scrawls.

scrawls

still cheaper than therapy*

23.4.13

in which i am an arrogant bitch

Nearly every weekday morning, we take the subway and then the streetcar, and at the station where we transfer is a bakery and a kebap stand and the little street sales that there are. Our streetcar comes directly in front of the kebap stand, and we wait there, and E rollers her little grown-up-sized scooter, and we sing, and she asks questions, and we laugh at each other. There are two men who work in the kebap stand and one of them, the taller one, never looks up - the other has eyebrows like a Muppet and a big nose. We nod good morning, every day when he's there. The kebap stand isn't open for business in the morning and by the time we come home on the way back, if it is the same way, and even then we are only walking on the other side of the tracks, if he is there i don't know; i am wanting to be home, and not hungry, and we don't often speak. But we nod in the morning and say hello if he's outside, unlocking the windows or bringing out the mulleimer.

I wonder what he thinks of me, with my big branded winter jacket, with sometimes a paper cup of coffee. With my home made knit hats, and always just one kid, or maybe a newspaper or an ebook or something, and a smartphone, and i always have the kid on the same days of the week, going the same way at the same time. I feel like knitting is a luxury hobby, typically self-indulgent, costing more than it's worth, stealing time from vague - from what? I should be doing something meaningful, like perfecting microfinance or saving - the rainforest, or starving babies, or canning balcony-grown tomatoes to give to a food bank. I could learn French or Dutch or Portugese and then move somewhere ex-colonial and - help, somehow, and instead i'm here being white and UMC. And the trendy, tech fabric, expensive coat; as much as i apologize for it (it's warm, well designed, it's eco, it's waterproof, all these pockets, it's just so reliable, it's going to last forever) it will always be what it is. And it's the cheapest, most basic smartphone i can find, but of course you don't see that from away. I feel guilty, and lucky, and pay my high Austrian taxes and go easily on about my day.

After the last snowstorm, he was sweeping out the little lager, and he sprinkled all the bread crumbs outside the door for the pigeons, on the snow. Inside my head i instantly forgave him and then, just as instantly, felt like a gigantic asshole.

Labels: people

scrawled @ 15:45

1 Comments

11.4.13

five and a half

Means that in the middle of the dark, black night, when the house is all the way to quiet and i am curled up with only a reading lamp on in bed (but still obviously awake, if silent), then a certain medium-sized Someone can wake up, come out from her bed, wander vaguely down the hall to the bathroom, turn on the light (dark black, remember,) get herself a cup and a drink of water, turn the light back off, pad softly back to bed, and go right on back to sleep, without peeking in or calling out or asking any five-and-a-half questions.

That you sing. You wake up in the morning and sing, to the dolls, to yourself, to the mermaids in the coloring book. Songs i have heard and songs that are brand new, new verses, old songs, you were singing The Neverending Story song in the streetcar, but today we sang:
My rhinoceros eats cabbage
Of every style and art
But you'll really notice it later
With the smell of rhinoceros fart.

That i want you to play forever. That i make compromises: okay, imaginative play with Barbies is still better than watching a movie. I want you to be a kid and not worry about things, i want to always be honest with you, but i want to keep you safe, and happy, and untarnished, and free. I want to give you the whole world, and i want it to be full of wonderful things and kind people. Honest to God i think it is full of wonderful things and kind people, which makes it a whole lot easier to send you out into it, to give you to the world.

Labels: milestones

scrawled @ 16:40

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10.4.13

inverses

sad thought that is happy:
I have nothing to wear to all these weddings.

happy thought that is sad:
Wow, chemo appointments get scheduled so promptly.

Labels: random

scrawled @ 20:48

2 Comments