strangerer

rodeo revelations and a white-knuckled grip as they keep on tryin' to buck you off. fleeting encounters memorable mainly for their brevity. some people will never be anything but unknowns. others come around full circle and make sure you never quite let go. i found a scratched record of cowboy songs at the thrift store and listened to it with all the lights off, eyes wide open into the dark of our empty humming house, open wider trying to grasp at the starry skies of wide open spaces far-off.

when i was a kid, in the car on the way to school, my dad would lead us in latin exercises or poetry readings from the driver's seat until we asked for cowboy tapes instead, and that song where the dog dies always made me cry. last christmas i dug in the wooden boxes of cassettes till i found the two "wagon wheels" tapes and played them loud loud through the house until my sister couldn't help but sing along. (sometimes family is serendipity, even when you never truly forget what to expect.)


three strange incidents right in a row at work on friday, a strange day anyway with morning sweaty temperatures and me all too overdressed for it in my long-sleeved shirt, till the winds picked up and the dark clouds rolled in with the cold.

one: "hey! alleycat! hey! miss!" with mean eyebrows yelling in my face from the sidewalk about ordinances and dangerous things while i shrugged and rode safely quickly away.

two: three blocks later a middle-aged man with a friendly face asked "may i?" & catfooted his way between cars, brought his lens in close so close while i fidgeted waiting for the light, took my picture, patted my shoulder, walked off.

three: i smiled at the dentist as he handed me the package but he squinted in at my grin and handed me a business card quick, "do you have a dentist? you should come here." and i thanked him but wiped my teeth with my sleeve once the elevator doors had shut.

strange attentions, strange visibility in a job where some days i love what seems like my own translucence. unknowns crossing paths and bumping shoulders, leaving little smudgy traces only to mark their way. i fell the day before, hard, on my knee, tangled up in my bike and my bag in the rain, and yeah i waved the car on, but no one even glanced or stopped to offer a hand up from the pavement.

(went to see caribou and fuck buttons last night, and then a show at WOR, and remembered why being a wintertime hermit gets old. let this be the last weekend of cold ever ever ever ! i'm ready for spring and fun.)