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2001-10-28 / 11:44 a.m. ~A Day Away is a Day Filled With Sunshine~ There's a spider that looks like a scorpion sitting on my bathroom mirror. Must be strange for a little spider to be walking around on such a huge mirror, everything twice the reality. I tried really hard to stay up last night, watching chefs cook with truffles on "Iron Chef", the plan being to turn the little alarm clock next to bed back an hour at the appropriate time, what, 2:00 a.m.? But I fell asleep, and awoke finally at 12:30 p.m., forgetting that this was not 12:30 at all, but really 11:30, and somehow that makes me feel much better, like there's more time to do whatever I want/need to do, today anyway. It's so strange that some people get behind a computer, log on to the internet, and think that they can be as nasty as they want to be, flaming in chat rooms, on message boards, list servs, newsgroups, whatever, and often right here in Diaryland, in guestbooks, or sending hate mail via email to diarists....but when you get out, and away from all this, from this form of communication, and deal with people one on one, no email to hide behind, no hateful text on a computer monitor, just face to face, it can be so wonderful. I'm sure I knew this, but my only friends recently have been those I've met at work, people who've come and gone from my life with some speed, some frequency, they work with me, they leave, almost like retail....or my friends H. and S., with baby Lilly. And even before Lilly was conceived it was nearly impossible to get them out to do things. Two Libras together, impossible for either to decide on anything. Always weighing the options. So much trouble, so much planning and preparation involved in getting them to leave their house, and now with Lilly.....she's often an excuse not to do things. But they do their own things. And more often than not, our choices are too dissimilar to get together. So, I go alone, or not at all. Lately, it's not at all. It's me sitting here, in evenings after work, and often on weekends, writing, reading, hoping for meaning in connections with people. But people here are not real, they use this medium as a buffer, as a way to not be themselves, but some altered form instead. It's a place where their aggressions can be expressed, their desires to lash out at strangers feeding some need within. My naivete has gotten me hurt more times than not. Yesterday morning I went to the meeting place and made signs, well, I made only one, but it was a fine sign, if I do say so myself. I chose to outline my black letters in red, and this made quite the impact, even though I simply went with the march/rally slogan, No More Victims At Home Or Abroad! I added the exclamation point. These were signs for the group, and I didn't even carry a sign, but I saw the woman who carried the sign I made, and she seemed rather proud of it, so I took a picture of her, without her knowing it. Carlos was indeed there, and as a young man who's been told by a much older woman she finds him very attractive, he was understandably shy and barely spoke to me the entire day. And this was fine. Really, I was very cool with everything, the entire day. The weather was fantastic, but very cold, and I spent way too much time in the morning just deciding on which layers to wear, wanting my "An Eye for An Eye Makes the Whole World Blind" tshirt on the outside. It worked, my Eyeore camisole, my long sleeve tie dye, my duofold long underwear, then the tshirt, and later I gave in and put on my gloves. It worked. The sun was shining, the sky a deep and clear blue, the wind blowing, and us, not nearly enough, a disappointing few, the same people we always see, with a few more here and there, at the Martin Luther King Jr Center For Nonviolent Change. Listening to an African American man tell us that we can go back to our suburbs and play bridge, or whatever, knowing that we came out one day, feeling better, then to say that he is not beating us down, and I said, "Yeah, you are", my voice small in the crowd, because this was not about white people and black people in America, this is not the Civil Rights Movement, this is a very diverse group of people, races, religions, ages, and we have one cause in mind, humanity. It was mean spirited, I thought, and I wondered if he knew why we were marching at all. So we did march, through the historic African American neighborhood, past the African American owned shops and restaurants, and they drove by us and were handed newspapers from the Workers Party, or leaflets from the International Action Center, and we had great signs, big signs, and banners, and we chanted and were loud. People stopped to see what it was about, and maybe only 200 of us were there, but we acted as if if we were thousands. "US, CIA, biggest terrorists in the world today!", "One, two, three, four, we don't want this racist war, five, six, seven, eight, no more violence, no more hate". Simple, really, basic, but the leaflet had three pages of text, all mapped out, what we believe, what we want, what's happened, questioning our government. And these people were from the Greens, the Socialists, the Communists, Anarchists (a great sign read: "Atlanta Anarchists for Peace"!!!!!), you name it. I marched next to a woman from the Middle East, and ahead of me was a young African American man with long dreadlocks. There were some older people, in their 60s, and a little boy with his dad, maybe he was 8 or 9. I shot a lot of pictures at the rally, and the march, and the people in our group from South Africa, the Czech Republic, Italy and Austria got up and spoke about the opposition to the war around the world, that 4,000 people had marched in Austria the day before, and that's 4,000 people out of a population in Vienna of around 2,000,000! In our city, of maybe 4,000,000 we could only muster 200. Sad. After, our group went to a litle Caribbean restaurant we'd marched past, a group of nine of us, and I sat across from Carlos and the Russian girl, a boy I hadn't really talked to before was next to me. I'd seen him on the trip to D.C., but as he said, when I gave him a hard time because I remembered him and he didn't remember me, "You weren't on my van!", and we laughed. He laughed a lot, a very contagiously happy person, and he was very good looking. Something about his manner made me think he was gay, my gaydar went off immediately, so I had no qualms about being very open with him. When he told me he poses nude for art classes at the University I said, "Well, yeah, you've got a great bod!", without thinking, without meaning to hit on him, feeling I already knew he was gay. Anything I'd say would not be me trying to pick him up, anything he'd say would not be him trying to pick me up, and I wouldn't have to wonder if he liked me, if we'd see each other again, if he'd ask me out, no bullshit, just pure fun. And we had a blast! He was just hilarious, fun to be with, we talked and ate and talked and ate, and I'd look across the table at Carlos talking to the Russian girl. I'd say something to him every so often, and he'd answer so shyly. When the boy near me, we'll call him David, though not close to his real name, got up to go pee, and the Russian girl was talking to someone else, Carlos turned to me, said, "So?". My eyebrows raised off my forehead.....Yes?......"How've you been?". What? I write to you to tell you how attracted I am to you, we exchange a few emails, and here we are and you are going to ignore all of it, aren't you? Okay. "Fine, you know, I'm only just now getting involved, this is my first thing I've done, but I'm going to start going to the meetings". And I swear, that had to have been the extent of our conversation. David returned and we were talking about movies we like, how we should go take pictures of tornadoes and sell them for money, how he wants to live in Brooklyn, how I write online, how he should read Moby, etc., etc., etc. And he said he wanted to keep in touch with me, David, and I thought, wait, I'm not sure anymore, the way he looks at me, the way he asks me questions about myself, it's not unlike Eric at the bookstore, and Eric is totally gay, and when we worked together we shared everything, and he looked at me like that, but David???? I asked Anna later, and she thinks he's straight, and now I'm rethinking some of the things I said to him. Either way, he's a great guy, very smart, very funny, very handsome (not that that matters) and if we can be friends, great. Anna and her husband, we'll call him Guenter, even though it's not close to his real name, had given me a ride, along with David, but David disappeared with Carlos and the Russian girl, and we took off on our own. It was early still, still very cold and beautiful, so we went to the little Washington Square kind of place in our town, the place filled with youth and diversity, homeless people living on bicycles, young people with everything pierced, old hippies, etc. Okay, the coolest place to shop or hang out or drink in town. They had just finished their Halloween parade and people were everywhere, costumes were crazy, flamboyant, outrageous, a dominatrix here, an alligator there, a human toilet over there. A band playing Middle Eastern sounding music, on what appeared to be homemeade instruments, drums, a belly dancer performing in front of them (I took pictures), people of all colors, shapes, sizes, ages, it was wild. There, another band, more drummers, a group of costumed people dancing, scents wafting, children playing, costumed as bumblebees and monsters, dogs everywhere, the Australian Cattle Dog seeming to be the status dog of choice. The one had the softest, silkiest coat I've felt on a dog. (I love dogs) We watched the belly dancer, the Middle Eastern sounding band, but Guenter was really cold, so he went in to shops to buy a sweater, Anna and I dancing to the drummers, the Earthshaking Samba drummer group. It was wild, so many people and kids and dogs gathering in the plazas, along the streets, going in and out of shops, shops selling used and vintage clothes, old vinyl records, or just tattooing and piercing. And we saw Omar from the Rally, and everyone looked foreign and beautiful at one point. A group of men performing a dance that was Afro-Brazilian, they said, a mixture of self-defense, dance, trickery. Down low on the ground, very cool, hard to describe. The huge Hello Kitty head on one person, the woman dressed as the large alligator, the belly dancers, the aliens, it wasn't enough to keep us from going inside finally, into the "Yacht Club", and why it's called that, I'll never know, never have known, but if you want to hang out in a pub, it's a great place, I've been there several times. Anna, Guenter and I sat, drank two pitchers of Bass and talked for hours, Guenter smoking cigarette after cigarette. And Anna says to me, "You said you don't socialize very well, but you do!", and I said I didn't know what I'd meant, maybe I just haven't lately, maybe I just forgot how. Guenter is total bohemian, big dark eyes, broken English telling me of his philosophies, and we talk, the three of us, about the role television has played in brainwashing the American society, politics, the war, the internet ("let's ask the internet", we say when we want to know if snakes are hermaphroditic), and I get the waiter to turn on the Thrashers game, and Anna and Guenter will go to a game with me some time, they are seemingly up for anything. Imagine knowing people who say, Sure! Okay! Let's go!, instead of, I don't know, I can't, not today, I have to do this, or that, No. It's so great! Thrashers win, second night in a row, at home, but I don't wish I'd been there, I'm glad I was with Anna and Guenter, talking about everything, philosophy, psychology, sociology, politics, music, it was heaven. Pure heaven. The waiters all were in costume, people passing the huge picture windows, outside, people on the street, were all in costume, a parade the whole night, and at one point a woman approached our table, I turned to see who it was, and it was fucking Lucille Ball! Lucy! "I Love Lucy" LUCY! Seriously, I looked at her, did a double or triple take, and said, "You're amazing!", it was like I was face to face with Lucille Ball (someone Guenter had never even heard of - okay, they're not from this country, but still). She looked at my tie dye shirt, said, "I like your shirt. You know, if you wash your clothes separately, separate the dark colors from the light colors, that won't happen. Do you want a picture? It's free!", and she sat between Guenter and me, and a woman with a Polaroid snapped our picture and gave it to us. The two of them disappeared, but throughout the evening we'd hear people shout: "Lucy's Back!!", and we'd turn to see others sharing their Polaroids. The rest of the night Anna and I took turns looking at it, our picture with Lucy, amazed, laughing, WOW, that's LUCY! The whole night was like that, the whole day, the feeling that anything could happen, that we could be anywhere, that it was all new, but somehow familiar. I got home late, maybe midnight, we'd missed the news, and we know it was covered, the march, the cameraman was with us all day, and one from the BBC, and the newspaper, there was media coverage. It was a great day, and part of me didn't even want to write it here, thought that the current spate of assholes here don't deserve to know about my life, that it's none of your fucking business, you fucks who would choose to give me your two cents, as if I give a fuck. (reminds me, I was teaching Guenter and Anna the different uses of the word fuck, and they don't have a word as good in German, no one, in any language, has a word as good). Ah, yes, a day away from here, from some of you people, from the nasty emails, from all of it, all of it just words, a day of real people, real diversity, the joy of being out and about, in the sun, in the cold, in a city that still is not the worst place to be, was beyond description. Tonight is a meeting, and I promised I'd go. And everyone wants me to get my film developed, and I am like I've always been about my photography, totally afraid my pics will suck! My light meter wasn't working too well, I had to guess at my exposures a lot - why don't I just get a new battery?! - so, I'm afraid my results will disappoint, but I feel like I'm the official group photographer now. At least we did what we could. Anna and I criticized the hell out of our efforts, and the Coalition's efforts, but we did what we could. And we're not through yet. Oh, one more thing, I hadn't wanted to turn on my heater yet, in my apartment, but it was fucking cold last night, down in the 30s, so I had to give in - my pilot light was out, for the first time in 4 years of living here, and I don't know this heater that intimately. I got on the internet ("let's ask the internet, the all-knowing oracle") and it said to read the directions, which I could not find for the life of me, and I went in with my butane lighter and flashlight and was outrageously frustrated because I couldn't figure it out. Finally, I lifted up the cover I'd removed, turned it around, and there, on the back side, were the directions. Oh, you have to hold the knob in, you have to press it in as you light.....ah....there's the familiar hissing sound! And I had heat. Yay!!!! Cost of the War in Iraq
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