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1.
The number four bus, the bus I take, smells like the armpit of a seventy year old fry cook. It’s by far the sketchiest bus that I’ve ever taken, filled with twitching people, homeless people, old people, costumed people, and me. Sometimes I wonder where I fall into place in the great universal measure of sketch.
2.
“Hate is a lack of imagination.” –Graham Greene
On the bus I once sat next to a mentally disabled boy. Throughout the ride, he would alternate between relaxing his entire body on me and leaning his head on my shoulder. I felt a bit violated. Anger and resentment filled my stomach hot as I subtly tried to nudge him away.
I don’t like being touched on the bus by strangers even more than I don’t like being talked to on the bus by strangers. So, sitting there on my two by two foot brown square seat, I hunched and fumed.
“Hey, hey. No snuggling with strangers,” his mom chided. The mentally disabled boy shifted his weight for a second and then dropped back down.
But this time it was different. His mom’s word choice—“snuggling”—pricked my imagination. I noticed his bare, gangly arms huddled against my shoulder and I imaged how cold he must be on the air-conditioned bus. I imagined his day and what he ate for breakfast (a banana and raisin bran).
When his mom pulled the “stop requested” cord, he lifted his head from my left shoulder and took her hand. They weaved through the standing crowd. I watched them until the bus turned the corner and they were out of sight.
3.
I scribbled: “Deep down I want to be persuaded just so the actions can be explained, and I can sit here nodding before walking away. Not so deep down, I’m scared of my unanswered questions.”
It’s funny how this poem is a lie, I thought to myself as I looked out the greasy bus window, how it’s easier to regurgitate generic sentiments than tell unflinching factual truth. The dawn was breaking, and the doors slammed loud as the bus stopped and accelerated.
It’s true though, the part about lying. None of the passengers look any different from each other. There are Hawaiian shirts on the businessmen. There are averted eyes, hunched backs, pages turning, thumbs glancing off iPod spin wheels. Fat plastic watches on skinny prepubescent wrists.
It’s not that they wear the same exact clothes necessarily—there are no generic personalities—that would be ridiculous. But it’s the shifting eyes that give it away. The Roxy t-shirt girl checking out the Oneil shirt girl checking out some one else. There’s a sense of fear. I know because I’ve felt it. Everyone wants to fit in sometimes. We want to look the same, move the same, think the same. It’s so innate and strong that it’s downright primal. We are as birds flying in triangles, climbing onto buses and off buses and into the sky.
4.
My favorite part about going over the Pali every morning is that moment just before the tunnel. The bus moves with such momentum that I feel like I might hurtle off the cliff any second. I’ve thought about contingency plan after contingency plan, usually when it rains so hard all I can see is fuzzy grey rain-static. Would I want to be under the seat when it crashes? Or should I float to the ceiling with the fall? Do call my mom in the seconds before death?
5.
A fat girl was on the bus in front of me. She smelled like Longs perfume and her hair was thick, curly, and wet. It resembled a mass of black seaweed clinging to a boulder. Her body took up two seats, her thighs over flowing into the aisle. Two stops after I got on, she pulled the stop requested cord and got off. As the bus powered away in great lumbering turns, I saw her light a cigarette and lower her weight onto the bench.
6.
Crack head Santa sat behind me on the bus today. I was in the first row, window seat; he was second row aisle. With his brown tipped full beard poking through the hole between our seats, he leveled his head with mine and turned to look at me. His jacket, maybe six inches away from my nostrils, smelled like Santa had indulged in some ganja and had maybe spilled a forty on himself.
I wondered if there was a rehab center on the North Pole. I imagined their high squeaky voices saying, “Hello, Santa.” I bet he started drinking after Tim Allen played him in Chris Kringle. That was horrible. He’d probably get drunk every Christmas eve and then do some speed (just to be safe). But he really started hitting the hard stuff once Cinnamon the elf showed him how much cocaine looks like snow. A couple of lines of “snow” and he’d be merry for the rest of the night.
But that couldn’t continue for long. One day, as she was mending his best suit, Mrs. Claus found his stash sewed into the fluffy ball in his hat. She kicked him out that night. Every Christmas eve since she’s been putting on a fake beard and making the rounds.
Things weren’t so good for a homeless, drugged out Santa on the North Pole, so he moved south—to Hawaii. No one recognized his traditional outfit and it was warm, the most logical location on the globe. When Santa couldn’t afford his “snow”, and when crack prices got cheap, he got himself a real pipe and cut off his red velour pant legs. He’s made his home camping out on the stoop of “Paintballtopia” in Maikiki.
I pulled the stop requested cord and took one more look at jolly Santa: eyes rosy and cheeks shiny, he winked in my direction and promptly passed out against the window
I want to go to France so badly this summer, buy a metro card, and travel to all my French family’s houses. I want to sit in a café and drink coffee. I want to look at paintings, go to clubs, discover a new part of myself.
Right now the only thing that I know about my future is that I’m going to travel all over the world. Like in the book the Alchemist, I’m going to travel where God (or my heart) tells me to. Not on some holy messianic journey, but a treasure hunt. I’ll hunt for the answer to life, the universe and everything. So long and thanks for all the fish, I’ll say.
No but seriously, I feel that it’s something I must do. And write. I must write.
I’ll start with Europe, and I’ll end…who knows?
Scary, huh? As an added bonus, if you look on the comments page on YouTube of this video, there is a very interesting theological debate going on. I learned a lot.
Good news though: I’m going to San Francisco this weekend!! Let’s have party, a communist party! Hahaha hohoho hehehe.
I found that on SFweekly.com. I highly recommend checking it out :)
p.s. I have more to say, but I don’t have time right now. BBL
My favorite tampon advert is the one in those teen magazines where there is a woman scuba diving in crystalline waters about twenty feet down. She seems to be enjoying herself, and if it weren’t for the fifteen foot tiger shark swimming around her, I would want to be in her shoes. Underneath the picture, in big white letters, it says, “Bad time for a leak. That’s why you should use Tampax Pearls, extra triple leak protection guaranteed!”
If all things go well, I should be in her shoes in about fourteen hours. I’m going to Maui to stay with my uncle and his kids for the weekend, and I’m stoked. It’s been so long since I’ve been diving and I hope that I won’t be killed by nitrogen fixation, or by a huge tiger shark ripping apart my tender flesh with its quintessential pearly whites.
Wish me luck!
P.S. these are basically the coolest people you will ever meet
I just got back from my trip, and so I’m jet lagged, but because I like to sleep in, it’s perfect and I’m normal now. I’m usually an incredible night owl, easily staying up till the crack of dawn, but now I’m a sensible young person who goes to bed at 8:00 and wakes up at 7:30. I’m so boring. But since school starts in a couple of days I count my blessings because now I’ll finally get a good nights rest for the first day of school instead of freaking out and reading all of my text books.
I’m so happy to be home. I thought that I wouldn’t miss it that much but I actually did quite a bit. I ended up missing the little imperfections and idiosyncrasies. I realized also that when your somewhere similar to your home, you end up really liking that place. Take the Jersy shore for example. I loved Ocean City, which is basically like my home town except with a board walk (imagine a line of shops and rides next to the ocean, hundreds of foxes swarming). I fell in love with it! Philadelphia was wonderful also, but I’m not sure if I would like to live there alone. It’s busy and bustling, with countless things to do (i.e. Blonde Redhead and Wicked to see, yay!), but it’s dangerrrrous. Seven people murdered in a weekend. This is normal. Where I live we have about 30 people murdered. In a year. I have a lot of respect for my grandmother who lives there. She lives by herself in the city, and she thrives. It’s wonderful to watch.
I also visited Princeton, which was great. Daniel Radcliffe land!!! He’s going there in the fall. By some weird twist of fate, it looks exactly like Hogwarts, so I’m sure he’ll feel right at home. What I love most about Princeton is the art museum. It’s really quite amazing, with paintings from the 1400’s next to Andy Warhols and Picasso’s. I thought that was fabulous. Plus I liked the fact that they don’t have fraternities or sororities, but instead have “Food Clubs” which are basically these huge mansions filled with chefs to make whatever your heart desires. Blissful, isn’t it? That 500 pound person inside of me is smiling giddily with the application in hand.
yes, the city of brotherly love. I can’t talk long, but just giving a little update. the Jersy Shore calls.
So, as it is, I’m not actually going to New Zealand so my whole work out plan was wasted! No, it actually wasn’t wasted, to be honest, but what was wasted was my dear conscience. So no harm there, but it is really sad because I’ve been looking forward to traveling there for a really long time, and I haven’t seen snow since the new millinium. And I really wanted to see those famous LOTR hills, and eat tamtams and such.
Instead of going to New Zealand, I’m going to visit my Sane Family, as I call them. It’s my step-dad’s huge Italian family. I still haven’t met some of my cousins and one set of aunt/uncle. The thing that I’m most excited for is the huge family dinners with tons and tons of incredible home made food. I can imagine my self sitting at a twenty foot long table that’s totally filled up, and I can almost hear the exhuberent conversations and the knives and forks hitting the mismatched plates. A couple of my uncles have a beach house, so we’ll probably go down to the beach for a while and do the whole board walk rides thing, which is new for me. I know that I won’t be too impressed with the beach (obviously, because I live in Hawaii), but it sounds like a cool experience.
On other topics, possibly more important, is HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (!!!) which I finished in about 25 hours (sorry, I’m weak, I slept). It was amazing. I’ve been reading about Harry since I was 9, and our 7 year relationship is now over (sort of). It’s so sad!!! I’m not gonna go into my analysis of the book yet, because I don’t want to be a spoiler. But thankfully, I have the Pottermania’s Wizard Rock to cheer me up. Check out this site: http://www.wizardrockumentary.com/music.html
My favorites are Harry and the Potters, Draco and the Malfoys, The Moaning Myrtles, and The Whompig Willows. Ooh and also the Hermionie Crookshanks Experience.
Now I’m going back and reading all the books again. I’m about half way through the first book, and it’s so cute! I love Harry, Ron, and Hermione, they really are my younger siblings. I feel like when I read these old books, it’s sort of time traveling back to when I was younger. It makes me feel warm inside. I’m going to miss the Midnight Magic parties, and the whole experience of thinking up Theories and Ships, and writing Fan Fiction.
The Moaning Myrtles
Snape. Snape. Severus Snape. Snape. Snape. Severus Snape. DUMBLEDORE!!!!!
(potterpuppetpals.com)
I have decided to get fit. This is mainly because I’m going off to New Zzzzealand in a week and I’m going to try snowboarding for the first time in my life, so I want to be ready for some physical stuff. And also because I hear there are some foxy foxes out there.
So this is my Get Fit schedule.
Monday
Ran and did some push ups/sit ups
Tuesday
Paddling aka running, swimming, pushups, paddling with all strength humanly possible (which is a lot) for about a century
Wendsendsday
Go for a run
Thursday
Paddling
Friday
Paddling
Saturday
Yoga and possibly paddling again
Sunday
Paddling (a race).
Surf
Hopefully this will be great. If not–more organic chocolate for me please!
July 5 (7/5/07)
In first class!!!!! Great start to the trip. Dad was freaky at first (“Don’t touch my stuff!” type ranting), but when is he normal? Now he is under control, and of course many seats away from me. I made sure of that, because I didn’t exactly want his stale smell of stink next to me the whole time. Speaking of things being next to me, my old GEOMETRY teacher is next to me. The one thing that I’d looked forward to escaping is now sitting next to me chatting away. Shut up. No, really, shut up.
Right now I’m watching Criss Angel, hottie/mind freak extraordinaire. God I love him. He is truly a sex god. Yummy. Getting ready to eat, also. Double yummy.
July 6 (7/6/7)
Today is a palendrome. It started on the couch and ended on the couch. Sadly, I had to sleep next to my father and he farted a lot. S and M (LOL) are getting married tomorrow. It’s sort of weird. They’re a different kind of love from the kind I know. They have slightly more materialistic personalities, I guess. They are sweet, though. G (dad’s sister) is immature. I got the good sibling it seems, to have dad as a dad instead her as a mom. My cousin C does meth now apparently. My other cousin A is great and so is his wife. Lovely to have some sanity at the rehearsal dinner. I feel semi-detached from the wedding for some reason. Like, I don’t really feel part of it. And I’m out of my comfort zone a little. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have at least one peer to hang out with instead of lots of old people. But don’t get me wrong, I love those old people.
July 7 (7/7/7)
So now we’re at the Holiday Inn and I have a spectacular view of the cement parking lot. G is taking a nap in her room. She is such a control freak! She bought a card for S (her son) to give to M (his fiance) on their wedding day!! That’s romantic. I definitely want my mom to do that…NOT. Hopefully I’ll go horseback riding today on the farm. And hopefully there will be at least ONE fox at the wedding.
(This is a letter to my friend that I wrote)
Dear Sammy,
As I told you, I was both shocked and pleased to see a picture of Our English Teacher on wall of the Bucco De Beppo here. Jesus Christ is my homeboy. That’s what Jesus said. Ok enough. But now I’m sitting on my bed watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Such a good show. Or not. I just saw the most disturbing thing though. A whole bunch of old ladies ripped off their wigs, and the leader woman pulls of a mask to reveal like a five foot nose and hair and warts springing up all over. This was on the televisions that KIDS have access to. I will call the mayor immediately. Now I’m watching AMC and Our English Teacher, Christopher Walken, is in the movie. With Rambo. Or Silvester Salone, as some people call him. Daytime television, I have concluded, is made for psychotic housewives on acid. Nothing has really happened to me so far on my trip but I do plan to get “jiggy” tonight at the wedding.
Love,
Me
July 8 (7/8/07)
OMG today was the best ever. I woke up pretty early after staying up all night drinking … water (cough) and dancing freakily w/ my cousin’s friends and then watching Beatlejuice on TV. I think I’m gonna be Lydia for Halloween. So then I gulped down some breaky w/ the old geezer part of the family (including the “Tall Club” tranny woman) and also Adrien and Ariel. I love Ariel. I also love Molly, Norma (dad’s cousin)’s kid. Norma and dad were like siblings growing up. Molly and I are gonna party it up in SF if I go to college in California. I met Britt at the train station and we hunted foxes till we got to SF. Then we hit Haight Ashberry (my favorite hang out in all of California) and shopped till we dropped. I found some Moccasins!!! I also found this hippie-esque store with GREAT costume stuff. We went insane. Corsettes, frilly tights, bangles–everything. I really want to live in an old apartment down here and work for the SF weekly, or RS magazine, and do freelance stuff w/ Meg as a roomy.
For dinner we met Britt’s mom and her bf (Bruce Lee, no, not kidding). He’s a gynecologist. We had dinner at Pier 23. I had a vegeburger and our friend Ali came and hung out with us. His aunt owns Napente (Big Sur restaurant that I love). I didn’t realize. He is super nice thought, and does a whole bunch of jazz music stuff, which I think is totally cool. He organizes the festivals.
I seriously plan to move here and decourate my walls with Janis, Beatles, and funky indie band posters and do reviews or something. Maybe a blog type job? Blogs are pretty popular and it could be sort of a “cool college kid” sort of column. They could pay me to go to movies, shows, plays, art galleries, etc. and I would write about it from my point of view. I could room with someone cool, and we would go out all the time and since I would have money (!), we could actually buy stuff. We would be the queens of SF. I could do art all the time and sell it to galleries. Good plan, right?
P.S. Some names to look up: Wong Kar Wai, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Martin Scorsese, Kiarostami.
July 9 (7/9/07)
I’m in my favorite coffee shop this morning, longing to go back to the Haight. Dad is reading out loud from the newspaper and I just read an article about Gravy Train!!!’s new album. I went to go see them Saturday night. I think we may go to the MOMA today, and then to Haight again.
Movies: A Crude Awakening, Paris Je T’aime, Gypsy Caravan, The Golden Door, The Rape of Europa
Later:
Once again, Matisse, Picasso, and Andy Warhols as well as Mondrian, Diego Rivera and every other beautiful creation you can think of in front of my face this afternoon. My reaction is very different this time. Not so frantic, more introspective and understanding. I’m still inspired. After looking at the Matisse Exhibit, I feel really inspired to do a self portrait, nude. Or a self portrait and a nude. I feel really connected with Matisse because I love to use those bold colors, and I”m not afraid to just let my intuition and feelings go, which most of the speakers discussed on the audio tour. I always felt pressured to have my work have obvious hidden meaning (is that an oxymoron?) and it sort of was against my nature to do that. Now I feel free-er to just follow my intuition, and express my feelings and impressions. I guess that’s where the names come from– impressionism and expressionism. I don’t really want to have a label put on me, but those are inspirations in my life. When I get home…much painting and art will be done.
Some names to love: Mark Ellen Mark (one of his photographs shown bellow), Steve Mccury, Ann Hamilton, Wanguchi Mutu, Kiki Smith, James Rosenquist, Rob Indiana, Felix Schram.
July 10 (7/10/07)
In the CALtrain on the way back to San Hose :(. I miss SF already. Aunt Angie drove me adn Dad here. She is so sweet. Dad found an Allstar game ticket on the ground and sold it to Angie’s scalper friend Bobby at Momo’s (a restaurant). $150! $20 for me!
LOL:
“How are you hun?”
Bobby grabs both my hands and kisses them.
“Good. I’m Lindsea.”
“She’s my daughter.” My dad says.
“What?! How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
“Jesus Christ!” He drops my hands and looks at my dad laughing.
“Yes, you can call me Jail Bait.” I say, laughing also.
“Would you like a lollypop little girl?” He hands me a jolly rancher flavored one.
Anyways, went to the Haight this morning and shopped some more. Found some cool second hand stores. Bought that cute dress and the tights that I love. Found a gangsta store, and loved the shirt that said “Girls are the new boys”. Should of bought it for my lesbian friend.
I went into this one store when a funkily dressed foreign group was coming out.
“Did you get them?” this other girl from the shop next door asked the hotties behind the counter.
“Yeah! They cornered us.”
“Me too. They had cute outfits though.”
I wondered if they talk like this about all the tourists that pass through. I also wondered if I could ever be a part of the Haight scene. I hope I will be one day.
That is all. I had a blast.
street side diplomat
allegedly it does
