Travelogue - Day 1
Travelogue — Day 1
These overcast June days are like no others—oh, all right, except the overcast May days. And sometimes April.
The world has gone all green & coiled & leafy. I see a cement wall disappearing behind a floral cascade or a reaching blackberry vine. But it's not just blackberries. The grass is up & going to seed like a sea of green. The folks at 16th & Thomas don't cut anything & the fire hydrant has disappeared.
I walked over to the U. District through caves & corridors of green. Overcast sky cool to warm (as I walked & emoted) & on campus, all these kids. I know I've said this before, but college students these days are all 12 years old. I was surprised at how many ugly ones there were—well, girls anyway—you'd think, being that young, it'd be easy to be fair—but then, it is the last of finals week, so maybe the effect was due to dirty hair & lack of sleep. Of course, when I was a girl, we were more of us plain than not. (I'm pretty ugly in my fat phase, at whatever age.)
Then on the Ave., I saw Adam who said Hi & Carole G. who did not. In fact, she looked tormented. But maybe she was thinking.
Whenever I see a girl with big hair, I wonder if she's really a boy in a wig. They are chasing me out w/ Frank Sinatra. ( I'm glad he's dead.)
BM *bux 6/4/01
Over the Hill — Day 2
Reflection: If I didn't have disagreeable reflections, I'd have nothing, and would that be preferable?
Nowhere is where I am, but since there's nowhere to go, I'm there already. Cloudy. Daylight is a thousand needles touched to the juncture of each circuit. No where. No one. Nothing. Whatever it wasn't, it will soon be gone. I nod in recognition & respect at the ancient fir dying in the middle of the parking lot.
Nomen est omen, and take the part for the whole.
Parkland: monkey trees. God, could I do Parkland? The mountain & the water tower. "The hill." A way of life that has disappeared. Only it hasn't—it's still out there, and it's worse. At age 7 or 8 or 9, you cannot extract the landscape, the environment, from your child's emotions. I had typical child's emotions— ogreous-big. Bigger than me. Big as the landscape. Walking along A Street in my dreams. Dark, isn't it?
I want to go to the Nisqually Delta, and the north Cascades. Also the ocean. I had $600. I still intend to buy a pair of shorts or Capri's or both, and a cool shirt.
If I had neat clothes, I'd be a knockout (another harmless delusion?). I know things & then I forget them. I may have to find my way back to that flat green field lit by a low & livid/lurid sun. The purple of storm clouds at evening is as weird as any of the LSD-scapes that have staggered me.
Tantra — open your eyes.
The people who crossed the plains in wagon understood the landscape. Knew the land.
Now, what were John & I discussing when he so rudely flew off to Croatia? Willa Cather. Now, she knew a bit about the prairie.
Broadway *Bux 6/5/01
Down in the Dumps. Day 3
Portrait or landscape. Where do they come from, these exhibitionists & who looks more artful, that sculpted face guy of mahogany brown with the short spike bleached platinum blond hair, or the Japanese kid with the reddish-tipped Harpo-curly hair?
I went not up hill nor down dump. Or over the lake or to the end of the line. All that might be possible, but you can't see the landscape for the improvements—except maybe on a bicycle. River valleys? Watersheds? Down where I grew up, water stood in marshes & the creeks always overflowed their banks—planes/plains of glacial till topped with an inch of loam.
That's not home—they ("my" people) just set down there arbitrarily. It's hard to put down roots in soil like that.
The women in my family (extended) like to travel more than the men. It's that spirit of dissatisfaction again.
I'm just looking for my people. My real people. (Sukey? Is that what she'll find? The scepter & the orb? The people who understand your language.)
The crazies all have a family resemblance. The beards. The mixed plaids & prints. The unwashed hair. The shambling, stumbling gait. Fat or thin. Disordered. Be funny. Sing. The Supremes. There is a comic side.
BM Starbucks 6/6/01
Ich muss
Ändern? That is what summer teaches me and always has: time for a change. Why won't I learn? It isn't that I don't know. I'm prepared, I mean mentally. I'm more than prepared.
Give me the fucking money!
Or the place to stay.
I can't do it if it's hard. I don't have the wherewithal. I do have $600 though, and $200 coming. I could go buy the wherewithal.
And be done with.
I was looking at my old journal, when I got back in touch w/ Fred in 1990. That was the closest I came to having a life here. We went places. Places I've never been except with Fred (& sometimes he wasn't much fun, believe you me). And never will visit again. Then there are places I went, almost by accident—Vashon Island (hey, look at all the folks) (ooh, a fat tattooed guy with a parrot on his shoulder, not piratical, just—prole with parrot).
Otherwise I stay home. I haven't even been on a bus, and I'm always telling myself how I love riding buses, trains: public transports. Maybe I'm lying. Maybe I just need speed.
Oh, there goes boot-woman, the one with the falling (dysfunctional) pompadour & slash of crimson lipstick. But without her fat son. Maybe he grew up? If I had a fat son, I'd reject him. I hate fat kids. It's an aesthetic thing. Good thing I didn't have any.
Last night I visited Fred at his high-rise. Brand new. Two sets of elevators, like in the Key Tower & I missed him the first time (?) but I got out on the transfer floor & there he was. And he took me to his suite (it was sort of a residence for the young), brand new but cheesey. Reminded me of the cookie-cutter apartments at Faneuil Hall. Only there were all these bright-colored, modern-in-1965 touches.
And then his wife came charging in. "Surprise!" She was small & dark-haired & confident, the peppery type. She said her name was Tyger. It was like they had invited me over just to humiliate & depress me.
The nice part was that I woke up & was so glad to be done dreaming that I got up & it was only 8:20.
I'm feeling lumpy & lumpish. It's partly my clothes but mostly my lumps.
Broadway *B's 6/7/01
These overcast June days are like no others—oh, all right, except the overcast May days. And sometimes April.
The world has gone all green & coiled & leafy. I see a cement wall disappearing behind a floral cascade or a reaching blackberry vine. But it's not just blackberries. The grass is up & going to seed like a sea of green. The folks at 16th & Thomas don't cut anything & the fire hydrant has disappeared.
I walked over to the U. District through caves & corridors of green. Overcast sky cool to warm (as I walked & emoted) & on campus, all these kids. I know I've said this before, but college students these days are all 12 years old. I was surprised at how many ugly ones there were—well, girls anyway—you'd think, being that young, it'd be easy to be fair—but then, it is the last of finals week, so maybe the effect was due to dirty hair & lack of sleep. Of course, when I was a girl, we were more of us plain than not. (I'm pretty ugly in my fat phase, at whatever age.)
Then on the Ave., I saw Adam who said Hi & Carole G. who did not. In fact, she looked tormented. But maybe she was thinking.
Whenever I see a girl with big hair, I wonder if she's really a boy in a wig. They are chasing me out w/ Frank Sinatra. ( I'm glad he's dead.)
BM *bux 6/4/01
Over the Hill — Day 2
Reflection: If I didn't have disagreeable reflections, I'd have nothing, and would that be preferable?
Nowhere is where I am, but since there's nowhere to go, I'm there already. Cloudy. Daylight is a thousand needles touched to the juncture of each circuit. No where. No one. Nothing. Whatever it wasn't, it will soon be gone. I nod in recognition & respect at the ancient fir dying in the middle of the parking lot.
Nomen est omen, and take the part for the whole.
Parkland: monkey trees. God, could I do Parkland? The mountain & the water tower. "The hill." A way of life that has disappeared. Only it hasn't—it's still out there, and it's worse. At age 7 or 8 or 9, you cannot extract the landscape, the environment, from your child's emotions. I had typical child's emotions— ogreous-big. Bigger than me. Big as the landscape. Walking along A Street in my dreams. Dark, isn't it?
I want to go to the Nisqually Delta, and the north Cascades. Also the ocean. I had $600. I still intend to buy a pair of shorts or Capri's or both, and a cool shirt.
If I had neat clothes, I'd be a knockout (another harmless delusion?). I know things & then I forget them. I may have to find my way back to that flat green field lit by a low & livid/lurid sun. The purple of storm clouds at evening is as weird as any of the LSD-scapes that have staggered me.
Tantra — open your eyes.
The people who crossed the plains in wagon understood the landscape. Knew the land.
Now, what were John & I discussing when he so rudely flew off to Croatia? Willa Cather. Now, she knew a bit about the prairie.
Broadway *Bux 6/5/01
Down in the Dumps. Day 3
Portrait or landscape. Where do they come from, these exhibitionists & who looks more artful, that sculpted face guy of mahogany brown with the short spike bleached platinum blond hair, or the Japanese kid with the reddish-tipped Harpo-curly hair?
I went not up hill nor down dump. Or over the lake or to the end of the line. All that might be possible, but you can't see the landscape for the improvements—except maybe on a bicycle. River valleys? Watersheds? Down where I grew up, water stood in marshes & the creeks always overflowed their banks—planes/plains of glacial till topped with an inch of loam.
That's not home—they ("my" people) just set down there arbitrarily. It's hard to put down roots in soil like that.
The women in my family (extended) like to travel more than the men. It's that spirit of dissatisfaction again.
I'm just looking for my people. My real people. (Sukey? Is that what she'll find? The scepter & the orb? The people who understand your language.)
The crazies all have a family resemblance. The beards. The mixed plaids & prints. The unwashed hair. The shambling, stumbling gait. Fat or thin. Disordered. Be funny. Sing. The Supremes. There is a comic side.
BM Starbucks 6/6/01
Ich muss
Ändern? That is what summer teaches me and always has: time for a change. Why won't I learn? It isn't that I don't know. I'm prepared, I mean mentally. I'm more than prepared.
Give me the fucking money!
Or the place to stay.
I can't do it if it's hard. I don't have the wherewithal. I do have $600 though, and $200 coming. I could go buy the wherewithal.
And be done with.
I was looking at my old journal, when I got back in touch w/ Fred in 1990. That was the closest I came to having a life here. We went places. Places I've never been except with Fred (& sometimes he wasn't much fun, believe you me). And never will visit again. Then there are places I went, almost by accident—Vashon Island (hey, look at all the folks) (ooh, a fat tattooed guy with a parrot on his shoulder, not piratical, just—prole with parrot).
Otherwise I stay home. I haven't even been on a bus, and I'm always telling myself how I love riding buses, trains: public transports. Maybe I'm lying. Maybe I just need speed.
Oh, there goes boot-woman, the one with the falling (dysfunctional) pompadour & slash of crimson lipstick. But without her fat son. Maybe he grew up? If I had a fat son, I'd reject him. I hate fat kids. It's an aesthetic thing. Good thing I didn't have any.
Last night I visited Fred at his high-rise. Brand new. Two sets of elevators, like in the Key Tower & I missed him the first time (?) but I got out on the transfer floor & there he was. And he took me to his suite (it was sort of a residence for the young), brand new but cheesey. Reminded me of the cookie-cutter apartments at Faneuil Hall. Only there were all these bright-colored, modern-in-1965 touches.
And then his wife came charging in. "Surprise!" She was small & dark-haired & confident, the peppery type. She said her name was Tyger. It was like they had invited me over just to humiliate & depress me.
The nice part was that I woke up & was so glad to be done dreaming that I got up & it was only 8:20.
I'm feeling lumpy & lumpish. It's partly my clothes but mostly my lumps.
Broadway *B's 6/7/01
posted by K. E. Ellingson at 4:07 PM
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