just fucking read this

In journalism you're supposed to grab your reader's attention. Unfortunately our headlines aren't usually allowed to be this blunt.

So how do I grab you, on a day that looked like this?



Dark clouds seen looming from inside a classroom with hydrogen lights.

When I walked into English a girl from my floor said "Hey, what are you doing here?"

English is one of the classes I have trouble going to. I don't like people interpreting novels for me. Sucking the joy out of literature, analysis by analysis. But it does help to have deeper understanding.

So I sat, I listened, and actually enjoyed hearing some of what had to be said. Talking about the characters in The Hours keeps my attention. Virginia the writer, Richard the poet, both playing on the edge of madness. In my need to connect I relate to them. I love them. I love their sadness. Their strangeness.

I walked down Yonge St. to pick up my heels from a small shoe repair shop. The eyes of a young man in a baseball cap, standing at a hot dog stand, followed me until out of view. These looks always throw me off. What is he seeing?

The shoe repair shop is something out of the 40's. It's tiny. Seats line one side of the wall, magazine racks on each arm rest so men and women may have a read while their shoes are shined. Men work away in the back room, talking, whistling; singing. A tall black man, taken by his own charm, tries to make me smile and plays with words. You'd think he was making millions. As I leave I hear him yelling Italian impersonations in the back.

Afterwards I sat in a coffee shop with tears in my eyes. Watching people going, always going. Everyone with a destination in mind. Keeping with the pace of the city. After gazing in inexplicable sadness I get up. I join the pace, residence my destination, start going, keep on going.

And I don't know where I'm going. Now, later, whenever. But I have to go now. There's work to be done and a pace to keep up to. My life is out there asking me to live it.