Shirt
I'm staring at a lump in the street. It's a lump in the intersection of 24th and Mission and it's flopping listlessly in the wind. It's the evening wind, the great sigh of resignation that blows east over the ridge at the end of each day, as the proud, sun-white heat island that burst out over the water surrenders its vigilance at last, and the cold night air rushes in from the sea.
The shirt is unmoved by the bigger picture. It simply responds to the wind. It flops, listlessly, extending a sleeve as if in a kind of half-hearted gesture before the light turns green and it is run over by a rush of cars and pickups and avoided by motorcyclists whose passengers almost look like they're thinking of turning around momentarily to see but they are heading into the future and futurity requires all of their forward attention.
The bicyclists avoid it studiously. Mystery on busy roadways is not kind to bicyclists.
And there I am, staring at it. Staring at it flop and I realize, you know, nobody else is paying any attention to it. You would think, and out of place object like that, you'd at least see some curious glances, some momentary check of faraway trudgery, a furrowed brow, pretty pursed lips, a moment's craning neck.
But no.
So I want to sneak out there where no one is looking and pick up the shirt, it's a wet shirt, for some reason, sodden and heavy and really in the way. Things like this disturb me. Someday maybe I'll get into it. I want to do the thing nobody else can do and pick up the soggy shirt from the middle of the world and throw it out.
Maybe this is what cyanblue once called a depth of field problem. The shirt is not what everything is about right now. Everything is about something else. It's about the correct time of day, the current conversation. The latest new buzzwords. Whatever it's about, it's not about this shirt. Forget the shirt.
And yet this is what it's all about, isn't it? There is something wrong here, with the shirt, like there is something wrong with a body propped up against a Castro wall, eyes staring blankly out at unseeing passers by. They say you need to define situations before people will believe what's plainly in front of them. There could be a fire and they will stand around looking at one another to see if anyone else thinks that's a fire before they too make up their minds that it must be a fire. This is strange to me but I have come to suspect that I am the strange one, that the people looking at each other nervously in front of corpse or conflagration.
When they ask me what web technologies I like to use, this is what I think. I think about people staring blankly at corpses, waiting until someone frames the situation, waiting for someone to start the conversation or leverage the scenario, what I want to say is that if there are nails I will use a god damned hammer and if there aren't I won't. I want to tell them about the shirt.
Standing in front of the trash bin holding a sodden, wet, long-sleeved maroon flannel shirt, I turn to the disheveled old man half lying on the bench and gesture toward him with it, eyebrows raised in a question. I do not feel this needs explanation. The old man shares this view. He shakes his head, somewhat wild eyed and nervous looking as if he fears I am setting him up for something, so I nod and toss it and return to my vantage point in the car, watching people cross the intersection as if a shirt was never there.
The shirt is unmoved by the bigger picture. It simply responds to the wind. It flops, listlessly, extending a sleeve as if in a kind of half-hearted gesture before the light turns green and it is run over by a rush of cars and pickups and avoided by motorcyclists whose passengers almost look like they're thinking of turning around momentarily to see but they are heading into the future and futurity requires all of their forward attention.
The bicyclists avoid it studiously. Mystery on busy roadways is not kind to bicyclists.
And there I am, staring at it. Staring at it flop and I realize, you know, nobody else is paying any attention to it. You would think, and out of place object like that, you'd at least see some curious glances, some momentary check of faraway trudgery, a furrowed brow, pretty pursed lips, a moment's craning neck.
But no.
So I want to sneak out there where no one is looking and pick up the shirt, it's a wet shirt, for some reason, sodden and heavy and really in the way. Things like this disturb me. Someday maybe I'll get into it. I want to do the thing nobody else can do and pick up the soggy shirt from the middle of the world and throw it out.
Maybe this is what cyanblue once called a depth of field problem. The shirt is not what everything is about right now. Everything is about something else. It's about the correct time of day, the current conversation. The latest new buzzwords. Whatever it's about, it's not about this shirt. Forget the shirt.
And yet this is what it's all about, isn't it? There is something wrong here, with the shirt, like there is something wrong with a body propped up against a Castro wall, eyes staring blankly out at unseeing passers by. They say you need to define situations before people will believe what's plainly in front of them. There could be a fire and they will stand around looking at one another to see if anyone else thinks that's a fire before they too make up their minds that it must be a fire. This is strange to me but I have come to suspect that I am the strange one, that the people looking at each other nervously in front of corpse or conflagration.
When they ask me what web technologies I like to use, this is what I think. I think about people staring blankly at corpses, waiting until someone frames the situation, waiting for someone to start the conversation or leverage the scenario, what I want to say is that if there are nails I will use a god damned hammer and if there aren't I won't. I want to tell them about the shirt.
Standing in front of the trash bin holding a sodden, wet, long-sleeved maroon flannel shirt, I turn to the disheveled old man half lying on the bench and gesture toward him with it, eyebrows raised in a question. I do not feel this needs explanation. The old man shares this view. He shakes his head, somewhat wild eyed and nervous looking as if he fears I am setting him up for something, so I nod and toss it and return to my vantage point in the car, watching people cross the intersection as if a shirt was never there.