So, i try not to be too judgmental in my voyeuristic exploits; after all, it isn’t really my place to have an opinion about what my neighbor does in his own bedroom — seeing as it’s not my place to be staring at him to begin with. Honestly, i feel a little lax in my creepy-neighbor duties, since he’s taken to leaving his blinds open for me to easily stare into lately. Who knows; maybe he finally started being interested in what was happening in my room?
Anyhow, never was there a better reason to listen to obscure cds and stare out of my back window than procrastinating on doing my Public Relations final project, and so here i am wide-eyed and dumbfounded, blasting Save Ferris and wondering why my neighbor decided to open all of his windows and put fans in them on one of the coldest nights so far this year. I mean, if it smells in there or something, he could leave the room while he aerated it.
But, anyway, no judgments … god knows i don’t want to know what he thinks about what goes on in here.
cold
I don’t have enough time to turn all of these thoughts into what they want to be. I just ate breakfast in front of a one-two punch of Springer’s “Prostitutes Tell All” and Katie Couric ogling Janet Jackson’s abs on the post-Grammy fashion wrap-up. My brain is fried.
Last night was wickedly cold, and if i hadn’t noticed it on my walk down to campus or sprint to the train station, then i definitely noticed it when we wound up waiting a half an hour for the train home after the show My scarf wrapped all around my head in an attempt to retain warmth and Kat edging around to stand so i was between her and the wind, and both of us jumping up and down and trying to find the right key for us both to sing Pinkerton songs in.
I calmly explained my theory on opening acts as we sat at the back of the room and surveyed the crowd. First i place them on my musical spectrum, and then i speculate on if i could vanquish them in unarmed song-to-song combat. A good opening act doesn’t quite fit on my spectrum because they don’t have obvious influences; an amazing opening act convinces me that i couldn’t possibly walk up on stage, pick up a guitar, and please the crowd as much or more than s/he did.
Burning my tongue so badly on chai that i got stuck between try to scream, swallow, or just spit it out. Having to picture the taste of everything afterwards.
Charlie knowing my name and where i lived even though i hadn’t seen him for half a year and letting me off the shuttle at the corner of Walnut street where i knew that, despite the utterly desolate chill in the air, i was close to my door. How i let my scarf unravel from the knot it had formed around my neck until it was just being carried by the wind behind me. Me running down 44th street trailing my monochrome scarf behind me like a kite, giggling into the thin air and barely breathing.
Pillows taking up half my bed.
Monday morning, 11am, and i am back to my simpler life. Howling wind rattling my window and sliding over the eaves of the house as i defend myself against it with another layer. It is just a day that awaits me, ending like any other day should end. I just don’t want to begin it, is the problem…
Weird spectral gray overlapping spring-like warmth wrapped in wind that delivers howl upon howl. Isn’t it supposed to be warm, she kept asking as i slung my scarf over one shoulder (as if we were owed another down payment on spring, you know?). It was supposed to be something else, of that i’m pretty sure. Strange five second downpour erupting so fast as to catch my back with its stray drippy claw as i slid into the main building. Later i found it clawing at my roof as i was lying curled in my bed under the eave, just listening and playing Dorothy. “Somewhere,” you know? But, there weren’t any blue skies to be found at the time, and just the normal amounts of technicolor outside when i slid out to check. The gray had given away to purple night, and accompanying it was just wind … bitter wind delving in-between my fingers and down to my toes.
I can wait like this, i thought.
I stood out on the front porch and sang at the top of my lungs — first songs i love, and then songs i wrote, and then just riffing backwards over myself in a human loop of feedback. I wrapped my voice around me as if it would keep me warmer than my slowly disintegrating mod-squad jacket, letting each quaver wrap me tightly in another sonic layer of warmth. People on the block were playing an open/close of musical doors so that someone was on another porch at any given time, but no one seemed to hear me.
You’ve got a very nice voice, a man said as he walked by wrapped tightly against the wind. My surprised thank you took flight on the breeze like a single snowflake, unique and forgettable.
Hands back to pockets, keys to unlock door: maybe i would rather wait inside.
The first time it goes off is around six in the morning, for no discernible reason. I mean, it obviously goes off because i set it to go off then, but Lindsay is constantly asking me why i set my alarm to ring four hours ahead of time. No reason other than it’s like a two-minute warning for having to wake up and deal with another day.
I was happy to have the warning this morning, since the day seemed especially dreary. I didn’t even need to look out of my tiny back window to know; i could feel the chill sliding in through the cracks and twisting up to raise goose-bumps on my legs. Deciding to sleep through my first two classes was not the most wrenching decision i’ve ever had to make.
The other thing Lindsay can’t seem to understand is why my alarm rings over and over again. I tell her it’s a warning… life ahead in four hours… three hours… until finally it’s just “Time to wake up. Fucking Blastoff.” Apparently, one ring is enough to convey the message to her. Today the blastoff ring was #6, and the reason i got me out of bed was because the sun had decided to accompany it. I was up and navigating the mess of my floor to turn down the alarm before Courtney could start screaming, and i could feel the diffuse runny-egg yellow of a damp sun on my back. The day had made an ugly duckling transformation for me, and i felt as though i was headed for something not entirely dissimilar.
It’s strange to go from kneading a palmful of shampoo past damp curls down to the suffocated scalp beneath to sliding a dime sized drop down the middle of centimeter long strands on the top of my head. It’s the shortest my hair has ever been. Stepping out past my fish-curtain i caught my nude reflection in the mirror, and something seemed different other than my hair. No new pimples, no unexpected muscles. It was something about how the slope of my shoulders changes, the line of my neck becomes smoother. And, something else as well — as if my haircut was emblematic of some greater change that was working its way out from my heart and up through the skin.
I wasn’t sure of what the change might be, but i hoped it would go well with my grey turtleneck and sexy jeans.
It wasn’t until i had gotten halfway to my destination of skipping class that i started feeling the way my reflection looked. Nothing tangible, but my change in carriage had seeped down from my neck and shoulders and out from my gut to pervade my whole being. By the time i got down to the Green Room i definitely felt different, although to everyone in the room it read as something closer to narcissistic conceit. Really, could i help wanting to have attention paid to me? I had Changed and they wanted to talk about midterms. Ridiculous.
Amazing what a $10 haircut, losing three pounds, and being in my scientifically determined sexual prime can do for morale. Whatever. I try not to dissect the positive moments of life too much. I just felt … fuckable. And, not just hot or easy or anything like that, but like someone covetable. Someone other people have strong opinions on. And, well, fuckable sounded like a good adjective at the time, but now that i’m looking at it in writing i can see where that narcissistic angle came in.
So, maybe it wasn’t so different from most other days, really, but usually i’m more of a pity fuck, you know?
Nevermind.