Real events
Traveled to STL to spend NYE with familiar faces. They were pretty faces, and difficult to align with. Living so often in the morning means that night becomes a hazy blur. I always have more energy for life when I'm on my feet, outside. Got to skate the Sylvan Springs skatepark, which is strangely designed but a lot of fun - small, chunky transition and thin coping that you can't hang up on as well as a big wave-inspired quarter pipe to use as a launch. Supposedly that king-of-kings, Tony Hawk, had some role in designing it - yet I seriously doubt that accusation. It's half-finished, with only the bottom level being skateable. Once the top is finished, I expect some serious high-speed assault from skaters of all ages since the entire park heads downhill. I dropped in at the top and had to run out because I had too much speed.
Skateboarding is a beautiful activity. I cannot wait for the climate to change to "acceptable" rather than "astoundingly, painfully cold." I want to open an indoor skatepark in Chicago (hello long-term). There isn't one in the city, which is unacceptable in a place that is snowy, cold and dark for 6 months out of the year! Makes my bones ache for SF, LA - any place that doesn't really have a winter - especially since so many of my former skating partners in crime are "living the dream" in the strange, unstable state of California.
Saw a giant funk band with about 15 people play bassy, loopy, high-energy songs and a country-flavored band play drippy, slow, methodical songs about mythical creatures. Danced. Got a grapefruit thrown at me, caught it, ate it a few days later. Saint Louis is turning into a wasteland, slowly but surely, after signs that it wouldn't. There is just too much emptiness. Everything used to be, now it is in disuse. The buildings wait for occupants but they never arrive.
Sat on the bus in the dark. The driver got a speeding ticket. I tracked our progress with my phone, which lit up my face in that unnerving blue-screen color. Everyone has a smart phone now. This happened in the past two years. How's that cash cow? Information overload, information withdrawal, information absorption. I can feel the facts dropping from me: down, down, down.
My parents got a dog named Sheba. She bites and jumps and is just a bundle of floppy, clumsy puppy - smooth black coat and big expressive ears. Animals bring us great joy because they remind us about our very basic selves: confused, lost, wordless, restless, acting without fully understanding why. We are no better, but our hands work nicely at shaping our environment and our words lend interaction a false precision.
I thought I was very sad for a while when I was in STL. Then I realized I was only being enchanted by familiarity. The winds of change are permanent, though, and that fragile bubble was broken by revelations about the lives of others. Nothing is as perfect as it seems. Everything must be earned through some effort. The relationships do not arrive unpacked and sprawled out on the floor like so many gifts on Christmas morning.
Skateboarding is a beautiful activity. I cannot wait for the climate to change to "acceptable" rather than "astoundingly, painfully cold." I want to open an indoor skatepark in Chicago (hello long-term). There isn't one in the city, which is unacceptable in a place that is snowy, cold and dark for 6 months out of the year! Makes my bones ache for SF, LA - any place that doesn't really have a winter - especially since so many of my former skating partners in crime are "living the dream" in the strange, unstable state of California.
Saw a giant funk band with about 15 people play bassy, loopy, high-energy songs and a country-flavored band play drippy, slow, methodical songs about mythical creatures. Danced. Got a grapefruit thrown at me, caught it, ate it a few days later. Saint Louis is turning into a wasteland, slowly but surely, after signs that it wouldn't. There is just too much emptiness. Everything used to be, now it is in disuse. The buildings wait for occupants but they never arrive.
Sat on the bus in the dark. The driver got a speeding ticket. I tracked our progress with my phone, which lit up my face in that unnerving blue-screen color. Everyone has a smart phone now. This happened in the past two years. How's that cash cow? Information overload, information withdrawal, information absorption. I can feel the facts dropping from me: down, down, down.
My parents got a dog named Sheba. She bites and jumps and is just a bundle of floppy, clumsy puppy - smooth black coat and big expressive ears. Animals bring us great joy because they remind us about our very basic selves: confused, lost, wordless, restless, acting without fully understanding why. We are no better, but our hands work nicely at shaping our environment and our words lend interaction a false precision.
I thought I was very sad for a while when I was in STL. Then I realized I was only being enchanted by familiarity. The winds of change are permanent, though, and that fragile bubble was broken by revelations about the lives of others. Nothing is as perfect as it seems. Everything must be earned through some effort. The relationships do not arrive unpacked and sprawled out on the floor like so many gifts on Christmas morning.