paisleypiper's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- what feels like home This feels like home. Feels like talking to a friend I've known for years -- the new site doesn't feel as comfortable. I feel as though with a weblog I have to somehow be more official. I guess I'll get used to the new site. Or maybe I'll have two different sites for two different personalities. I keep thinking of things that would be good for a journal entry and then I think I can't do that on the blog. I have to do something bloggish. Whatever that is. Summer is off to an official start and today I've noticed its quiet around the city. Even the block which never sleeps (the block I happen to live on) is quiet. Except the guy across the street. He's an exhibitionist -- leaves his front door open, windows open, curtains open, almost year round. Plays loud music and talks loudly on the phone to women. Manners? Forget it. Once, his door was open for three days straight and no one heard any music. We were all waiting for the smell to seep out of his house. He's dead and no one noticed sooner. And then, there was the music, the phone, the loud barking dogs, and this guy in plaid burmuda shorts, shirtless, with the tops of his tighties peaking out. He has a beer gut affixed to an otherwise unmuscular frame and likes to parade barely dressed in his front yard potting plants. No one has ever seen furniture in his house -- no one has ever seen furniture move in and no furniture is visible through the lit up, yellow glowing windows. His house is like an empty set -- it's nothing. His life that he displays for everyone within earshot and eyeshot is relentless, boring, brutish at times. No imagination. No intrigue. Not like the French woman who lived next door for a while. Our two houses used to be connected and so, in place of the connection, giant floor-to-ceiling windows were installed that look at our house and are only six feet away, maybe seven, across an entire side of a house. Its no wonder we don't get along with anyone who ever lives there. It's no wonder no one stays long. But Christina the French woman also had a bit of an exhibitionist side. She and her lover would turn on all the lights and dance the dance of the seven veils in their weird little house, full of windows and no curtains. And when they didn't dance, they sat on their sofa and watched our house. No dashing downstairs in a t-shirt to get a glass of water before bed. It's funny how blocks work. A bunch of people thrown together in tiny houses, lives wedged in together. I think I should desire the more suburban life of Neatside, where the lawns are amazing and the people all fear difference but love it when gay guys fix up a house. But I think I would miss the bizaree stimulation of not knowing what is going to happen next. If I lived in a regular neighborhood, I think I might notice how strange I am, how without routine, how adrift. I might notice that I don't have the footing I sometimes think I have, or think I crave. I make awake to the clemency committee at the end of the uprising. At least now, I know I live someplace strange. A place where, if I can't think of what to write, I can look out the window and find a story out the front and the dark black of the night out the back. In neatside, I'd look out and write: everything is in its place; everyone is really wonderful, really great; everyone makes a solid living and lives at a standard forever beyond my reach; everyone around me is comfortable; oh what a success I am as I look out on this tidy block. Yes, I might begin to base my success on what I see around me instead of whats on the inside... the feeling that I cannot describe or really even know that tingles in my gut at times. It's happiness and can happen regardless of where anyone lives. I just need to remember that just maybe I'm better off living on the block that never sleeps in the strange part of town. I'm better off away from the ordinary, the commercial, the desired. Just give me a secret place in the middle of the city with a bunch of eccentrics all wedged together. I'll show you a headache at times and at other times some good laughs, good humor, and peace from the inside. 9:40 p.m. - 2004-06-20 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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