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The World Seems Surreal...
Jun. 9th, 2004 06:37 pmThis week has been borderline odd...as if I'm somehow detached watching it unfold and thinking, whoa...oh nasty world with such screwy people in it. Want to do an interesting exercise? Walk down a street and imagine what is going through the heads of everyone you see: what they are thinking, feeling, based on body language, clothing, and other indicators. Interesting experience - did that about a few weeks back. It makes you very aware of how we affect one another, yet are oblivious to each other and the affect we have. I can't help but wonder sometimes if we were all a little less self-absorbed, into our own issues, if the world would be a better place?
It's also been borderline depressing week. I've passed at least four people begging for money, normal occurrence in NYC, but lately more pronounced than usual. One poor lady was outside my brownstone on Tuesday morning. Very large woman. Dark skinned. Normal clothes or non-descripit at any rate since I can't quite remember anything beyond a black sweater, t-shirt, and long skirt. Her timing couldn't have been better - it was just a few hours after I returned from the interview with the big *shiny* corporation in it's new *under-construction* digs just across from the tip of Manhattan, where I'd dressed in the *attitude* suit. Black dot-strip. Neat. So here I was, thankfully in more appropriate clothes - torn t-shirt, shorts, sandles off to to get a toothbrush and some food for lunch and this large woman stops me. Her breath smells a little of beer, I think, could be wrong. It could just be the sour-sweet smell of sweat, which to me smells like stale beer. She's shoving papers about a bus ride to Atlantic City in my face. Papers that make no sense, telling me that she plans to be on this bus, she's just passing through and needs to sleep or sweep my stoop? I can't quite make out what she's saying for a while. The first words out of her mouth, disturb me greatly, "I'm a good black person not a bad black person". I'd been walking past her, minding my own business, mind focused on the interview and other crap, but that got my attention, and well she was bigger than me - so able to get in my face. (I'm a big person, so when I say bigger than me - imagine someone like Adam Baldwin). She isn't mean about it. Not confrontational. No, that would have been different. She's almost childlike. She talks like you would expect a five year old to talk. I stammer something about "why would I think that?" taken completely aback. Which in turn surprises her a bit. As if you can determine good or bad based on the color of someone's skin. Please. But the mere fact she said it - means that people actually think this. Someone out there is actually stupid and ignorant enough to think they can judge someone's character based on appearance? More evidence that I live in a world that is insane. This poor lady, who could barely put an intelligent sentence together, was begging for work - she wanted to sweep my stoop for cash - I politely explained that I didn't own the building, was a renter, and couldn't employ her. I have no idea why she needed the money or what it had to do with her bus trip to Atlantic City - she wasn't exactly articulate. But I did feel this overwhelming sense of guilt and pain that I could do nothing to help.
It's a feeling that has stayed with me on and off the past two days. Even while I was busy figuring out how to organize the Citizens Union files. That actually required brain power - since the files were in a compelete and total mess and the people working there hadn't a clue what they had. I actually managed to straighten out almost an entire filing cabinet - impressing the office manager. At any rate on the way home, three people begging for nickles, dimes, pennies for the homeless showed up on the subway and I hunted for loose change - dropping it in their taped up containers. Not sure they were for real or not, not sure I care at this point. That's the problem with living in the world, you aren't always sure what is real and what is a performance. Sincerity seems to have gotten lost in the midst of all the marketing.
To distract myself - I find myself commenting on fanfic or fic writing enterprises, after I declared I wouldn't. Bad me. It's fun in a way...analyzing a fictional character's actions. Easier than dealing with the real and not always understandable actions of the friends and strangers that surround us. But the real world doesn't go away while we distract ourselves from it - it's always there waiting for us.
And the only way I can affect that world or change it for good or ill - is I suppose to continue to inter-act with it, even if sometimes I'd prefer to stay in my nice little bed.
It's also been borderline depressing week. I've passed at least four people begging for money, normal occurrence in NYC, but lately more pronounced than usual. One poor lady was outside my brownstone on Tuesday morning. Very large woman. Dark skinned. Normal clothes or non-descripit at any rate since I can't quite remember anything beyond a black sweater, t-shirt, and long skirt. Her timing couldn't have been better - it was just a few hours after I returned from the interview with the big *shiny* corporation in it's new *under-construction* digs just across from the tip of Manhattan, where I'd dressed in the *attitude* suit. Black dot-strip. Neat. So here I was, thankfully in more appropriate clothes - torn t-shirt, shorts, sandles off to to get a toothbrush and some food for lunch and this large woman stops me. Her breath smells a little of beer, I think, could be wrong. It could just be the sour-sweet smell of sweat, which to me smells like stale beer. She's shoving papers about a bus ride to Atlantic City in my face. Papers that make no sense, telling me that she plans to be on this bus, she's just passing through and needs to sleep or sweep my stoop? I can't quite make out what she's saying for a while. The first words out of her mouth, disturb me greatly, "I'm a good black person not a bad black person". I'd been walking past her, minding my own business, mind focused on the interview and other crap, but that got my attention, and well she was bigger than me - so able to get in my face. (I'm a big person, so when I say bigger than me - imagine someone like Adam Baldwin). She isn't mean about it. Not confrontational. No, that would have been different. She's almost childlike. She talks like you would expect a five year old to talk. I stammer something about "why would I think that?" taken completely aback. Which in turn surprises her a bit. As if you can determine good or bad based on the color of someone's skin. Please. But the mere fact she said it - means that people actually think this. Someone out there is actually stupid and ignorant enough to think they can judge someone's character based on appearance? More evidence that I live in a world that is insane. This poor lady, who could barely put an intelligent sentence together, was begging for work - she wanted to sweep my stoop for cash - I politely explained that I didn't own the building, was a renter, and couldn't employ her. I have no idea why she needed the money or what it had to do with her bus trip to Atlantic City - she wasn't exactly articulate. But I did feel this overwhelming sense of guilt and pain that I could do nothing to help.
It's a feeling that has stayed with me on and off the past two days. Even while I was busy figuring out how to organize the Citizens Union files. That actually required brain power - since the files were in a compelete and total mess and the people working there hadn't a clue what they had. I actually managed to straighten out almost an entire filing cabinet - impressing the office manager. At any rate on the way home, three people begging for nickles, dimes, pennies for the homeless showed up on the subway and I hunted for loose change - dropping it in their taped up containers. Not sure they were for real or not, not sure I care at this point. That's the problem with living in the world, you aren't always sure what is real and what is a performance. Sincerity seems to have gotten lost in the midst of all the marketing.
To distract myself - I find myself commenting on fanfic or fic writing enterprises, after I declared I wouldn't. Bad me. It's fun in a way...analyzing a fictional character's actions. Easier than dealing with the real and not always understandable actions of the friends and strangers that surround us. But the real world doesn't go away while we distract ourselves from it - it's always there waiting for us.
And the only way I can affect that world or change it for good or ill - is I suppose to continue to inter-act with it, even if sometimes I'd prefer to stay in my nice little bed.
