old haunts

I spent all day yesterday biking up Myrtle Ave, all the way to the overpass of the JMZ line at myrtle and willoughby. Last time I was at this intersection I was pissed off and breaking up with [this asshole]. Not being one to lay a grievance behind, I stand for a minute and take it in.



It's really dark, for one thing. There's five or six roads that come together, so crossing the street is incredibly treacherous. And under the subway tracks, there's this proliferation of commerce -- it's like being at Yankee Stadium, with fourteen different bodegas and people standing out at every corner hawking incense and necklaces. Really fucking beautiful.

I turn up and around the side streets, looking for Surreal Estate. Not finding it, I look for Troutman (out of a bizarre desire to rehash old wounds). Luckly, I don't find that either.

I met this woman today who really hates Occupy Wall Street. She's the resident artist at Proteus Gowanus, and was convinced that everyone living at the camp was an ivy league student. "Of course they can take off work! They have all this money!" I don't think that's true, but I didn't really want to argue with her about it.

I do wonder how she managed to get to Zucotti Park and only speak to academics -- if it's anything like Boston, it would have been hard to take one pass through the park without stumbling over two drunken fistfights and one completely sober and intentional threat to physical violence.

Sometimes I wish I was not so bitter about the site. I turn left up Bushwick Ave and make a mental note of buildings that are boarded up, empty lots, open gates. I wonder why they opted for tents. Why Zucotti? Why that space, over any other? Did they expect it would last -- or did they expect to pitch tents for three days, and then find themselves with a long-term occupation? Passing by St. Mark's church, I make a note of the intersection and wonder idly whether I'll pass the big condo conversion anytime soon (I read about it: I know it's here somewhere).

People are so quick to shake off misalignments, small hypocrisies, to try to separate themselves for the sake of calling shit out and holding people accountable. I remember when Darrin drove up to the site in a BMW -- or when AFL-CIO called me up and said, "yes, we're making hats especially for occupy" My thought was, "what the fuck, you don't get this at all." But Darrin spent a couple of years organizing prisoners before he got snapped up by SEIU and is grateful to make it to thirty -- so what if if he has a nice car now? It's so hard to know people, to know where they come from.

Sometimes you go on a couple of bad dates -- sometimes the union calls up and wants to make you hats. Sometimes you find a building and fall in love with it, and sometimes you find yourself in the middle of an occupation, and just have to go with the flow.