she called and i am happy

i am a night person. i missed the night, the complete lack of responsibility.

knowing that nothing can happen until the sun comes up. knowing that this is your time, free as you like, no responsibility as long as you can keep your eyes open.

i miss winter. it's refreshing to know that right at the end of winter i missed summer, knowing that the end of summer i'm missing winter. fall and spring and all the greys in between.

i miss the quiet waiting to be broken.

i missed being surrounded by cool breezes and the idea that the only activities available are those that i have to create. the idea that nobody else is out and about, everyone in their little apartments and homes and houses. painting, sculpting, writing and reading and sitting in front of fireplaces.

i miss sitting in front of a fireplace and not having to think about tomorrow. and not worrying about what other people are doing right now and not letting my mind race with all the experiences i'm missing.

i'm missing the feeling of not missing life.

but right now it's waiting to find out about my new project. waiting for emails and phone calls and referrals and suggestions. waiting to see where i'll spend half my life in the coming months.

how easy it is to shrug off life and say 'i've changed.' to let your pains and pissed off commentary to fall into a box, close it up, take a black marker and write 'i'm a different person' in big calligraphed letters. it's so damn easy, but that's only after you've figured it out. until you've figured it out it's nothing but difficult.

blah bippity blah blah blah.

so what's up with movies? people complain about hollywood and hollywood and all the big budget monstronsities. have you ever SEEN what most indie productions are like? The kinds of shorts and features that regular joes and unorthodox schmoes spend grands and grands to produce? the competition, for us at least, is less than competitive. ghastly and really really bad.

and this is all coming from a guy who really really really likes movies. the guy who can redeem any piece of floxum with comments like "that pseudo-twist in the middle that gave her the change in outlook was totally against the grain of normal noir mores" and other equally pointless observations.

so glasses up, smiles on, and clink the drinks to our hapless little group's cannon shot towards recognition.

anyway.

i'm drowning in a sea of voices. television, brother, father, mom, another television, and the movie i had to pause on my laptop before my head imploded (high fidelity, by the way). plus a problem with my nose, something like a sniffle coupled with demons dancing in various membranes.

network keys and insurance quotes. new cars, old cars, social security numbers. laptops, comcast, broadband. cable. oil changes, shanghai nights, computers sweating sneezing and turning on a fan. more computers, passwords, network keys. routers and routers and cable modems and where did i put my bag?

two things happened on the way back home from work.

the first happend on the madison bridge. the madison bridge, that lovely little strip of tens of feet of iron or steel or whatever chicago chose in constructing the bridges 'cross her river. that little strip where the madison-bridge-guy occasionally works his magic using nothing but drum sticks, large plastic buckets (turned downwards of course), and the kind of smile on his face that makes the best of us want to dance a little bit. and makes me want to dance way more, given it's me. so this madison bridge, this steel or iron strip, was loaded with the sounds of madison-bridge-guy when i started to cross.

now the thing to know about madison-bridge-guy is that he basically riffs the same riff (though a drum riff rather than guitar...yeah so i'm a dork. shut up.) and inserts a quotation or a line from a song when there's that pause in the beat.

like bum ba dit ba, bum bum ba dit bah, bum bum dit dit dit dit..."have a good day chicago!"

or bum chicha bum chica bum bum dit dit dit dit dit dit bum bum..."bring it on home!"

and so on. yesterday, this last time, so long since i've seen him on the bridge, madison-bridge-guy finishes his riff, takes that extra half second, turns to me, and says

"i want a tie like that!" and goes on.

the train ride home was less inspiring and must serve as a cautionary tale to those who choose to embark. it is a warning, a dire dire warning, a plunging into the inner depths and disgustions that seed the fruit of men and women in and out of their prime.

so, you have been warned. because, quite frankly, it starts with me picking my nose.

that's right, bucko. ME. PICKING. MY. NOSE.

it wasn't disgusting, it wasn't gross and nasty and ungodly. it was the practical need that we've all felt. completely utilitarian.

completely utilitarian.

but that alone is not a story. because it is not a story when the practical bit lasts five seconds or so. probably less. the story is after the practical bit. the story is when you find yourself with fruit of your utilitarian endeavour sitting on the end of your finger, caught underneath your fingernail as expected.

the story is when you're sitting on a train and this thing on the end of your finger is waiting to be flicked. the story is when you're sitting on a metra train and this thing on finger...

the story is when you flick it.

the story is when you flick it and it lands somewhere.

the story is when you flick it, and it lands inside the shoe of the guy sitting in the aisle over. the guy who took off his shoes and kicked up his feet and is sleeping while you flicked this thing into his shoe.

the story is when you laugh to yourself and imagine it sitting there inside the leatherbound container.

the story is when you try and contain yourself when the guy wakes up and puts on his shoes, imagining the squish of the thing being pressed down and pushed into the shoes and all the sounds it would make that could never be heard.

high fidelity is a definitive chicago movie.