(See what I am saying?)

(not) permanent markers

Thad pulled a black fine point permanent ink sharpie maker out his backpack and walked around the scaffolding growing over the storefronts like iron ivy. Leanne was talking on my phone to jared 30 floors above us. She gave her email passwords to him and he logged in. I took the pen. Jared told Leanne the address. The taxis poured past us on their heavy traffic rates down broadway. She recited the address. I wrote it down on my hand. The steam blew off the hot pretzel stand. we walked through the times square crowd like braiding a friendship bracelet through a sea of strangers on our way to the subway station.

The L train took us to brooklyn, beer, and birthday parties. the writing on my hand was our only guide along the way. Williamsburg sat soft in in the light at the other end of the subway tunnel and the setting sun fell limp over the Manhattan skyline and cast corduroy colored shadows on the seams of the galvanized garage doors.

Thad pointed up at the intersecting vapor trails that scared the perfect blue friday fade away in the sky above us. The airplanes looked like beads of glass shining silent in the sun that fell limp over the Manhattan skyline.

I looked at the address on my hand and realized how very little I always seem to have to go on. I thought about how many directions in my life i have written in black fine point permantnent ink sharpie maker on my hand, or on chocolate milk receipts, and beer ringed bar napkins, and on the yellow pages in greyhound station phone booths and on paper towels in pennsylvania bathroom stalls. i thought about all directions i have not written down at all - and everywhere that they have taken me that seem so much farther than all the places all the plans i seem to work hard to make and save money to keep have gotten me. I thought how everything changes and not even black fine point permantnent ink sharpie makers last long enough for me to read where it was i went or thought i should have gone yesterday.

The hops steamed out the the stainless steel at the brooklyn brewery and reminded of fat tire in fort collins and kegs of coors on 32nd ave. in golden and plans that change course and the people i meet when they do.

The sunlight was wilting over the manhattan skyline and rotting into a deep smooth purple over brooklyn. For a minute as the sky went dark i stood outside the brooklyn brewery and tried to remember everything i have ever planned on doing, and lost count at the very thought of it.

i thought about the permanence of permanent markers, plans, and the people in my life.

i thought about all the places and faces i have found and followed, and done so with so little to go on.

and right there in front of the brooklyn brewery i was certain of nothing, but that the haphazardness of my life as is gets scrawled on my hand will always lead me down paths i could never predict, and that i won't shower tonight, and that the plans will probably end up pressed on my forehead after another sleepless night. and even without a washing, all the all ink i can ever write down will eventually rub off, and all the plans i make and the paths i take will likely change before that happens anyways.

Alone in the Galaxy

i went to the back booth and sat down facing back the coffee stained woodgrain drenched in polyurethane. the walls looked like old gymnasium floors the ones without the narrow boards that took longer to lay but didn't warp as much and lasted longer. The Indian manager stood like a totem pole at the end of the bar and tried to cover his mouth and hide his yawn as he looked out across the diner's window into the rain. He was holding an aluminum pitcher of water. the kind that is old and dented would have longed been broken if it were made of glass. He stood still holding the pitcher in front of him looking like a dried up birdbath fountain with no water running out of his spout.

it was the kind of place that had pink table cloths under a slab of glass cut to fit on top of the table. and under the slab of glass were place-mats, laminated. under the glass they served no purpose but placeholders to remind me that there should be 3 other people sitting with me. across 9th avenue my dirty laundry was was cart-wheeling through it's wash cycle. the place-mats were photocopied illustrations of outer-space, with black holes and comets glowing in a flourecent pink haze. lava flowed over some alien landscape in the foreground and bright yellow stars burned bright in the black background. It was, after all, the Galaxy diner. and from what i could tell, the place must have been named after it's place-mats. maybe that is whey they were laminated, and protected under a slab of glass on the pink tablecloth.

i sat back in the booth and made no attempt to act occupied. i had nothing to read and nothing to hold. i let my hand rest calmly on the table. suddenly the world came into focus and my depth of field stretched from the end of my nose to the farthest star burning at the back of the universe. the ice machine murmured and the coffee pot spit. I looked past the family dinner, the guys night out, and the first date, and watched out the front window as the life on 9th avenue scrolled slowly by like one of those old illuminated beer signs at the the VFW halls. the ones that advertise beer that only comes in cans. And when the delivery trucks were stopped by the red lights on 46th, it was like a scene change, when the stage crew slides in a new back drop. The woman walking a cocker spaniel gave up right there outside the window and just stood in the rain and let her dog smell the garbage rotting in the rain. The peruvian waiter was wearing black pants that were too big and was laughing with the invisible cook behind the stainless steel and heat lights. My headphones were playing, and ikept my hands on the table and let lucinda whisper out of my pocket while i waited for the peruvian waiter with the big black pants bring my glass of milk.

in life you either eat alone and notice every minute of it, or you eat with company and miss the cocker spaniels, the place-mats, and the life that scrolls slowly by in the rain. the latter of which, i decided over a glass of milk, i would gladly trade for being with a good friend. both ways have their moments. but the world will go on whether i watch it or not - and so too will my friends. the latter of which i wish not to overlook. so as i sat patiently for my dinner, i appreciated my view of the world and the joy of good dinner conversation.

or at the very least, at least someone to sit across the table and block my view of the rest of the galaxy for a while. and cover the empty place-mats.

the 7 seas of me

some mornings come like a ship returning from sea. and on those mornings i am glad that life isn't as important and dramatic as it seemed during the night lying seasick in the dark. like maybe this is just life and that is all.

like maybe i can just work hard and be good at something.
like maybe i can just fall in love with someone and be with them.
like maybe i can just sit still someday and have that happen.

The sun burned the dew off the Bryant Park lawn and i couldn't remember for a minute if the sun was rising or setting. like life doesn't have a beginning middle and an end. or at least in that order. like the things i think at 4:30 a.m. about life and love, and heaven and hell, and growing old and being true to myself all the affects to the decisions i make will that will never be so plainly seen in this lifetime- if ever seen at all. and in the morning when the sun finally comes up i can shrug it all off and get back to dry land and the safe and soft reality of waiting until tommorow, unreturned phone calls, rational decisions, and finding the safest way to grow old without anyone ever noticing and without ever hurting anyone. and i can watch the sun rise and the steam burn off the green and have to remember it for myself because there was no one else there to ever remind me of it. and i sat there and picked from all the paths there are to take and pondered the possibilities of them ever crossing again.

sometimes at 4:30 a.m. i can loose my balance as I back up towards the end of the plank. and there in the dark air that lies dead on top of me i can see everyone and everything i have somehow managed to leave on the ship as the one-eyed pirates inside of me prod and push me out to the edge so i can see what there is to see past the end of the board. and for the sake of adventure, not growing old safely, and hurting no one but myself, i always turn around and look over the edge and into the great black and endless ocean. i always end up at the end looking back at everyone on the ship. and it always seems to be in the dark when the thoughts have burned a black hole in my heart and there is no one there to put it out and fill it back up.

and with my heart smoldering like the fog rising off the green grass i wished someday to have more than one thing to hold onto at once. i wished for the paths to cross. i have been all dressed up with no where to go. {see ex. #1.} i have had my cake, but no one to eat it with. {see ex. #2.} i have looked good on paper and had no one to read it. there are far too many possibilities on this earth and on it's oceans for me to ever see it all and to understand even half of it. but in the black ocean that drifts in my head i sometimes sail alone on the water looking for everything at once.

there are pirates out on the seven seas and in my head. there are pirates in pittsburgh and on the movie screen. and they all live for the thrill and the chase and the adventure. they all want everything all at once. they all get me excited and dangerous and they all make me walk the plank now and then at 4:30 am.

A Good Friday.

We walked past the windows on madison avenue and looked at the clothes without price tags covering the mannequins without faces.

We looked at the grins on the doorman with a pink silk tie in the spacious floor plan, and beautiful faces covering the magazines at the corner stands with white teeth and manicured hands.

We looked at the covers that cover the world that we judge it by.

The world trade site sat gaping like missing molars from the jaw line of the city. We stood at ground level, leaned our faces through the metal fence, and stared in silence.

It was my first time seeing it with my own eyes and
not from helicopter views from television news crews.

It stretched past my peripheral in both directions and sunk into crushed concrete and frayed re-bar like broken enamel and nerve endings from back alley fist fight or a dental procedure gone very wrong.

I stood there silent in the sunshine and was reminded it was for real and that this whole country was in the back alley fist fight and a procedure gone very wrong.

On the steps Federal Building we discussed the marble monoliths and corinthian columns decorating the central nervous system of our fist fighting economy.

The 5:00 bell from the trinity church steeple echoed through the narrow concrete canyon. It rang like an innocent reminder

that Jesus had died
and it was quitting time
to all the money on the inside
of the marble walls that never stops churning.

On Canal Street we moved with the masses like lava flows on the volcano videos on the nature shows down canal street and its third world sidewalks and subtitled shop signs.

Humanity hemorrhaged into the streets filled with styrofoam and cellophane wrappers from fake gucci sunglasses
and Vietnamese and their bootleg handbags and DVDs.

The Brooklyn Bound L Train Platform sloped downhill toward the East River. Had it not, the urine pouring out of the man standing in front of Stephey would have puddled up in between our feet.

We went backstage in Brooklyn, crashed Mid-Town in Manhattan. And somewhere in the was dark we found ourselves like in so many other past places,
where all the boys were overdressed
and all the girls would taste like cigarettes.

And the room was too dark so see too closely
and we talked too loud to listen too carefully
and drank too much to think too clearly about it all.

And with dry eyes and ears ringing, we tipped the taxi, door dinged the Jag on the drivers side, and listened to the homeless singing. We talked about friendship on barstools with take out hot wings, picasos' rose period, girlfriends, and central park swings.

And as dust settled my heart was still beating
and we were still smiling
and Johnny Cash can still be heard on the jukebox on 8th ave.

and the whole world was happening and i was breathing and i hoped Pittsburgh was sleeping safely and i was living my life and i was trying to remember it because it will never be that way again, sitting across the table from my friend at 3:00 a.m. over a bowl of miso soup.

Again Goodbye

"Does this ever get any easier?" he asked.

The wheels left the gravel driveway and the yellow glow of the porch lights sunk below the rear view mirror into the darkness. Stephey sped up and the tires spit out the last of the gravel between it's treads like watermelon seeds from between their teeth. I could hear them bounce and rattle off the undersides of the fenders and roll out into the dark ditches we were leaving behind.

As we drove away the moon hung over the fields and behind us at the other end of the gravel lane the dogs settled back down on the porch and my father to his easy chair, my mother to her ironing board, and the rest of my world as i have ever known it settled below the rearview mirror and into the darkness.

The hum of the engine in motion is a strange lullaby when you are leaving something you know and understand. I put the driver's side window down and let the wind make me cold. I wanted to feel cold. i wanted to get used to being alone and be prepared to be so for the next weeks, month, or the outside chance i would be like this for the rest of my life. The speedometer lights lit up our faces like soldiers in a silent submarine under a black ocean.

Being able to exactly what you want to do is an exciting thought. Actually doing it can be dangerous. By morning we would be in new york city. No easy chairs and ironing boards in manhattan. Stephey pushed into 5th gear and leaned back in his seat and waited for an answer.

"No." I answered in the glow of the speedometer. He turned his head from the road and looked at me.

"It doesn't get easier. It just gets a little different. I just have to be careful about the reasons i am doing it for."

Stephey fastened his seatbelt and drove us on into the night.