Pee Sounds (2/21/07)

Whisssh, whisssh, whissh, thurrop thurrup thurrup, drip drip drip.

Not really. But I am going to annihilate you all with my whiplike alliterative skill. Crack! Like thunder on your spine--crack crack!

First up to bat is Prospect Park. It's Brooklyn's version of Central Park--smaller, which is weird because Brooklyn's actually bigger than Manhattan in terms of both miles and people, and older, but designed by the same guys; the actually got the contract for Central after Manhattan bigwigs took a look at Prospect. Anyway, it's a nice place, and yesterday was a nice day, so I walked from one end of it to another. What the hay, right? I ain't got no job, i ain't got no money...

On the train sometimes you'll be right next to another train running on a parallel track. through the window there are people that look like they're on another planet, despite the fact that their, i don't know, thirteen feet away. Not even. But it doesn't matter, because they're miles away in terms of consciousness of you. It's like their different destinations gives them different destinies (crack) than you, whole new unintersected patterns of existence that will NEVER cross yours, thus their relevance is defined only in terms of the distance they maintain from you.

i'm way off track (hee). Ahem. Sometimes that other track and that other train is going just a little slower or just a little faster, so that you get soothing feeling of synchronous motion that's a little like floating in the ocean. It's nice, and then the train cars bank a little away from you and disappear as they go north and you go west, or they run up or down a hill you can't see int he dark underground, to a different altitude of tunnel.

But other times, like on the N train, which goes across the Manhattan bridge and so makes the following phenomenon very easy to witness, as well as grants unbelievable views of the Brooklyn bridge--other times the track right next to you is for the same line going in the opposite direction, Brooklyn-bound while you're heading into Manhattan, or vice versa. And if you're looking out the window at a certain moment this rush of silver blurring bolts past you (crack) with sudden interruption. The first few times it happened I jumped, thinking something bad just happened without being able to explain what or even have the first mental processes that head toward what we call "knowing."

So these are our models. Back to Prospect Park. It was melting and mushy (crack) with snow slushing into mud (crack crack!)--the whole scene, which in this case was an area called only "the long meadow" (any Hagerstonians out there who remember longmeadow shopping center on the north end?) had that fertile warmslop feeling of spring. So I trudged through it delighting in the fact that I could hear the wind in the empty trees, and that everything had a SMELL. Winter is great on the eyes, but it's shitty on the nostrils.

I made my way to the big lake, which was frozen thinly on the edges but still flowing in the very middle. And there are birds--man, birds, birdsbirdsbirdsbirds. Everywhere. Pigeons pottering and pecking about (ka-crack), Seagulls flapping and cackling in their useless expenditure of energy nuisance way, ducks whack whack whacking, plodding on the ice like its solid ground, even a batch of canadian geese with their faceless black heads and neck cocking remonstrances of the other, smaller birds around them. It's a real, pardon the pun, pecking order going on here, according to size and color distinction. The little plain pigeons have no chance against the geese whose flanks they come up to, the ducks can't match the seagulls for girth or wingspan or volume, and the tiny chickadees just try to hang and flit and dash amid this treat of social hour they rarely get in winter.

And then, the real prize, right near the bank: four sleeping swans. This is truly something. They're gigantic, and I'm definitely less than thirteen feet from me. And they're totally careless of my presence, tucked in as they are to their breasts, nuzzled and dozing. They match the ice, and seem so of a piece with their surroundings that i can't imagine them over moving--they're like feathered rocks, or flapadelic icebergs sitting there. They fidget every now and then, moving their heads like we move the pillow when we get up int he middle of the night or early morning, or when our alarm goes off and we hit snooze. And then I see the fifth, whose out a little ways and a bit more active. First I see a wing stretched out to dry. Ok, normal enough. Then he goes up on one foot, the wing still extended--and holds the pose for a good minute and a half. The whole thing looks like an advertisement for avian tai-chi.

I'm buzzing with sensation. I'm all alone. I'm happy as freaking hell!

And thus concludes my hiatus from crazy people. Blame it on a premature spring, or global warming, or the republican party, or whatever scapegoat of choice you favor.