the pretty people
I have no business criticizing SK's neighborhood for being snotty because mine is equally snotty. I just spent the morning sitting on the corner of 15th and Fremont, hub of the snotty Irvington neighborhood, elbow to elbow with all the pretty and semi-pretty people. The pretty people were at Starbucks and Caffe Destino, sipping a variety of mutant coffee drinks and smiling from underneath sunglasses. The semi-pretty people were standing around in the laundromat with me, pumping quarters into machines and folding clothes.
After my stuff was in the dryer, I walked into Starbucks (gritting my teeth all the way, I promise) to buy a New York Times. Why is Starbucks the only place on the fanciest corner of the fancy neighborhood where you can get a Times during the week? I don't know. While the pretty people drank lattes or mochaccinos or whatever the fuck they drank, I sat on the ground outside the laundromat and read about the beginning of WWIII in the middle-east. Hello, America! Pay attention!
It reminded me of the way I felt in 2001 right after the planes hit the World Trade Center. I cycled down to this same corner to get some food at Wild Oats and bought a paper to read about the catastrophe that was happening, finally, on our own soil. I was amazed and disgusted by the pretty people who sat around that corner having their normal days, their normal conversations, drinking their normal coffees over normal scones like ash and debris weren't still drifting out of the sky in New York and the people in the rubble hadn't even all finished dying. SK and I talked this weekend about how the lack of violence on American soil fuels American complacency -- however, on 9-11, I saw American's behaving complacently in the face of a violent attack in our own front yard.
I guess we each have to literally have our very own bomb dropped into our very own front yard before we can, any of us, be bothered to give an actual, concrete shit about anything. Otherwise, we pay lip service to giving a shit or perhaps we give a theoretical shit. Yes, I give a theoretical shit about people dying in Lebanon and Israel and Gaza and, of course, Iraq and Afghanistan still, but I'm not going to let it put a damper on my well-earned, American brunch.
I mean, really. The day here in Portland, Oregon is particularly gorgeous. In fact, it can be argued that Portland is having the absolute best weather today in the entire U.S., spared, as we are, from the heatwave that's afflicting the rest of the country. The temperature is good, the sky is bright blue, the trees are green and it seems like the best, most beautiful place on an equally wonderful earth. So we have to fight extra hard to remember that the earth is awfully full of shit and bloodshed and shrapnel today, regardless of our "Katrina-fatigue" and "Iraq-fatigue" and other "bad-news-fatigue." We have to get over ourselves.
After my stuff was in the dryer, I walked into Starbucks (gritting my teeth all the way, I promise) to buy a New York Times. Why is Starbucks the only place on the fanciest corner of the fancy neighborhood where you can get a Times during the week? I don't know. While the pretty people drank lattes or mochaccinos or whatever the fuck they drank, I sat on the ground outside the laundromat and read about the beginning of WWIII in the middle-east. Hello, America! Pay attention!
It reminded me of the way I felt in 2001 right after the planes hit the World Trade Center. I cycled down to this same corner to get some food at Wild Oats and bought a paper to read about the catastrophe that was happening, finally, on our own soil. I was amazed and disgusted by the pretty people who sat around that corner having their normal days, their normal conversations, drinking their normal coffees over normal scones like ash and debris weren't still drifting out of the sky in New York and the people in the rubble hadn't even all finished dying. SK and I talked this weekend about how the lack of violence on American soil fuels American complacency -- however, on 9-11, I saw American's behaving complacently in the face of a violent attack in our own front yard.
I guess we each have to literally have our very own bomb dropped into our very own front yard before we can, any of us, be bothered to give an actual, concrete shit about anything. Otherwise, we pay lip service to giving a shit or perhaps we give a theoretical shit. Yes, I give a theoretical shit about people dying in Lebanon and Israel and Gaza and, of course, Iraq and Afghanistan still, but I'm not going to let it put a damper on my well-earned, American brunch.
I mean, really. The day here in Portland, Oregon is particularly gorgeous. In fact, it can be argued that Portland is having the absolute best weather today in the entire U.S., spared, as we are, from the heatwave that's afflicting the rest of the country. The temperature is good, the sky is bright blue, the trees are green and it seems like the best, most beautiful place on an equally wonderful earth. So we have to fight extra hard to remember that the earth is awfully full of shit and bloodshed and shrapnel today, regardless of our "Katrina-fatigue" and "Iraq-fatigue" and other "bad-news-fatigue." We have to get over ourselves.
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 12:03 PM
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