Foot guy

There is a man who rides the 5 train in the mornings who I simply cannot figure out. He is almost always in the second car from the front, sitting on one of the long blue benches in the spot nearest the center doors. His age, ethnicity, and motivation are beyond me. He appears to maybe be white, but he is pretty tan-ish, and there is something in the way he looks around that implies that he is not American by birth (this may sound silly, but the longer I'm in New York the more I find I can actually pick out the foreign people from a crowd by their mannerisms and bearing). He wears a diamond earring on the right side, and he has shoulder-length, sparse, wispy, but very well kept, straight white hair. Light eyes that move around constantly. He seems to be interested in everything going on around him; it's difficult to get a good look at the guy, actually, because he's so alert that every time a head moves in his direction he notices and turns to look. I've found myself looking him square in the eye many times. But it's difficult not to want to look at him, because here's the thing: he is always barefoot. I don't know why. Nothing about him suggests extreme poverty or homelessness--he is always clean, his feet in exceptionally good shape, not particularly dirty or gross. He wears nice enough jeans, rolled up to just below the knee, and everything jutting out from below the cuff is bare.
He is always in the same place when I get on the train, and I have never seen him get up from his seat. He usually has a black drawstring bag under his seat, and I've tried to sneak a few peeks at it to see if there are shoes in it, if maybe he just likes to be ON the subway barefoot, but puts on shoes before he disembarks? From what I've seen it doesn't seem lumpy enough to contain shoes, but then, every time I try to look at the bag, he notices me and looks up and I feel awkward and look away. Someday I'd like to go over to him and ask him why he never wears shoes, but a crowed train early in the morning just never seems the right time or place...

Silkworm Snail

It must be true that we survive our deaths.

We are mollusks, really,
Trailing our preemptive ectoplasm everywhere.
It has to be that way.

Because I realize that I'm leaving traces here and there.
I can tug at the tendrils behind me
(Not ribbon-graceful in the wind
but sticky and viscous, complicated patterns branching out from the strands,
into patterns I didn't know I'd traced).
All over every spot that meant something.

If I cast a thought back to one of these exigencies,
To some heart I've grasped at or body I've finger-tip-traced or place I've lost my breath to,
The slime tightens, tugs at me from behind.
And there I am, stuck to that other end of the trail,
glued to that lump in the road and my throat.

And vice versa, when he or she looks my direction from miles away,
or the moon lights up that bend in the road--
You know, there above Wounded Knee where they set up the Hotchkisses--
I hiccup, turn just a bit,
Feel my irises expand and my tear ducts swell,
Gather my mucus to me, tremble to shed some more on this moment,
And wonder if this will ever become a silken strand,
A web with a design I didn't plan? Or just that perfect coil,
The golden ratio's baby?

When I've expired,
I will have to revisit these moments, places, thoughts.
I'm stamped on them, and where can a lost spirit go but where it finds its puddles?
It must be that way, for there they are, my steps in slime.

Pitfalls of Porn Writing; or, my first stalker fan

Well. I had a great holiday weekend. I took two days completely off from all writing- and work-related things, then spent two days working on several projects. I felt good. Somewhere in there I got friend requests and messages from TWO, count 'em TWO, fans of my column, who found me on Facebook! Yippie! Fans! Who sought ME out based only on my pen name! Awesome.

Until, today, I got this (I'm x-ing out his name). Please don't feel obligated to read the whole thing. Really, just glancing through its ridiculous length to pick up a few key words should do the trick:

"XXXXX sent you a message.

--------------------
Subject: hey

So you added me as a friend. I wasn’t sure if you would but I’m glad you did. Obviously we aren’t friends but maybe we can be some version of friends if you are interested. Why, you ask (I’m assuming you are asking that, so if you aren’t then hmmm lol, I’m going to go with it anyway) ? It’s a legitimate question I guess, and so I will attempt to answer it to get things moving a bit. With that said, this email will probably either be the beginning of our “friendship” or the end of it, so it’s probably good to get that out of the way up front. Also, it is good to note that I am feeling somewhat “serious” in tone right now, so it will probably seem that I am that way, although you should also realize that behind almost everything I say or write there is always an awareness of my own absurdity or the absurdity of the context or situation or basically of existence generally, and that I am always “playing around” or “joking” or better yet, laughing at myself, and want to communicate my recognition of that. For example when you look at my quotes around the words “friendship” and “serious” a couple of sentences back my intention in using them was to invite you to know that I am not taking myself or the situation very seriously even when it’s hard to imagine that I am not (this becomes important to say since we are communicating in writing and since you have no prior experience of me to use as a reference point). Anyway, enough of this for the moment, I think, you might be very tired of reading already and I need to get to the point. But I find that difficult because to me there never really is only one – point that is. But, I will stop, and go on.

First, I will say that while I was looking at your profile after you added me I noticed a comment that one of your friends left in response to your posting about you having a fan (which I’m pretty sure was me ). He was kidding around and responded “Call the Police”, but of course a joke is not the same thing as saying something without meaning, so I will address this quickly. I am only interested in reciprocal relationships, no matter what the degree of role playing involved (I say this because as we both know to some degree all relationships contain role playing but I am also not averse to actual role playing, although I am not stuck on it either lol). Anyway, in other words I am not “The Fan” from that bad movie with Wesley Snipes in it that I don’t remember very well. I am not going to be involved in your life unless invited so there is not much too worry about along the lines of what I think your friend was “joking” about. If at any time, even let’s say if we were married or something along these lines (I use this word “married” to make a point only because I am not particularly interested in the idea of marrying) and you were to say “XXXX, I no longer want to be involved with you – in any way” I would probably say “OK”. Well, maybe I am exaggerating, I might have many other things to say, in fact, I know I would because I am not dead of spirit, however my point here, my one point here, is that I have no interest in forcing myself on anyone because it is just too much trouble for me. I am a simple man and cannot be bothered. “I am a reasonable man get off my case”, to quote RADIOHEAD.

Second, and probably more to the heart of the matter here, is that I am fascinated by you due to what seems to be your fascination with pornography. Now, that was a very dangerous sentence for me to type because you might have now taken it to mean that I am only fascinated by this aspect of you and no others. Or that I have only the capability to be fascinated by pornography and nothing else. You might have taken this to be the one point, the definition of me or of my “relationship” (notice the quotes) with you, when in fact it is only one of the points of either of those things. Labels leave out more than they include (my analyst said that to me the other day and I was like “yes, that is very simple and easy and sums up quite nicely what had seemed like an overarching component of my personality or experience but that seemed impossible for me to articulate - and she said it one little sentence. She’s Cuban) In other words, I will say this to add to my explanation…Your art work is amazing. And I generally admire your style of social living because it is quite foreign to me from what I can gather by the very very little I know about you . It is foreign to me in the social aspect, however not in the creative. On the creative side we are neighbors. Hmm, where have I wound up here? I have to re read. Hold on.

OK. So, yes. I will leave the particulars about the fascination, or better yet the intrigue and curiosity and interest I have in both you and pornography for now. You are also very pretty. Have a nice day. It's nasty out."



...oh, good. He's fascinated with me. And pornography. And mentions marriage.

Why can't I just have a few nice folks who like my column send me fan mail? Is that so much to ask? I'm gonna. I dunno. Go shiver in the corner or something.

After a long weekend, with more coming.

I feel relaxed. Maybe not exactly caught up, but ready to at least walk a little faster to maybe think about starting to catch up.

...Yeah. I think I can do that.

And smile a lot, for a while, and not pay attention to my dwindling bank account or the future staring at me. But to just, you know, enjoy myself. And, who knows, maybe do some kissing. And definitely, definitely, be with my friends.