marries her prince.

I made it into the safety of the store and was saved from a flip out from her flip flops.

July 12 2009

Everything so far had been peaceful. Ryan and I were walking along the lake front in the evening all the way from Granville to Bryn Mawr. We got on a trail to turn around and happened to end up behind two little old ladies. Every time one of the women took a step she farted. And it was loud. It was impossible not to crack up laughing. We had to turn around and go the other way.

July 14, 2009

I was coming back from a long run. I was tired and just trying to focus on my breathing. For some strange reason the sidewalk on my return journey off the trail was completely packed with people, but they were generally respectful of the other people around them; except these two women perhaps a few years younger than me who were walking on the sidewalk like they were from England or something. They weren’t moving to the other side. A step away before I plowed over them they finally moved; but that wasn’t the end. Right as I was passing the woman furthest from me she stuck out her arm and tried to stick her hand in my face. If I wasn’t utterly taken aback and exhausted I probably would have confronted her. As I told Ryan upon my return, interruption of my personal space has gone too far; before I leave Chicago I know I’m going to punch someone in the face. I’ve never actually punched anyone. I’ve done a lot of double time taebo practice though so they’re going to regret f-ing with me. Word.