pillango

thoughts you want to run away from

i'm not going to bother with the horoscope today until after i've written in here. three sentences will not (and do not) dictate how my day went. which is "okay". it was nice to smoke, eat, and talk instead of stay at home all day.

but of course, then i headed downtown. i like the feeling of losing myself in a crowd. i like to walk briskly and listen to my ipod (the killers, these days, or rustic root on the rare occassion). i find i interact better with my music that the crowd around me. strangers in toronto are truly strangers who do not let themselves be vulnerable to a smile. it both irritates and comforts me that i'm over-looked as i walk down a busy street. a lady almost hit me today as i was crossing the street (legally, when i was supposed to). i swear she was like a cm away from killing me. i'm that insignificant in this city, but to her, i was necessary in that second, because now she has a story to tell her husband when she gets home.

i decided to walk home from the eatons centre. i do not know how long it took or how many blocks i walked. i do know that i thought absolutely nothing while i walked and hated having to slow down for people or crosswalks. every time i stopped, i started thinking. i don't know what about. maybe it was about the insignificance of my shadows on the sidewalk, maybe about the waist of my low jeans cutting into my skin where my pelvic bone sticks out (there's a lovely red hickey-like mark there now). it doesn't matter what made me panic when i had to stop. i kept going, fast as i could, passing everyone i could (which was mostly everyone).

i think i understand what auster wrote about when he described quinn, in the new york trilogies. i get the postmodern flaneur.

"New York was an inexhaustable space, a labyrinth of endless steps, and no matter how far he walked, no matter how well he came to know its neighbourhoods, and streets, it always left him with the feeling of being lost. Lost, not only in the city, but within himself as well. Each time he took a walk, he felt as though he were leaving himself behind, and by giving himself to a seeing eye, he was able to escape the obligation to think, and this, more than anything else, brought him a measure of peace, a salutary emptiness within. The world was outside of him, around him, before him, and the speed with which it kept changing made it impossible for him to dwell on any one thing for very long. Motion was of the essence, the act of putting one foot in front of the other and allowing himself to follow the drift of his own body. By wandering aimlessly, all places became equal, and it no longer mattered where he was. On his best walks, he was able to feel that he was nowhere. And this, finally was all he ever asked of things: to be nowhere. New York was the nowhere he had built around himself, and he realized that he had no intention of ever leaving it again." (Auster 4)

i don't know if you read this entery. i don't care. it's mostly for me anyway. what's important is that i get certain things now. and it's by letting go of searches within myself and those around me that i've arrived at understanding nothing and nowhere. which is just perfect because it brings a certain amount of peace.

flaneuse

on a completely unrelated note:

yesterday on "the amazing race" one of the contestants had an SG tank on. perhaps she's a member? not an SG though, i don't think.