bffs

Sullivan sighed, but he did not argue. "I think I'll miss you, Jonathan" was all he said.

"Sully, for shame!" Jonathan said in reproach, "and don't be foolish! What are we trying to practice every day? If our friendship depends on things like space and time, then when we finally overcome space and time we've destroyed our own brotherhood. But overcome space and all we have is here, and overcome time and all we have left is now. And in the middle of here and now, don't you think we might see each other once or twice?"

Sullivan Seagull laughed in spite of himself. "You crazy bird," he said kindly.

dijon smelly

is a person's actual name. i sometimes photocopy their legal documents. if the situation calls, i hand number them with stickers that say shit like "1" and "459."

resonance

stitched to the back of a leather jacket on the el: "love kills slowly"

spray painted in northern liberties: "julie i hope your plane crashes"

more spring

i guess she likes it wild

EVERYONE'S A SUSPECT

coolest ranch

Spring in Philadelphia

"my dick is as hard as steel" 

-  9th & chestnut

OVERHEARD @CH

I'M NOT GOING TO TOUCH  YOUR FUCKING RASH.

babes on the train/ "Hay baby let me get you a token"

this goes out to all the honeys getting on at the Girard stop, and to all the ladies who ride the trolley with them tight jeans. Y'all look real good with those boots on, and that red hat is lovely. Thank you to non ugs wearin female majority, it makes it easier for me to ride the train like david putty and to ignore the fact that I am currently on a B train.

"i can't tell if this car is on fire, because girl, you are smokin"

pizza

A man sat on a pothole but no steam was rising and it wasn't even that cold out. He was taking notes. I crept behind him and fixed myself in a blind spot over his shoulder. It looked like how the sign guy sounded. He didn't proceed down the page with sentences and then paragraphs but instead scribbled in every direction across his paper. He caught sight of me in his periphery and asked, "What the fuck are you looking at?"

overheard @ 16th btwn chestnut + walnut

on a cell phone:

"motherfucker! you're making me so mad that i'm screaming at you! and all these people are looking at me like i'm a fucking crazy!"

Roommate #4 is moving in her boxes as I type.

OVERHEARD @ CH

"i think your mom would like me




if i was not drunk."

Yo Chicago, you're on our shitlist.

OVERHEARD @ CH

"Sometimes I wish that you could just pay to fuck your friends" 

There are signs all over town yelling about dope, God and Mexico. I say "yelling" because the penmanship is manic. They are 8.5/11 and the ink is black and smeary. They are photocopied on a variety of colors.

During the same walk on which I saw the man with the wooden hand, I also saw a short, garbage wearing man as he charged down the block. It took me a second to realize that he wasn't wearing trash but signs similar in design, penmanship and rambling content to the ones I had seen around. They were stapled or taped to his coat and pantlegs, and one was fastened to his skull clap like a billboard on his forehead.

Yesterday he was sitting in the corner of a Starbucks continuosly talking to himself. He had a stick (or placard or maybe an umbrella) covered in signs. One of them mentioned the Starbucks. After I ordered my coffee I stood by his table to hear what he was saying. I realized his signs didn't yell but, in fact, mumbled. His words had no time for context or sense and occasionally he lapsed into pure gibberish, sounds mimicking words but not a part of any common discourse.

When I could understand it seemed like he was recounting the same event in different tenses. He would say "he dropped it" and then "look at him drop it" and "those Spanish guys, they're dropping it, and I'm picking it up."

babies

some mad puppy luv
for our birthday boy matt p
frog legs is gross d00d

multitasking

a woman whizzed past me in an electric wheelchair. i saw her for three seconds. she was wearing a burqa, had no hands or feet, drove with her leg and dialed a cell phone with her arms.

falconeer

1/20/2009

on the way to work: "BICTH" spray painted on the side of a truck, a baby with acne, a man with "CLAUDIA" tattooed diagonally across one side of his neck, Claudia (?) with her arm around him, a person sitting alone at a table, shouting, with papers spread in front of her. "i like middles," he continued "it is in the middle that extremes clash, where ambiguity recklessly rules."

hopewell: "in five minutes we saw a fight, a woman's cold ass and a man break into an ATM ("mac machine")"

12/31/2008

casual encounters

this morning a homeless man sitting in the middle of a steaming pothole asked me if he could have my coffee. i couldn't hear him because i was listening to music so i took out the right headphone and he repeated, "are you going to finish that coffee?" i responded, "i think so. sorry." later i passed a gesticulating businessman whose left hand waggled like a loose tooth. it was prosthetic but obviously outdated (made of wood) and hanging by a splinter.

game night

Some friends came over for a friendly game of Taboo. Everyone won.

hausguests

10 things about the neighborhood

01. There is a stretch of sidewalk between our door and the Berks station that is not covered in cement. It is covered in broken glass instead.

02. Tony’s Way Sports Bar is our local purveyor of 40s (Olde English and Coors Light, as far as I know).

03. The Pizza Shop is on the way to the beer distributor, but

04. Father and Son’s has fried Oreos on the menu.

05. Ida Mae’s is both cheap and delicious and CLOSED ON MONDAYS.

06. Coats at Circle Thrift are $6.

07. The lot formerly known as Needle Park will someday be a high school (I feel less uneasy about the habitual drug user than the habitually hostile high school student

08. You see a lot more grey than green around these parts than in other parts of the city.

09. There is at least one quince per weekend at the rental hall on Front & Norris.

10. A woman lives in Nikki’s room. She’s of medium height, long brown hair with bangs, pronounced brow and sunken eyes. Her dress may have once been a pastel color, but is now the color of long years and desperation. Her fingernails are always dirty. She sits there all day and all night. Sometimes I try to talk to her, but all she ever wants to talk about is her children, “Where are they? What you done with them?” “I don’t know,” I say “maybe Nikki took them.” I get strange vibes from her. Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, I clutch my evil eye bracelet to keep from shuddering since I don’t think it would be wise to offend her. I’m glad she doesn’t live in my room.

eschatology in the workplace

you heard me

OVERHEARD@ CH

"you ain't homeless, you got braces!"

extra crooked

the garbage disposal is broken and the sink floods.

two nights ago both of the shower doors fell, one toward the door and one on top of me. i lunged for the former thinking "more broken glass?!?" and somehow caught it before it hit the ground. for a second i was naked with the water running, stretched, holding two giant panes of glass with no way of putting either down.

the oven doesn't work.

NYE

Our last hausguests of 2008 (and our first of 2009) were Calder, Dorothy and Jon Leslie. This was early on New Years Eve before things got fuzzy.