dear angel,
i am writing to you from the roof of the art institute
its a bright sunny day and very quiet
i think the last thing an art school should be is quiet
this scares me.
i'm having many memories of how really scary
it was for me to be here as a student
it all seems so juvenille now
after all i've experienced
i am sitting on the same bench as you and i once did
the same bench i sat one late night with George from India
when we put our hands in the air and closed our eyes
and went to India in our minds
its hard to believe as i look out to the mountains
that just two days ago i was in a Frisch's Big Boy in Ohio
eating lunch as a pregnant woman waited on our table
in the smoking section
ohio, and all the bare, witchy trees, heads of cabbage, and
25 cent coffee
being there reminded me of the extreme contrasts of where
i came from to where i am going
the long, long spaces between humans, so you have time
to remember who you are and feel every layer of the five senses
in slow motion
i had forgotten that deep passionate feeling of winter
that makes isolation creep over you so that when you do see
another human being you just want to meet your body with
theirs in every sexual way possible....quite an interesting feeling,
i guess that's why we sat in the car so long outside the sandusky
public library and watched all the men come out, being crazy
turned on, screaming and catching our breath like little school girls
at even the most unsightly men.
god this school has bad coffee, yuck
i hear the bells ringing in the distance, trolley bells
i feel very alone, i watched some more tapes that i did in art school
and i cant wait to edit them, they are so beautiful
i feel very alone, like i ran the race too fast and now i am emerged
in solitude at the finish line
the plane ride back to california was bumpy and miserable
there was a cute little girl with thick, luscious long hair as one of the
stewardesses, she kept getting over the intercom and singing
corny oldies songs and changing the words to have to do about
flying, the first time it was cute and a welcome tension breaker,
the second time, well ok ....the third, fourth, fifth, sixth ( will this
flight ever end )  became quite annoying, midflight she had the whole
plane sing happy birthday to her, do that explains it i thought, she is
an aquarius .....something made me thing she was surely sleeping
with the captain, and i looked sternly at him as i exited the plane.
aaaah to actually sleep in the same bed with a man, it has been so long ....... i am very lonely.
my mind wonders as i realize i left the house with shit stuck in the
toilet with no plunger.... it was like that when i awoke, i am not
sure if it was i or my roommate, so i peed in the shower.
i wonder how much those baby plungers are and if the four bucks
in my pocket is enough to get one on the way home.
remember how i was so worried about having enough money to eat
this week, well ...dulani took me to dinner last night and asked me
out also for valentine's day, he is a good man, he kissed me good
night and i loved the feel of his lips, but my heart was at a distance
knowing it is a bad idea to get naked with a co-worker
at least i wont be crying on this damn roof like i was last valentine's day
wanting to jump off the edge
there are so many students here today, yet it is so dead quiet
this place bores me
i shall leave as soon as i have finished this letter and go looking for
the poets.... i miss vlad.
i feel like starting a pillow fight and watching feathers
swirl through the air, anything to liven this place up
it is like an old folks home
the girl who served me my coffee said to me
oh, thats a fun get up
referring to how i was dressed
i thought, wow, expressing oneself is just a get up ?
shit, she should see how i dress at home
you will never believe what i found on my desk when i got to work
on monday. one of those toy soldier men, just like when you closed
your eyes and saw as a video piece when you were driving me to
the airport, i decided to make it ..... its going to be called knock knock
who's there ? and there is a scene ...shit how do you spell catchup ?
anyways, so i went to wallgreens to pick some up and can you
believe they were actually out of it ?  i guess cathup scenes
are back in vogue, so i had to get some further down the road.
dulani was with me and asked, arent you going to get your clothes
dirty ? and then it dawns on him ... ooooh , and i smile
it was so nice seeing kira and chuck, i love all of you guys too much.
when i got off the plane i decided to take the subway home to try to save some money
however, the little bart baby got me all confused at those foreign stops
and i went way out of my way and it was a long trip home
when i got onto 4th street, it was a late sunday night and the streets
were quiet except for a pan handler, who approaches me within
two steps of my arrival, something in me snaps and i scream
as i have a heavy luggage in each hand, and a camera strapped to my
back, get the fuck out of my way...around the corner a woman is
crying and a handsome young man is shaking her, telling her to shut up
when i get home i see that my window is open and cary had gone into
my room, i really flew
off the handle then, after having the day before
i left stripped my room bare because he insisted i put away all the
"scary" stuff before the landlord came in to fix my heater, only after
an entire month of the coldest weather of the year, with no heat, now
it is warm again, and i have a new heater.  and i thought my room
should be of no concern to him now, but he insisted that my scented
candles bothered him so he opened my window, as quick as a blink
i ran into my room and threw every candle into a plastic bag
and tossed it unto the porch....there i says, now there is no excuse
for you to be in my room .... its not that i mind the thought of carol
glenn in my room, i just mind how he finds the things around me that
are precious to be frightful, because they are actually about "feeling"
something.   i dont want his hateful thoughts in my room,  crap, the
toilets still clogged.  i got a bus transfer on my way here, at first i wasnt
going to take it, but it thought it would be a good ice breaker if i saw
labat, to hand him the transfer, as if i was changing buses, but now that
i sit here, i'm not so sure i'd like to get on his bus.  and i'm not so sure
if maybe i was bamboozled by my insecure eyes.  and i wonder if he
truly has the depth i thought i saw in him.  i expect a lot out of a person,
probably too much.  yesterday, i ate cold pizza for lunch, then went
outside to get some fresh air.   i saw sitting on the sidewalk the usual
dirty, hairy man who begs on that street, so many times before i wanted
to talk with him, curious as how he always sat alone and had such a
layer of filth on him, that his skin actually looked permanently blackened
i had seen him rocking back and forth screaming to himself, and that
frightened me into not approaching him before, however, this day was
sunny and he sat bent over a newspaper, ok, i thought he is sane
enough to read.  i paused a moment before taking a deep breath and
sitting down next to him.  anything interesting in the news i asked ...
same old thing he says, he points to a woman's photo and says,
britney spears a thumbs up , but i dont know much about that, ive never
seen her.  i noticed he was missing most of his teeth, and that the one
he had slid out of his smile like a snaggle toothed lion, i noticed something
else, that looking past his dirty face and unkept beard i found the most
peacefully piercing ice blue eyes.  and i knew instantly this man spoke
only truths.  he asked me to notice all the luxury cars which parked on
van ness in front of mcdonalds, you would never see cars like this where
i came from he said, most people drove chevy's to work, but if you watch
one day, they come over the bay bridge one after another.  he laughed, the
ideals which once were associated with san francisco are only a myth now
he said, i sit and watch all day and i see no peace, love, or harmony....
between people, they just pass on by rushing down the street, and nobody
likes each other, and all the different races are still fighting each other....
the myth of san francisco, i liked this phrase and asked if i might interview
him, he swung his arms, dont want to be a spokesperson, dont want
people bothering me or questioning what i am thinking, dont want to be in
the middle of two sides.....he started raising his voice and raging for a
moment, the same kind of thing which had kept me from talking with him,
i watched patiently, and he stopped.  just my theatrics to get attention he
said.  a woman walked out of california pizza kitchen, she had two to go
boxes and stopped, would you like something to eat she asked ? i realized
she was looking at me, it was a strange feeling, this woman thought i was
homeless.  well, i guess my hair was kind of messy that day, and i had an
old green army skirt on and a worn coat, i felt guilt that my stomache was
full.  the man next to me was quiet as she set the boxes in his lap.  he
moved them aside and folded up the newspaper and set it on top of his free
meal....we resumed our conversation.  i was late getting back to work,
but i didnt care, he said that the newspaper was his compass, and let him
know past the things he could see and gave him a sense of what the rest
of the world was thinking and feeling.  i knew then, he must be deeply
pained by what he reads.  i dont read the newspaper.  i asked his name,
he said Harry and held out his very very filthy hand, i shook it, and it felt
good and i didnt mind to touch him and i knew he must be surprised that
i was sitting so close, in the cloud of his odor.  things change so fast, i dont
know nothing about computers.  i said yes, things change, but people dont
people still have the same things going on inside them.  he said yeah, i
guess thats true. people still want to fall in love.  it was at that moment
which i recalled a cold rainy day about 3 weeks prior, as i watched from
my office window.  him in the alley below, against the wall, sitting so still
as the cold rain poured over him.  he sat there. so still and did not move,
for hours.  it made my heart sick.  and i thought there sits a man who has
given up on all his hopes.  at one point i had gotten up to file some paper
and noticed he was standing, my eyes taking curiousity with him. i watched.
i watched from above as he removed from his pants his penis and held it
out in the rain and urinated onto the crook in the wall.  he stumbled as if too
sick and weak to notice me watching.  his penis was pale and long and i
couldnt stop looking.  i wondered if it had ever touched a woman or if it
ever hoped to in the future.  he didnt look like he could go on living longer
this way.  i wanted to run out and shelter him, but something held me back.
so i watched.  he asked how long i had been in the city and if i was
planning on staying.