futurebird's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A New Yorker When people say that the city never sleeps, they mean it. All day long, all night long there are the sounds of cars and sirens, honks, trucks loading and unloading, the rumble of the subways and the shouts of mad men raving in the name of god or the devils or both on every other corner. I feel like a mountain goat in my shoes with the heels, agile stepping over the curb around the scaffolding dodging the senseless waves of people, wondering �where are they all going?� After two weeks of fighting the New York real estate market on my own, my mother came up to help. This is a good thing and a bad thing. My mother, you see comes from a small town on a big river and she can�t get used to the idea that her �sweet little girl� is going to live on a loud city block with graffiti. The graffiti bothers her deeply. She asks me when ever we pass some in a hushed whispers reserved normally for speaking of venereal infections �are those gang symbols?� I have no idea if they are or not. I don�t know if it matters. The markings fail to amaze me, they are typical flora in the urban jungle. They belong on the walls, and I belong on the streets--- But this massive sense of homecoming makes no sense to a woman who grew up with drive-ins and poodle skirts. I should give my mother more credit though� In spite of all her homeliness she did manage to get on the bus to march on Washington, and she did and long last stop relaxing her hair�so I must assume that if she is a small town girl she wants to be that way. But at last I have seen a lease, a thick bundle of paper filled with anti-poetic legalese, articles, and clauses, but I have seen the lease and I have seen the empty space, awaiting furniture awaiting life, ready to suck a third of my income from my pockets every moth, oh but at last it is mine, it is home. �Is this what you really want?� My mother asks. I don�t know why she asks, when I was little and people asked me �What do you want to be?� My answer? �A New Yorker� What a job this has proven to be. 11:48 a.m. - 2001-06-05 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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