PREPARATIONS
it’s cool tonite in s.francisco. i sat on the stoop, warmed by the fire of a cappuccino & the calories of an oatmeal cookie. the moon was a flashlight on the streetlights on the nightlife… the spotlight tracking swarms of indistinct taxicab rides. so funny to think all this swirls around the sleepiness of my apartment from sun to stars & back again. i am oblivious. i like oblivion.
turning from downtown to downstairs, i walked through the lobby of my apartment building, past the elevator, to the stairwell. my apartment is on the top floor up four twisting flights of stairs. you must ascend like a dizzy angel up a dirty corridor to reach the door. the hallways smelled strongly of someone’s dinner. it made me think about the last gasps of 2004, when i was dumb & poor & newly twenty-four… & cooked myself the same stirfry every night, as if it were a song i couldn’t get out of my head. onions, garlic, tofu, peppers, broccoli & kale. usually i got so jazzed on the smell, i’d forget the rice completely.
like i said, my apartment is quiet. city private, which might seem like a contradiction but is more of a qualification. there are eucalyptus trees out the bedroom window that wave & weave their leaves together in these constant seabreezes. but beyond the eucalyptus stand lies a small private parking lot for nearby workers & backtoback buildings. from the bed, looking upward at the trees, you can push most of this paragraph from your mind.
i want to remember this place in every way, like i remember the last lovely place in portland, because more & more my thoughts are dreams of the next place. it should be slow-paced & unfamiliar. heady. & i’ll learn to live again.
