NYC Writings

"...Alert level orange."

That's Hartsfield's public address system, channelling the voice of our Homeland Security Admninistration. It's been following me since I left home, first as reports of a new terrorist plot foiled in Brittain and calmly reported by MARTA's new televisions, then watching from the eyes of sldiers and security as we check our bags, the underwhelming voice of panic broadcast every 4 minutes through hidden airport speakers, and finally in the murmur of my fellow concerned passendgers aboard slowly groaning flight 364.

It's comforting to wake on the plane later, remember the armeggedon trumpets which gathered and sang us airborn. I've always enjoyed the idea of endings, and I find the other passengers in complete agreement. We share bits of information from CNN and the BBC, murmer and coo as the plane rocks suddenly halfway through the flight.

I'm in the park now, sitting on a rock with a good view of New York and the resevoir. The branches around me stream against a steady wind North from the water; occassional joggers are propelld by that same wind and I feel my thoughts similarly tumbled. This may be a story about myself.

I had meant to continue discussing endings - my notes from that paragraph read "more, mistakes, eternity".

"How long have you smoked?"
"...Since a long time ago."
"Since college?"
"Highschool."
"Oh."
Jake glances at the light. We've been dancing in place waiting for the walk signal since his third puff.
"Does it bother you?"
"No. It's like... you know the smell of coffee?"
"Yeah."
"It's like that."

I feel sometimes as if each sentence, paragraph, word is a new scene. You may shuffle or distort or gramatize them, but the author's intent is the same between incomprehensible original and incomprehensible end.

A pause to watch the cat chase a fly. My cousin Jake enters with gifts, and we discuss writing. He's written and illustrated a children's book - I read as he drinks the gift. We're listening to Chicago spoken word jazz as I write. The jazzist sets words like sticks between a bicycle's spokes.

Everyone starts smoking in college. I feel the pull stronger in this city, which reeks of smoke long after the real smokers have died. Walking over a subway grate today at 58th and 5th, I saw a Golgatha of butts beneath my feet.

Already started planning it, smoking. Give in around finals of my Junior year. Some good nights on the porch, anxious pacing outside the library, drunken fumblings after some concert, and finally the girl I started seeing in grad school convinces me to quit with her. End of smoking phase.

Waking now and I can still feel the pull of that umbilical cord, strange attachment to dream. I'll be spending the weekend with my rich cousins in the Hamptons. Expect a few paragraphs of scathing social criticism after that adventure.

The guy who sings the song about the horse with no name is on the radio. We've been swimming and sunning all day. A New York West Hampton Summer sun - surprisingly cold. Could use some coffee. Moving, thinking snow - I'm sorry, slow. You see how it still grips me, especially the craggy ridges of my fingertips. Don't worry, I'm still thinking of endings. Got a sort of tip in that direction last night from the brother, who is tall, handsome, and crippled in the same way as the man at 14,000 feet who doesn't remember packing his parachute. In this case, the man's jumped out of his plane.

Again, my apologies. Didn't really think that analogy through ahead of time.