I Walked Around After Work
i got home an hour later than usual.
i thought about a lot of the people i have known.
sometimes there were big blue signs. sometimes there was the smell of marijuana being smoked. i saw the joint in a man's hand on houston and first avenue. a lot of the time you could see into the bars, see that they were filled with people who were sitting down, eating, talking and drinking i guess. one bar had live music. it was loud, a lot of drums.
i walked through the greenwich village, the village, and the east village, little italy, soho, and some of chinatown. everything was closed except for bars, restaurants and bodegas.
i looked at a lot of people, felt sure of things, mistakes, of negative feelings - a little unsure of my own negative feelings.
a woman came out of a bar wearing a tight shirt and make-up. she was walking with her breasts pointing, arched out, her face expressionless. i had been in that bar before. i think i was forced to dance. what happened? i used to like to dance. i don't like to feel like i have to dance. i didn't like that bar i think.
the train is not coming now, they said it wasn't coming, people are acting like it's not coming. being forced to dance. i think there was an explosion underground.
i looked in peoples cars when i was walking around and thought about what it would be like to be in the cars with those people. the people were either all girls, or like two guys. the girls were smoking cigarettes. they were going places quickly.
some restaurants had a lot of people and some were empty, patron wise. one restaurant which had a lot of space and was open to the street, had a suited man sitting at a table on the sidewalk. he told a mexican worker to do something and the mexican asked him a question and the man looked away and put his cigar in his mouth. he looked disgruntled or frustrated.
people are drinking from flasks on the subway.
a man outside a 'packed' restaurant, just down the block from the other restaurant, held a menu and looked worried. that was little italy, mulberry street.
on some blocks i was alone except for a person a few feet in front or behind me. at one point, on chrystie and something, near the manhattan bridge, i turned around.
i went in one station and it had no train service. i had to walk to broadway lafayette and go north and get a different train to brooklyn.
i am not sure why i walked around after work instead of going straight to my apartment. i wanted to feel like i experienced things outside of myself and my routines i think.
i had been to all the places before. some were new, like one or two blocks over from where i have walked before on the same types of excursion.
i thought about what i might say to some of the people. i thought about what i would say to people i know if they were with me. when you see different people you feel different. overall, i maintained a constant feeling of dissatisfaction, unrest, disinterest. i felt like i was forcing or willing myself to observe things, to not think in words, to try and forget words.
i felt feelings of unrequited-ness, coming from different sources, coming from my locations, situations. each person i saw seemed like far away. sometimes i looked at them a long time until they acknowledged me.
a man is reading 'political theology'. a man is sleeping. a woman eating cheetos or something. people are drinking from flasks, small water bottles. why do the subways always strand me.
how long have they been this bad?
is this because the economy?
should i be writing about these things? should i be writing about more advanced things, ideas. likes as if i know and understand everything perfectly, as if i can predict feelings, the economy, individual people's actions. if so i feel like everything would be a metaphor for my more perfect understanding of those things and the complete-understanding of them via my mental superiority to life, to my worldview and other's.
a man is selling dvds and announcing them.
where is my own, unique voice. did i need to say 'my own' - is just unique enough.
why is there train traffic now if it took the train ten minutes to arrive while i was at the platform.
i think i just thought of nothing, but cannot be sure.
nothing feels like a sheet of metal, looks like the surface of metal pushing outwards.
i want dunkin donuts. i see a bag from there.
i want coffee.
the air was foggy. manhattan felt like it was floating through nova scotia in the summer at night, the hudson bay. the night was mild in terms of how people collectively felt or acted i felt.
people sped off in their shiny air conditioned sedans, searching.
i stared at a toys-R-us bag and thought about how i might be dwelling on sadness and negativity.
if i bring up negativity or bad feelings or even think bad feelings you will act pissed and make a noise. i have heard those stressed noises. i don't know why you make those noises. you will make a distressed face too. you will turn and walk away.
i feel like i am forcing my ideas out. this is unproductive.