Writing in Public.

Things of note, as autumn swiftly disappears...

- I will need to rediscover my gloves if I'm to keep biking like this.

- Bells!  And dimly-lit homes as I bike past.

- Patience.  Allow the cushion to settle beneath you.

• I have always had trouble with this.

- "He wears a purple sash and a black mustache, in a honky tonk down in Mexico."

- I had the thought today that keeping a journal is like an offline blog, and I felt equal parts like I had wrapped my head around something AND that I am stoopid.

- Transformative times.

- "Transformative Times"

- "The Transformative Times"

- Boots, and pants tucked into them.  Candles melting down to the stub.

- Negotiating the perception of you, and how you cannot.

• I assure you, water circles counterclockwise.

• Better:  I assure you, cliffs are formed by erosion.

- (I kind of feel like I'm in a boat.  Everything is wood and brass and tilted.  There are trapdoors where you do not expect them, yet railings fold out from them that are sturdy and attractive.  The sort that make you want to step down their stairs.

- "I heard your learned to ride a bicycle story.  You're a really good storyteller."

- A backwards dollar sign.  But then I realize, it looks right if you see it through the front of the jar.  Again -- head wrapped around something.  Again -- stoopid.

- A cruise.  You get on a boat just to ride it around on it.  To take a RIDE on a BIG BOAT.  And sometimes the power goes out on the boat, and people get mad when it's not like a moving high rise building anymore. 

• But I get that.  I was watching TV on an airplane (!!) and I felt cranky when the picture would be interrupted from time to time.

- On that flight I had my first fun conversation with a strange airplane seat partner.  She was a playwright from the town I'd just moved to, and she kept quizzing me on people and places -- if I knew certain buildings, streets, personalities yet.  There were a few I'd heard of, but mostly I hadn't.  She was very helpful, but also seemed a little mad when I didn't know a thing.

• I could tell she didn't know what I meant by "New North End," but I couldn't find a way politely communicate that.  I think she thought I was continually misspeaking "Old North End."  When I was explaining the specific geography of my neighborhood ("keep going on North past the school," "the river curls around, and there's kind of a thumb, and I'm on it,"), she just though I was explaining a different neighborhood exceptionally poorly.
• I had a book with me, some Teen Fiction Sci-Fi, which isn't something I normally read.  I forget my excuse, but I made a point to say that I was reading it because I wanted to explore different titles from a publisher's particular imprint.  She said, "I just assumed you were regressing," and it made me laugh, and I said, "That might be true as well."  The man to my left laughed at that, but I wasn't sure why.  He had almost missed the flight and had started aggressively reading a magazine as soon as he sat down, and didn't stop for the hour-long flight.  He said he'd been late because his boarding pass had the wrong gate printed on it.  Mine did too, but I'd figured it out on my own.  FLIP the page.  FLIP the page.

- I've been writing as the candle burns, and it's nearly done.  It makes me want to stay here all night.  The only way I know to celebrate that feeling is to leave, and therefore keep it intact.