Leaving New York For A Spell...

Back to Chicago after a blizzard of activity. Today I took at a dead run, and by the time I got to the teashop at nine, all I wanted to do was sprawl. Rudy was late and so I sat there and stared at all the people and thought about all the different things going on in this one little room. Then, after about three seconds, I let my mind go blank.

The day started at the school. I'd left my keys in the classroom the day before, which was dumb, school keys just sitting there for anybody to take. Luckily they were in a desk drawer I'd thrown them into while I was looking for some transcripts so no wayward and bored summer school student broke into my room to gain free-reign over the school. How dumb can I be though?

Very.

Forgetful too. I'm always losing words when talking to the studenten, talking to anybody. My brain is way ahead and I have to go back and find a word from the sentence before, that's what it feels like. In reality, I'm probably just distracted easily.

That (the keys-problem) slowed me down. I met Rudy at Times Square at two to deal with some certification issues and while waiting for him I saw this little girl get hit by a car. Really hit. Some idiot was gunning through 42nd and 7th, not the intersection to make an ambering yellow. The girl's father charged the guy and there was all kinds of insanity ensuing, meanwhile this homeless guy was trying to start a conversation with me about the book I had in my hand in preparation of asking for a dollar, which I did not have. Odd, a little girl sprawled out like that and right there another person thinking about getting a dollar, but need is need though I had nothing to give. Though I suppose the father was thinking murder, the mother stood over the girl and both were screaming over all the noise.

Tomorrow I have to get up early, run over to 12th and University, grab a van, bring it back, load it up and drive to Chicago then unload it and blissfully afterwards, sleep. But that's tomorrow still.

Walked all over New York today - down to Delancey and up to Tompkins Square Park, across to 3rd Avenue and then up to Union Square, then back to 1st Avenue and then home from Bedford. The hipsters were out, there'd been kickball at McCarren and everybody looked beautiful and slightly flushed.

Cleaned out a bit more of my room, put a bunch of my books in boxes to store down in Rudy's classroom, I loved looking at the titles and seeing how all these random books brought in on random Tuesdays and Fridays throughout the year ended up spelling out the classes I had taught. There's a summer school teacher there, and the room lacks the crispness it has when I have it. Sure the desk is empty, not cluttered and spilling over with papers and books and half-forgotten ideas for activities planned halfway, but the rest of the classroom, which I pride on it's neatness when I'm there looks kind of lazy and unfettered. It's not so bad I guess, who wants to have to deal with all that nonsense in summer. It makes me happy though, I feel like my room only unfolds into itself with me there.

I should sleep - six hours and then a long, long, long day.

I miss New York, and feel sad about missing out of seeing some people one last time. It's weird to not know if I'm coming back. I try not to take those things too seriously. Good-byes are usually overrated. If it is good-bye. I think the real good-byes are the best stories that you tell later.

New York is a kind of bible, everywhere pages and words grow out of pavement and metal. And life hangs over you and runs underneath you and pulses past you so that you are always caught up in the narrative that spills out everywhere around you. It gets so that waiting is the worst thing in the world to do, it's unbearable to think that New York happens without you, but comforting too, it's so easy to fall back into the stream which is really an ocean.