Firstbooth/coldfeet

Been annoyed at "the grid" lately. partly because technology is less useful when you're working on hand-drawing, collage art, etc. I've got a booth tomorrow at the Rainier Beach Artwalk and I'd like to have some new stuff to display, but the time limits I've put on myself (through procrastination, largely) lead to stress, to confusion, to more procrastination. Pictures up later if I don't hate what I've got.

Even if I crash and burn (which i don't plan) this'll be a good experience for me.

Crime and the city

So, for the last three days I've been off my job at the bar, because my boss assumed we'd be slow. I was really hoping to, you know, get money these days, but I've been able to rest (life is amazing with more than five and a half hours of sleep), write (not as much as I'd like), and catch up on the handful of TV shows that I'd use the phrase "catch up on" about. I was readying myself to leave the house to write and eat and drink a little and accidentally socialize when there was a dedicated pow-pow powpowPOW followed by about three guys tearassing down Rainier toward Henderson. I decided it wasn't really in my best to be a peering face out a window at that point; they were wearing blue (I think) and I could tell they were african american but not how old they were or much else. About five minutes later, sirens: ambulances, firetrucks, cop cars. So what I'm saying is that 1) this post is largely a function of giving me something to do until I decide to leave the house and 2) it has nothing much of consequence and 3) when I write about crime, suspicious characters, or whatever, I'll use the more formal, pc "african ameerican," but if I'm talking about a musician I enjoy, awesome writer, etc, I'll just say "black." I noticed that and think it's weird, but don't have the energy right now to lambast myself for maybe being racist, or trying too hard to not sound racist and sounding stupid. have a song:

Keep That In the Laundromat, We Don't Need it Here (21/30)

you are safe here, in the donut shop after late breakfast in renton, lake washington blue, a solid seven hour sleep, after a thirteen hour day, seventeen if you count getting there and back. but you knew this would come, after tilting the filthy-but-comfortable couch over the wobbling railing, nearly knocking your landlord’s precious porchlight into the street, this huge, blackberry jelly donut, extra coffee with nowhere to be, and behind racks of maple bars is Jimmy yelling at a laughing woman to go get those punks who were talking shit, just line them up here, because you don’t talk shit in a donut shop, not to Jimmy.

all things return to the jack in the box parking lot (4/4/30)

benadryl and dayquil and on a good day, oxycontin
cheese and patty and on a good day, bacon

sky over the lake smeared with clouds
sign over dentist office’s barred windows swinging loose

crime watch posters above crumpled, unfilled DSHS forms
church barbeque posters above crumpled, unfinished portraits

here, where nothing can ever taste sharper, cheesier, fuller
here, where grease and meat clog and choke

wrappers down the street like tumbleweeds

an escalation of violence in several southeast neighborhoods

and you are big, ish, tall, ish,
lumber like something tough or clumsy.

but no fights since fourteen
or one joke-out-of-hand-with-your-cousin
that had to stop --
bartenders.

and there's nothing you've got that anyone
could fence for much,
and if it's all so co-ordinated
or just conveniently along every transit hub
you've lived in, well you are big, ish,
and your coat is torn and bad shoes and

you have a beard so
no reason to fuck with you

but somehow, an evening walk
just seems out of the question,
and you are big, ish, tall, ish, can
run

but if you wait too long, then it's too late
and you are fast, ish, but if you start
too soon, then chase becomes inevitable

and the cops post bulletins advising people
to walk shivering and terrified in groups of three
or more, bereft of books or money or music
or all things that made the transit
work as a second home and you are smart, ish,

but