Springfest 2003
Apr. 19th, 2003 06:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebe
I'm standing in the middle of a street that just yesterday was jammed with construction equipment and stalled cars, and you'd be afraid to even step foot on the asphalt then. Today, though, nothing but people and booths and balloons, with the occassional artificial flower headdress that blew off in the wind. It'll never get old how quickly order changes; one minute it absolutely has to be this way, except when this happens and then it's OK to do things you'd never, ever consider otherwise. Order is one of those things that just pretends to be hard and total, when really it can break down any time people get the mind to.
It had been drizzling up to this point, but the sun shone apologetically now, feebly trying to make the afternoon nice at least. And here I am, alone, in the middle of the street, wondering where to go next. The festival is only three blocks long; there was no place I could be anonymous any more. I shouldn't have worn my top hat.
My boyfriend and his mother had left before dinner. They're not really into the whole crowd scene, and I admit that when it gets right down to it, I'm not either. It's the principle of the thing that draws me, the tradition of a community to gather in the face of promise. Winter's finally over, and we're back from hibernation now. It's good to see you again, neighbor. How'd that cider you stored turn out? Well, that's the principle, anyway; the reality is a lot of the sorta-goths and maybe-artists come out to pose, the religious groups and activists come out to shove pamphlets in your face, and the second-rate vendors come to sell second-rate cotton candy and pretty decent funnel cake at slightly-less-inflated prices. If you try really hard, though, you can at least pretend the principle is being fulfilled.
Dinner was at Dadoo's. Dadoo's is this little brick-oven pizzeria off Dickson Street with a hefty assortment of beer and very surly waiters. Our party ordered a white pizza with pineapple and tomato that was a little undercooked, and a pitcher of a beer whose name I couldn't pronounce if your paid me. Wasn't too bad, as far as beer goes. I had a house salad on top of that. The Italian dressing was pretty good, but it tasted funny with the beer.
We talked small all afternoon. Most of it was stuff we had told each other earlier, but we thought it polite to ask each other to tell the tale again. And so we did, round and round, only half-listening and half-eating, watching other people in the restaurant watch us watch them. It's the kind of dinner that makes you feel empty. The pizza didn't help.
I carried that empty feeling with me back to the Bookshop and back out to the street again, in the middle of everything, but not really a part of it. I get that disconnected feeling, again, that really I'm not a part of anything, there's no bond to any of this, and I could completely disappear and no one would be the wiser. Earlier, I chased a few friends around the booths, but none of them really seemed interested in bonding; two of them were interested in each other and the third was interested in anything that wasn't what she was focused on right then. The feeling started then, and it grew until I finally did disappear into the side of a big yellow taxi cab that took me back to this apartment so I could write all of this down.
I thought I would practice my prose. I don't think I'll look at it, though, because it would look to jumbled to me. Maybe it came out more streamlined than I thought.
The empty feeling is still rooted firmly, but I've learned to make friends with it. Well, at least to be familiar with it. I know it for what it is, and that way it doesn't become anything it really isn't. You're only alone if you want to be, after all.
It had been drizzling up to this point, but the sun shone apologetically now, feebly trying to make the afternoon nice at least. And here I am, alone, in the middle of the street, wondering where to go next. The festival is only three blocks long; there was no place I could be anonymous any more. I shouldn't have worn my top hat.
My boyfriend and his mother had left before dinner. They're not really into the whole crowd scene, and I admit that when it gets right down to it, I'm not either. It's the principle of the thing that draws me, the tradition of a community to gather in the face of promise. Winter's finally over, and we're back from hibernation now. It's good to see you again, neighbor. How'd that cider you stored turn out? Well, that's the principle, anyway; the reality is a lot of the sorta-goths and maybe-artists come out to pose, the religious groups and activists come out to shove pamphlets in your face, and the second-rate vendors come to sell second-rate cotton candy and pretty decent funnel cake at slightly-less-inflated prices. If you try really hard, though, you can at least pretend the principle is being fulfilled.
Dinner was at Dadoo's. Dadoo's is this little brick-oven pizzeria off Dickson Street with a hefty assortment of beer and very surly waiters. Our party ordered a white pizza with pineapple and tomato that was a little undercooked, and a pitcher of a beer whose name I couldn't pronounce if your paid me. Wasn't too bad, as far as beer goes. I had a house salad on top of that. The Italian dressing was pretty good, but it tasted funny with the beer.
We talked small all afternoon. Most of it was stuff we had told each other earlier, but we thought it polite to ask each other to tell the tale again. And so we did, round and round, only half-listening and half-eating, watching other people in the restaurant watch us watch them. It's the kind of dinner that makes you feel empty. The pizza didn't help.
I carried that empty feeling with me back to the Bookshop and back out to the street again, in the middle of everything, but not really a part of it. I get that disconnected feeling, again, that really I'm not a part of anything, there's no bond to any of this, and I could completely disappear and no one would be the wiser. Earlier, I chased a few friends around the booths, but none of them really seemed interested in bonding; two of them were interested in each other and the third was interested in anything that wasn't what she was focused on right then. The feeling started then, and it grew until I finally did disappear into the side of a big yellow taxi cab that took me back to this apartment so I could write all of this down.
I thought I would practice my prose. I don't think I'll look at it, though, because it would look to jumbled to me. Maybe it came out more streamlined than I thought.
The empty feeling is still rooted firmly, but I've learned to make friends with it. Well, at least to be familiar with it. I know it for what it is, and that way it doesn't become anything it really isn't. You're only alone if you want to be, after all.
