the dirty low down, or, brooklyn

"eat" is a vintage record store. and a coffee shop with wireless.
that's where i am. physically.
"eat" is in greenpoint. brooklyn. predominately polish. totally hip / classic. whole hearted-ly new york.

yesterday i ventured to greenwhich, midtown, chinatown, ellis island, ground zero, times square, downtown brooklyn - at night - late at night - whoops.
today. the financially exhausting demands of this city are catching up with me...so... it'll be street food and wandering for me and then a free poetry reading at the bowery.

last night i watched a mother, surely younger than me, cup her hands together while her beautiful, but suffering two year old vomited into them. this was on the q train. this killed my buzz. broke my heart. the mother reacted with such stoicism. the infant started crying and coughing. everyone around knew what was about to happen...she looked around quickly for a napkin, a wipe, something. nothing. so she held out her hands. and hooked her gaze to an invisible escape route.

i think i'm too sensitive for this city. i felt helpless in that subway. just a tourist, a voyeur. i created a story for that woman and her daughter. a story that villified daddy.

i mentally narrated that daddy was one of those cowardly fucks. that type of man that always wants to stick it in but never wants to stick around.

if he were around, the mother's eyes would not have reflected such a despondent shade of "this is as good as it gets." both, mother and child were beautiful. alive. but something about them seemed broken. spirit or heart? i don't know.

maybe they were just fine. happy actually. full and whole. just a little wheezy.

fuck.

moe's revived my spirit. it was a funky, soulful joint in a neighborhood that looked like the cosbys' - if claire had been a stay at home mom and heathcliff a bus driver. the drinks were overpriced and underpoured but the ambiance could not have been more brooklyn if it tried. d'angelo's brown sugar melted thru the speakers. and meshell ndegeocello. i surrendered to my surroundings and let the mama / daughter incident go. i had to. fuck it.

manhattan will be the gracious recipient of three to six inches of snow tomorrow. burrr! i bet it'll be a wondrous site. like i'm looking through a snowglobe or a living room box. buzzing and surreal.

okay. i'm off. to write happier stories of the cityfolk. and eat hotdogs. yes, plural. hotdogs.