flawless and godlike
paraphrased discussion on bathroom wall:
1. "libertarianism is an ideal. liberalism is a disorder. socialism is a disease. all collectivism is madness. capitalism = sanity."
2. "maybe for the rich. didn't your mother ever teach you to share?"
3. "some capitalism tempered with social democracy would be a nice starting point"
4. "capitalism cannot be reformed, you spineless fucking liberal!"
5. "the fact that the previous comment could have been written by either a soi-disant 'leftist' undergraduate or a Bushite Republican demonstrates the intellectual bankruptcy of both positions."
ach, "collectivism".
***
the wireless internet in this coffee joint is refusing to work, so i'm typing this up in WordPad. it's been weeks since i've written anything. everything i've tried to write here has gotten eaten or i've thought it was inane and deleted. little updates about the Situation in my Life give themselves well to inanity. and the longer i leave it, the easier it gets to not write at all. really, i came home to Chicago to give myself some time so i could do things like write, draw, collage, but none of it has happened so far.
instead, i've gotten to know what it's like on the Blue Line at 3 AM. there are men covered in black coats and sleeping with their heads against windows. sleeping on the El is a ticketable offense now, so occasionally people from the CTA come on the trains and kick them off. it's stupid to criminalize homeless people for just being. it seems to me that the hardest thing, or at least one of the hardest things, about being homeless would be finding something to do with all your time, some place to put yourself. i wonder where they go, those men, after they're kicked off the trains, and it unnerves me a little that i don't know, since i've lived in their city for years now.
the air in the trains is stale, and smells a little like wine. there are drunk men in heavy coats slinking back from bars, girls like me crawling back home with hickeys on their necks. the good citizens of Chicago have no business on this train at this time. i'm reading Hrabal, because everything he writes about is sanctified, and i am too, secretly sanctified. he writes about things like his cats, waitresses, bartenders, and it's all beautiful. he's my favorite.
i only slept with this boy because of Hrabal. i was waiting in front of the movie theater reading Total Fears and he came up and asked me what was i reading. i was so surprised he know who Hrabal was that i forgot what i had told myself on the way there, which was that i should go home early and not be a loose woman. we went back to his house and i went through his things, his old records, i looked at his globe and the maps on his walls (he likes maps too, like me) and the framed pictures he bought from secondhand stores. we talked, i think, about Kaliningrad, and everything proceeded in the way (predestined-feeling way) that is, ok, very familiar. he has a pretty, broad Slavic face, it's the face of a Russian figure-skater. prettiest when he closes his eyes. and a dimple in his chin, the same as Bourek's.
we've eaten burritos at the Mexican restaurant near his house, i burnt my foot on his radiator and learnt the shortcuts between his house and mine. (it's only about a mile.) we make fun of each other. etc. he's tall, very tall, and i have to tell him all the time to slow down when we're walking together.
***
i was looking at my house on Google Earth last night. Chicago looks completely unlivable from above. like a beehive, or a cornfield of buildings. it's different once you get inside it. i was also looking at other places, like where i lived as a kid, where i live at school, where i'm going to be staying at in Brno [nice boxy panelak]. it's a nice way of looking at things all at once. something nice to do, to keep your mind something like clear.
1. "libertarianism is an ideal. liberalism is a disorder. socialism is a disease. all collectivism is madness. capitalism = sanity."
2. "maybe for the rich. didn't your mother ever teach you to share?"
3. "some capitalism tempered with social democracy would be a nice starting point"
4. "capitalism cannot be reformed, you spineless fucking liberal!"
5. "the fact that the previous comment could have been written by either a soi-disant 'leftist' undergraduate or a Bushite Republican demonstrates the intellectual bankruptcy of both positions."
ach, "collectivism".
***
the wireless internet in this coffee joint is refusing to work, so i'm typing this up in WordPad. it's been weeks since i've written anything. everything i've tried to write here has gotten eaten or i've thought it was inane and deleted. little updates about the Situation in my Life give themselves well to inanity. and the longer i leave it, the easier it gets to not write at all. really, i came home to Chicago to give myself some time so i could do things like write, draw, collage, but none of it has happened so far.
instead, i've gotten to know what it's like on the Blue Line at 3 AM. there are men covered in black coats and sleeping with their heads against windows. sleeping on the El is a ticketable offense now, so occasionally people from the CTA come on the trains and kick them off. it's stupid to criminalize homeless people for just being. it seems to me that the hardest thing, or at least one of the hardest things, about being homeless would be finding something to do with all your time, some place to put yourself. i wonder where they go, those men, after they're kicked off the trains, and it unnerves me a little that i don't know, since i've lived in their city for years now.
the air in the trains is stale, and smells a little like wine. there are drunk men in heavy coats slinking back from bars, girls like me crawling back home with hickeys on their necks. the good citizens of Chicago have no business on this train at this time. i'm reading Hrabal, because everything he writes about is sanctified, and i am too, secretly sanctified. he writes about things like his cats, waitresses, bartenders, and it's all beautiful. he's my favorite.
i only slept with this boy because of Hrabal. i was waiting in front of the movie theater reading Total Fears and he came up and asked me what was i reading. i was so surprised he know who Hrabal was that i forgot what i had told myself on the way there, which was that i should go home early and not be a loose woman. we went back to his house and i went through his things, his old records, i looked at his globe and the maps on his walls (he likes maps too, like me) and the framed pictures he bought from secondhand stores. we talked, i think, about Kaliningrad, and everything proceeded in the way (predestined-feeling way) that is, ok, very familiar. he has a pretty, broad Slavic face, it's the face of a Russian figure-skater. prettiest when he closes his eyes. and a dimple in his chin, the same as Bourek's.
we've eaten burritos at the Mexican restaurant near his house, i burnt my foot on his radiator and learnt the shortcuts between his house and mine. (it's only about a mile.) we make fun of each other. etc. he's tall, very tall, and i have to tell him all the time to slow down when we're walking together.
***
i was looking at my house on Google Earth last night. Chicago looks completely unlivable from above. like a beehive, or a cornfield of buildings. it's different once you get inside it. i was also looking at other places, like where i lived as a kid, where i live at school, where i'm going to be staying at in Brno [nice boxy panelak]. it's a nice way of looking at things all at once. something nice to do, to keep your mind something like clear.