Here comes a sea, followed by an ocean...

Earlier this week I took a walk down to the pier. The late afternoon autumn sun was coming in at that magical angle, and it inspired an alternate and longer route.

That timed my arrival just before sunset and the sky looked like layers of sherbet. The light went from gold to pink and dusted everything with this softness, shadows were long and edges were diminished. When I reached the end of the pier, I noticed a man wearing a black suit. He was standing alone--exactly in the middle of the circle that forms the end of the pier. That's quite a thing to see, a man in formal attire at the end of a fishing pier, so I took his picture. I wasn't sure if he saw me, he seemed deep inside his head. My intuition told me that something very important was going to happen. But, I had no idea what.

~

~~~

I watched the man. He was taking slow deep breaths and looking out over the ocean. Eventually he turned around and faced the long length of the pier. He stood in what is best described as "parade rest", standing with the feet hip distance apart, arms in a downward "V" and hand over fist. He just stared ahead, motionless.

I saw a pretty girl walk towards him. She was carrying a HUGE bouquet of white roses, and her expression was of bewilderment, as if a stranger had just handed her the flowers and said "walk"---it was clear, though, that she recognized the man in the suit. His statue face finally registered an expression. He was happy.

What happened next, was both fast and also in slow motion.
He didnt move.
She walked all the way to him, a slow glide.
He got down on one knee.
Her eyes became shiny bowls, her hand spread and lifted to her mouth.
He pulled out a black box,
and electric taffy flowed from his eyes to hers...
He asked her to marry him.

She said 'yes'. They embraced. Her heels rose out of her little white flats as she scaled his shoulders in a hug. It was beyond beautiful...it was a moment so pregnant with all that is good that just watching it made me feel like I was made of liquid sparkles.

Oddly, all of the images are blurry until the final embrace...an apt visual metaphor for the moment, two flames in the process of becoming one, a dissolution of boundaries, if only for an instant.

~~~

:::::::::

at whole foods check out

CASHIER (to me): Hi, did you find everything okay?
ME: yeah, thanks..
BAG BOY (to me): paper or plastic?
ME: paper
CASHIER (to bag boy): Well, I would do, like, modest nudity. But not like Playboy or anything.
BAG BOY (to cashier): There's some tasteful stuff in Playboy, I think you can choose if you wanna show your snatch or not.
CASHIER (to bag boy): Oh. Well maybe, but I'd rather be in something that more young people look at, I think Playboy's not really that cool anymore.
CASHIER (to me): Here's your receipt, have a nice evening.

Whole Foods, maybe...Wholesome Foods, not so much.

momversations

MOM: I've lost my handlebars!
ME: What?
MOM: My handlebars, they're gone!
ME: Someone broke into the garage and stole your bike?
MOM: NO! Silly! I lost weight!

overheard

uttered by exasperated woman,

"Eat my mother's fuck!"

yikes.

typo=cheap laugh

Wish I could know who's responsible...
the sign company or the person placing the order with the sign company?

And, if it was the person placing the order with the sign company, did no one
at the sign company think to correct it? Was it laziness, revenge or
a quirky sense of humor? Maybe no one even caught the mistake?
Hell, I've walked past this sign 100s of times and I just now noticed it.
Did anyone get fired?

and then i was a gerbil
on a habitrail wheel of questions that will never get answered,
but mostly I laughed.

on today's walk

for my favorite "chimeny sweeper"

Oh wow. So much to love here.

Um, THIS, from a store on the Venice boardwalk
that has a big animatronic fortune teller named ZOLTAR
in a plexiglass booth at the entrance...
Many times I have walked by,
today, for the first time...(12 years)
I walked in.

Ok. So.
I love that the person writing the "display description"
was so enthused that they almost didn't leave enough room
for "profession",
in fact...I had to look up "profession"
to see if it was spelled properly
because
it looked SO weird.

"Dolls by Profession" ?

But mostly...
"for your favorite..."
CHIMENY sweeper?
nevermind the misspelling,
I don't know anyone that even
KNOWS
a chimney sweeper,
let alone has a "favorite"

Also,
($2._)?
sad.
like, isnt that what gum costs?

(and "Joey" doll in overalls
with wooden implements in pocket and dutch boy haircut,
what profession is that?)

watts happening

went to south central

dogs and cats running wild tijuana style
hair weaves in halloween colors on baby mamas
the treble of tejano and the bass of rap

on a dead end street are these towers
built over 33 years soley by one man
who started at the age of 42 and finished at 75.
He used no ladders or scaffolding,
no bolts, rivets, drills or welding torches

he declared,
"I wanted to make something big and I did"
then he left town and never returned.
the watts riots broke out a few blocks away
the same week he died

They stand like a tall ship
sailing through some mighty troubled waters

Got a one-on-one guided tour
by a man who sounded like
James Earl Jones...
in a word, DICTION
wait. in two words, FUCKING DICTION
and he painted the air with his hands while he talked.


an I love LA day.

$

world's largest zen garden

Um, yeah.
The beach last night was magical.
It was less about the skies,
all about the place where land and water meet...

it was such a sexy ballet.

O

it warped the sense of time and space
and size,
often felt like
I was seeing everything from an airplane.
instead of looking up everyone was looking down,
we were honorary birds for the day...

ME- just standing around observatrixing, waiting for a friend.
HER- woman in her 70s exiting public restroom.

HER (to me): "Oh my GOD! What a relief!"
ME: HAHAHAHAHAHA

she might as well have said, "Hey! I POOPED!"
(it was kinda cute)

oh mangy? OH,YES!

I got a flat tire on memory lane.
OOOOOoooooooo_____________

things to report

a bird pooped on me.
Google says that's a good luck omen
and it was good luck
not to be looking up with my mouth open.

I handed out candy to
the politest trick-or-treaters ever,
I gave a large handful to a little girl
dressed as an angel,
she thanked me for my generosity
and remarked...
"you dont expect that sort of thing from a
house on a somewhat busy street"

I heard a joke that keeps
making me laugh when I tell it to
myself in my head...

-What's the smartest thing that ever came out of a woman's mouth?
-EINSTEIN's cock!