I've been told that my balls are too big for my britches

I got off the El at 52nd Street. I had planned to get off at 40th, but I kept saying one more, one more, one more. Suddenly I found myself deep in West Philadelphia. Hey, my assignment was to get a good feel for the University City/West Philadelphia neighborhood and write blurbs about different locations and businesses in this area. As I began my walk though, something told me that this wasn't quite the Oz I was looking for (and Toto, I definitely wasn't in Kansas anymore). My first planned stop was at Malcolm X Park, which was actually even further West. So, I started hoofing it. Unfortunately the more I walked, the more I stopped telling myself that I was just experiencing the initial apprehension typical to entering a new neighborhood and started legitimately looking over my shoulder and taking precautions. For those of you who don't frequent the city, there are specific "bad neighborhoods" and situations in which you face a sort of double-bind. You simultaneously realize 1 that you're lost (or, worse, you don't realize you're lost, but strangers begin to point it out) and 2 that pulling out your map/directions or calling a friend would put you in further danger. Luck was on my side in more ways than one. First of all, it was broad daylight. Even though I was collecting stares like Pokemon cards, 1:30 in the afternoon is not exactly a high-crime time, if you catch my rhyme. Second, I have a very good natural sense of direction, which, combined with an overdeveloped self-confidence has served me well in my various endeavors. As I walked, I noticed a pattern. My impression of West Philly was that it is a sort of patchwork quilt type neighborhood- if I may be so bold as to make a blanket statement. Blocks of beautiful old stone homes with gardens and artwork were interspersed with no apparent rhythm with...those other kind of blocks. Okay, I'll admit it, I asked someone for directions. And, since I'm confessing, yes, I intentionally asked a white person. Call me racist if you want. I'll tell you what, had I seen Will Smith, I would gladly have asked him, but, no such luck. Anyway, I found Malcolm X Park, immediately realized it wasn't a place I could in good-faith recommend to college freshman as a good place to check out since I myself wasn't even going to walk through it, and kept going. Now I was looking for Baltimore Avenue. Again, thanks mainly to the fact that I'm pig-headed and refuse to believe I could have been mistaken in my notion of direction, I found it. My walk back towards University City from there was quite enjoyable. Baltimore Ave. had the same patchy pattern going on, but there seemed to be a large hipster population slowly putting down roots. Most of the places I stopped at support this impression. I went to Mariposa Food Co-op, The A-Space (an anarchist community center), Firehouse Bikes, a disappointing thrift store and a store called VIX Emporium that sold artwork/gifts/cat toys? I think? Finally I felt ready to tap into my allotted $10 spending money and headed to Milk and Honey Market. If you don't believe me about the hipster thing, go to M&H. I had a smoothie, which was very good despite the fact that it contained arugula- some people just can't leave well enough alone. Before I knew it, I was back, smack-dab in the middle of University City and all things UPenn and Drexel. I grabbed a sandwich from a joint called Hummus- bet ya can't guess what I ate here- cast a few wistful glances at the ivy covered walls, humming "How the Other Half Lives," and headed back to the office.

Serious amounts of nothing

Since I for the past few weeks I've given you basically nothing, and I still have nothing for ya, here are some notes on a story I've been working through. Why? Good question. Oh well, it's something. Feel free to give me your thoughts. And, yes, I realize it's like all my other stories. I swear I tried to do something different! Oh, and sorry about the formatting, it was hard to get it from Word to Blogger for some reason. Shutting up now. Can you tell I get nervous about people reading my short stories? O-K. Mum's the word.

“You ever hear of a thing like that? A man being built into a house?” Sarge asked.
“Well now, I heard of a man bein bilt nto a football star and a scholar and even a soldier. But, I aint never heard of no man bein bilt nto a building,” Jed replied with more than a hint of scoff.
Sarge didn’t crack so much as a smile.
“Certainly, certainly. Cuz a man aint made out of the right materials for a building, like he is for an athlete or scholar- now, I don’t know about no soldier. Seems to me man aint mad out of the stuff for that neither.”
“You and me don’t agree, sirs,” the man said in that quiet, detached voice, his eyes two blue voids.
The two men slowly turned, pivoting on the man’s glazed stare. Then, they shut off the generator and walked to Jed’s truck. As the headlights swept back over the skeletal structure they blinked on the vision of the man standing, still and straight, an outline against the night sky. He was positioned between two of the exposed vertical beams, holding rank with them; preparing for war.
That night, laying in bed, contemplating the meaning of life as only those drifting between wakefulness and sleep can do, Sarge’s subconscious inserted a new, unfamiliar question into the usual list. Who am I? What’s the point? How will I be remembered?
What do I want to be built into?
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The camera zooms in on the man’s face, moving in on his left eye in those jumpy clicks typical to low-budget, documentary films. It shakes, blurring his cold gray gaze, and zooms out again, as if struggling to focus on the subject.
Jim Searth knows his way around the camera. His film student naiveté is deliberately affected.
A microphone suddenly jump into the shot, thrust into frame.
“Tell us, sir, what exactly are you doing here?” a disembodied voice asks.
“I’m being built into this building.”
“Why? Let me clarify, why here? Why now?” the voice is eager. He came to this site to expose something groundbreaking.
“I’m being built into this building so my family will have a place to live, a place of our own. I’m providing for them because I want to and because I always knew I would.”
“Are you aware that what you’re doing is considered trespassing and is illegal?”
“No.”
“What do you think of the current housing shortage? What’s the affect on our community?”
A full minute of silence. The man stares straight into the lens.
Click. Jim looks at his partner, the voice from the film.
“We got nothing.”
“That asshole.”
--------------------------------
The construction crew arrived each morning at 4. They drank their coffee, smoked their cigarettes and began their various tasks. They talked and joked, they ate the lunches their wives or mothers or sisters had packed in their igloo coolers. Some days they listened to the radio and reviewed blueprints and charted revisions and plans. Some days they made their own music, a symphony of hammers, drills, backhoes and machinery.
They were aware of the man, sometimes working in the same room as him. He never moved on their account, and they never interacted.
“What do you think of what he’s doing?” Jim asks the foreman.
“It’s strange, we’ve had intruders on sites before. Racoons, rats. We made friends with those.”
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What March 17, 2011 is like

A Better Day

There is now a cat outside my window.

RatGirl217

A movement outside my window caught my eye. I thought it was two squirrels playing. Although these two creatures were easily the size of squirrels, they were, in fact a rodent that I normally am much more drawn to. In this case, however, I was horrified as I watched the two rats scurry around the alley beside my house,exploring nooks and crannies, sniffing garbage; all in a way that made me feel helpless against a future attack on my home, should said pests decide one was in order.

The love between a girl and a cow

I probobly should have taken a few pictures of my best friend, the fabulous Ms. Alyssa A. Glueck and I in our fierce night-on-the-town outfits, her with her boyfriend Mr. Tim Bendik, the beautiful scenery in Wilkes Barre, Pizza Perfect (so I could enhance my fantasies about the amazing flavors and sensations it causes with images of it's pizza perfection), Curry Donuts, Alyssa's theater where she does the amazing singing, dancing and acting, her cool friends, the kid with the naughty Toy Story shirt, the apartment the Polish people are trying to hide in the Wilkes University Library (we're on to you), the symbolic man in his trench coat and hat, the many alleys, side-streets, parking lots, etc. that Alyssa is scared to walk by at night.

But, alas, I went to Wilkes Barre and all I got was this picture of a cow.

It's been awhile

"No my friend, darkness is not everywhere, for here and there I find faces illuminated from within; paper lanterns among the dark trees."
-Carol Borges









Photo by: Arline Rasely