Trip One (Pt. 2)

So much walking today.

It is good though.

I love this city.

In a nearly sexual way.

The people here don't look at me like I'm a freak. There are beautiful women everywhere. And the false front of a clean city falls away within blocks. The homeless and street refuse are there. They becon me to join them. To wallow in near extinction, if only to lay my head on the ground, and hear the heart beat of this living, breathing place.

I tell Ja. that my love for this place is imprecise, but overly strong. That I lost to be counted among its citizens.

I woke up this morning a little hung over. But coffee, Mcdonalds and Bukowski get me over the hump. And now I walk city streets looking for work. Today seems less productive than yesterday. But the day is still young and I have a lot more places to go. One can only hope that I find something.

This is what love at first sight feels like.

-

The library is 7 stories of books.

I feel like such a fucking hay seed in this place. I've spent more than half of my life trying desperately to expand my horizons. To widen my vista. Apparently I have failed. So much is so new and overwhelming, beautiful and broken down. I want all of it. I want this brilliant freedom to be my home.

There are places that you say disparagingly are, "nice to visit." This isn't one of them for me. This is where I want to live.

I should have done this much sooner.

-

I have a hard time understanding C.'s parent's hospitality. It isn't really something I'm used to. Ga. was so excited to help me with my job hunt, print resumes and the like. And when his wife got home, he bragged up and down about it.

And then she was excited too.

Ga. says to me, "You can stay here as long as you like until you have a job." I love him for that but, don't understand it. They are truly amazing people.

-

I'm talking with T. and that is odd. She says she loves me, but I break her heart all the time. So she seems to only message me when she is leaving to a far away place. She asks me how I'm doing. And I tell her that I am in love with this city. She says that it completes me. Ja. said I sounded excited about my life for a change. I realize that I have needed a place instead of a person. When I ask T. if that is sad that I need a place and not a person, she says, "no." And stops talking to me for the day.

-

This black girl gets off the bus, all dressed in pink. She is going to the same Mcdonalds as me. So I hold the door for her. She tells me thank you. Then she says she likes my bag.

I say thanks.

I'm not oging to say anything else.

Then I hear words coming out of my mouth.

"I got it on sale for $5."

She looks at me, smiles, and says, "Look at this shit, big screen TVs in McDonalds like they need it."

"I'm still buying a dollar burger."

"Me too, you can't beat that shit."

We get in line. Order. And she looks at me to smile again. As she walks away with her food I watch the guys at the counter make eyes at her.

I sit to eat my food, and watch a guy pull a soda cup out of the trash to get a refill.

File under Virtue.