No one told me that an iPod would change my life. No one told me that my walks to the bus were unnecessarily dull and drab. That I could live in a world of swirling music instead of a world of overheard car radios and the tubercular hacking of the homeless. But now… Now, my life has a soundtrack everywhere I go. 14.something GB of music for my listening pleasure on random, or repeat, or one song at a time. No more do I walk down the street with my own twisted miserable thoughts crashing around in my brain. Now the wait at the bus stop is pleasant and carefree! The old bald dudes waiting for vocational training at Walden House don’t walk up and ask me for my phone number hoping to take me to lunch or a movie! My Raymond Chandler novel is uninterrupted by the homegirls on the bus! (“I’m gonna kill that bitch! That bitch betta watch her back! Serious! Fuck that bitch!” Always a pleasant morning experience). Cute boys can send me mp3s and I can listen to them and feel special when I should be working instead!
I am your target demographic and I have bought into your marketing and I don’t even care.
I went and saw SuperSize Me the other night. I liked it. It was funny and gross and it made me feel healthy for cooking at home, eating vegetables, preferring reasonable portion sizes.
Immediately after seeing the movie, I went and got a cheeseburger and some fries at McDonalds.
Denial ain't just a river in Egypt... It's a place I visit every damn day.
I always thought I was on the outside looking in, until I turned around and saw everyone else was out here.
Holiday. Chinese food. People who really like you. People who will run down the sidewalk rather than miss the bus, who go on adventures to walk and play tourist and hunt for striped socks, stop to stare at skunks and feral cats and sea lions. People who will stop and listen to street musicians playing banjos and make small talk between songs. People who end up buying too much saltwater taffy, are willing to use public restrooms, and don’t care if you’re cranky after 4 hours in the sun surrounded by 10,000 actual tourists.
Cold wind on your shoulders that isn’t quite cold enough to make you wear a sweatshirt. Wind that’s just cold enough and the hot sun that makes you take the sweatshirt off again. The hot sun that warms the sidewalk and filters through your eyelashes. The sun that releases all that vitamin D, ages your skin and creates smile lines. The sun that amplifies a chuckle and turns it into the laughter of summer.
Beer. Neighbors. Friends who walk you home, give you a hug, pat you on the back. The fun time you meant to be having all those other times you thought you were supposed to be having fun. A mutual forgetting of person, place, thing. Wondering where you went off course and realizing there’s no need to worry about it. Ease instead of effort. An exhale instead of a pensive look. That’s just how it goes.
Will you still have moments where your breath catches and your heart seizes in fear and you’re too scared to keep your eyes open? You will. But the sun and the people and the exhale come again after. And they keep coming.
And that’s life.