if you don't like it change train cars
news from home + pavlovian dogs + my 7 hr walk
written like three weeks ago on aug 26th.
today i went to the metrograph for the first time to see news from home. it was gorgeous, you could hear the film crackle before and after, i fell asleep briefly for about 10 minutes, lulled into a dream by the hypnotic soundscape of cars passing, the subway train running, chantal akerman’s french-accented voiceover. it doesn’t mean i didn’t enjoy it. it is exactly the kind of thing i would love to make. a collage of read-aloud letters received from akerman’s mother in the first few years after she moved to new york, over long-shots of strangers, of cars, of subway passengers, all observed in real-life in the 70’s. her voice soft and fast.
at one point, the camera points out into a train car as the subway bumbles and bounces along. people look into the camera, it’s awkward, i can feel the tension of the filmmaker, her steadfastness to keep recording. one man looks straight at her three times, and then gets up and leaves - moving to the next train car. he looks back multiple times, making his judgement clear. i aspire to be as brave as her. not everyone agrees but i think most street photography/videography is harmless, is not too intrusive, is valuable art. poverty-porn is another thing, but this wasn’t that, he was a businessman. my feeling is: if we go out into public and we are not vulnerable to the point of being taken advantage of by a camera, then we offer ourselves up to be documented, because now we are a part of the broader urban landscape. it’s not personal. my mom wouldn’t agree. anyway.
on thursday night i slept in a stranger’s bed. she was very kind. she didn’t understand me. as if a stranger ever could. i asked her what are you thinking about as a plea to unveil ourselves, to break down the walls between us, if only for a night. no, i’m lying to myself, it was a test. no, it was a cry for help. no, it was bad communication. if she had asked me the same question back maybe i would’ve been able to throw away what was holding me back, maybe we would have had better sex. more likely it was a lost cause before i even got there. is it too much to ask that someone read my mind?
she had a rocking chair. a wooden one. i sat in it and rocked cross-legged. her walls were bare but she had a nice-smelling candle on. the rain on the windowpane kept me up all night. she fell asleep with her arm around my lower stomach, i stayed very still and hoped she couldn’t hear it rumbling.
now in this terrible coffee shop a few blocks from her apartment with this terrible bitter cortado they are playing new york isn’t new york without you love by st vincent. i read my book and wait for the barista to charge my phone. a bartender, one of her friends, comes in and shows her his new tattoo. they reminisce about their old days getting plastered together working at some restaurant. that’s why she quit, why she does this now, to stop drinking so much.
i left at 8am. it was drizzling. she was leaving to go upstate for the weekend for her birthday with some friends. older than me, by a few years. age doesn’t seem like a big thing anymore at all. i spend 7 hours walking around all over brooklyn before i go home again. i let my attention guide me wherever it wants to go. i walk past the industrial area of bushwick where all the clubs are. in the daylight the area doesn’t seem avant-garde and hip and exciting, it just looks depressing.
it’s raining and so i go up to the doors of a big catholic church. i am surprised - it’s open, and there is only one other person (all the way at the front) there when i enter. i sit in the back looking up at the gorgeous painted ceiling and have a bit of a moment. it is exactly what i need right then.
before, i go to a small hispanic bakery and have the most delicious warm chicken empanada i’ve ever eaten. i only get one, and when i am still hungry later i get another at a different bakery down the street. the second one is not as good. but i can’t go back to the first now, it’s too late. sometimes i wish you hadn’t said that so i could come back, but you did and i can’t. most times i am glad.
i walk to a bookstore and get a london fog while i wait for them to charge my phone. that’s my favorite order for a customer at my own coffee shop to get, a london fog. i read the book i already had with me. one of the bookstore owner’s kids is there, he’s running around talking to the customers, he’s small, he’s sweet, it’s cute. the air conditioning is too strong.
and tonight i was supposed to go see a friend’s dj set, but by the time i get home at 8:45pm i am too drained of energy to go anywhere, the idea of staying out until the wee hours of the morning inevitably returning from my commute at 2am despite my best intentions, of sleeping in too late, forgetting to eat, and going straight to work a little bit hungover having done nothing else in the day yet. it depressed me, and so instead i stay in and smoke a tiny bit of weed and work on things i have been wanting to work on instead.
at the bodega, on the way home from my 7-hour-long walk of shame journey, i buy half and half and cheerios and an iphone-headphone jack converter for these expensive over-ear minimalist headphones i picked up from a woman i found on fb marketplace, exploring a new neighborhood i hadn’t been to before. because i saw someone wearing something similar and i began to desire acquiring their calm presence.
and once, i put beach baby by bon iver on repeat while we are having sex because i am trying to recreate a moment i once had with someone else. lean over the bed and put it on while you are possibly still inside me. it doesn’t work the way i’m trying to make it work, when will i learn, but sex was always good with you, even when it wasn’t. there’s no reason for me to bring this up now except that i can’t get it off my mind today, my mom on the phone tells me out of pocket to invest in a really good vibrator, i say maybe we are crossing a boundary here - only in my head of course. i’ve told her about my hookup, i don’t know why, i was just explaining why i answered her call sitting in a park i’ve never been to before. we’ve just gotten into the habit of telling each other things. i like to give people context. i say i think i’ve pavlovian dog-ed myself here on accident, i am trying to come up with some sort of fast-pass to fix it with something other than time.
earlier i see a photo of what you used to look like a year ago, i have mostly curbed this instinct by now but today i am on the train and i am looking for it. i think i really loved that person. i think that’s not the same person i parted ways with a month ago. i think it’s quite possible that person was a figment of my imagination. i think no, a belittlement of what we did here.
i think i will never know the truth about this. i think it doesn’t matter anymore anyway. i think please for the love of god stop thinking.
i think about the song the fairest of the seasons, about how i forget how many times i’ve been here before. in the moment the world is always ending.
i want to know
do i stay or do i go
and do i have to do just one
and can i choose again if i should lose the reason
-nico, 'the fairest of the seasons'later she finds the answer.
it’s now i know, do i stay or do i go and it is finally i decide that i’ll be leaving in the fairest of the seasons.
i think about a line che’s character says in the last episode of the terrible god-awful sex and the city reboot that i’ve been watching mainly because it’s a train wreck and i need to see how it ends at this point. the old me is fucked, and the new me isn’t here yet. it’s too bad the show isn’t all about them, they could use some more character development, but that would be an entirely different show, that’s kind of the whole issue.
today the city is warm and damp and grey. i scroll through craiglist listings on the train. the woman beside me has her phone open and unlocked but she’s just looking at the static home screen. acting the performance of being on one’s phone. i’ve been there before.
