(no subject)
every couple of days, smoking mom comes to my door. cradling her nearly year-old baby (still of indeterminite gender), she calmly asks for a cigarette, which she then proceeds to smoke in front of me just as calmly, not noticing the smoke blowing into her baby's face. or maybe she does notice it, and she just doesn't care. smoking mom is the poster child for the gen xer malaise, always wandering up and down the street near comatose, her unleashed dog and unleashed toddler keeping time with her. she is in a fog, a haze, a cloud, be it sonata or suburbia, and i feel her emptiness when i see her. her toddler will scream up and down the entire block but she's turned the volume down. and she's roughly my age, of course, maybe a couple of years older. is this what i'm missing out on?
my going-on-two-year sojourn in the suburbs is teaching me a lot. i would quietly urge everyone i know to go through it. i have learned more about human nature than i ever did in new york. i am not knocking new york; it's the best place in the world (to me). i'm just saying that i am forced to interact -- or hide from -- the same people on my block every single day. as someone saddled with the apparently enviable task of working at home, i can become part of everybody's business in a three yard radius on any given day. this means my neighbors to the north, white trash as they come, whose preteen children verbally abuse them just as much as they are verbally abused (people have called the cops; it never mattered). my neighbors to the south, a 50something sober surfer and his possibly alcoholic wife who was the first reality tv star on pbs back in the 70s. my neighbors to the west, one a racist french ex-projectionist in his 80s, another an albanian refugee in her 70s, the last a house full of rapidly-approaching-midage session rockers. two houses down is the dutch, nearly deaf ex-travel agency owner who, outfitted in smart suits and pearls no matter what the weather, walks her small terrier, tushka up and down the same block six times from 8 until 5. not to mention smoking mom, and the collections of koreans who bedeck the other six or so houses, all of whom never seem to interact, one of whom listens to korean opera (who knew?) every single morning behind her barred windows and crosses the street whenever she sees disheveled me coming down the block. new york may be a melting pot, but it melts before your eyes; you're connected in the same mess. out here, the pot isn't melting, it's bubbling, almost boiling over. tension everywhere -- those who have watched the gentrification, and the gentrifiers like me and my white-trash neighbors, ruining the 50s ideals. it's nice to be "the gays" as opposed to "one of the guys" (as i was in chelsea, though i hated living there). i should hate it, but it's nice to feel ostracized now and again to remind you what most of the world feels. there are "the lesbians" up the street, but they have a child which somehow assimilated them; whenever someone sees T or me they turn away as they say hello, not even after. and yet, i feel the block protector (and often disgustingly superior). i always give smoking mom her cigarette, although i shake my head in derision sometimes later. i'll warn the white-trash before calling the cops -- i believe that is their right, although the first time blows are sounded i won't be so polite). i even bring alcohol to the reality star on christmas, because who i am to intervene? that is the nature of true suburbia -- looking the other way outside, and then writing it all down inside. i never felt that in new york, and the lessons i'm learning can only help my art, right? so maybe i watch the food network more than i listen to npr -- that's the trade-off. i'll rush to "rumor has it" or "fun with dick and jane" and meander to "munich" (next weekend). i'll get corporate coffee even though i've got two coffee machines in my house, and i'll do what every other angelo does and spend more on home furnishings than books or art. my time here is almost over -- a move back east imminent -- so i'll get while the getting's good. i buy 20 cigarettes each day, what's losing one to suburban smugness?
my going-on-two-year sojourn in the suburbs is teaching me a lot. i would quietly urge everyone i know to go through it. i have learned more about human nature than i ever did in new york. i am not knocking new york; it's the best place in the world (to me). i'm just saying that i am forced to interact -- or hide from -- the same people on my block every single day. as someone saddled with the apparently enviable task of working at home, i can become part of everybody's business in a three yard radius on any given day. this means my neighbors to the north, white trash as they come, whose preteen children verbally abuse them just as much as they are verbally abused (people have called the cops; it never mattered). my neighbors to the south, a 50something sober surfer and his possibly alcoholic wife who was the first reality tv star on pbs back in the 70s. my neighbors to the west, one a racist french ex-projectionist in his 80s, another an albanian refugee in her 70s, the last a house full of rapidly-approaching-midage session rockers. two houses down is the dutch, nearly deaf ex-travel agency owner who, outfitted in smart suits and pearls no matter what the weather, walks her small terrier, tushka up and down the same block six times from 8 until 5. not to mention smoking mom, and the collections of koreans who bedeck the other six or so houses, all of whom never seem to interact, one of whom listens to korean opera (who knew?) every single morning behind her barred windows and crosses the street whenever she sees disheveled me coming down the block. new york may be a melting pot, but it melts before your eyes; you're connected in the same mess. out here, the pot isn't melting, it's bubbling, almost boiling over. tension everywhere -- those who have watched the gentrification, and the gentrifiers like me and my white-trash neighbors, ruining the 50s ideals. it's nice to be "the gays" as opposed to "one of the guys" (as i was in chelsea, though i hated living there). i should hate it, but it's nice to feel ostracized now and again to remind you what most of the world feels. there are "the lesbians" up the street, but they have a child which somehow assimilated them; whenever someone sees T or me they turn away as they say hello, not even after. and yet, i feel the block protector (and often disgustingly superior). i always give smoking mom her cigarette, although i shake my head in derision sometimes later. i'll warn the white-trash before calling the cops -- i believe that is their right, although the first time blows are sounded i won't be so polite). i even bring alcohol to the reality star on christmas, because who i am to intervene? that is the nature of true suburbia -- looking the other way outside, and then writing it all down inside. i never felt that in new york, and the lessons i'm learning can only help my art, right? so maybe i watch the food network more than i listen to npr -- that's the trade-off. i'll rush to "rumor has it" or "fun with dick and jane" and meander to "munich" (next weekend). i'll get corporate coffee even though i've got two coffee machines in my house, and i'll do what every other angelo does and spend more on home furnishings than books or art. my time here is almost over -- a move back east imminent -- so i'll get while the getting's good. i buy 20 cigarettes each day, what's losing one to suburban smugness?