still working on posting hand written NY stuff:

July 3, 2006
I saw John Stewart in Washington Square Park today. He looked as fucked as the rest of us. 10-O'clock shadow and all with a toddler. I wonder if he ever rides the "J" or if Brooklyn is in his vocabulary. An idol, or a least a figure head in front of me and I consciously try not to stare while obviously staring to make sure I've spotted him accurately. I mean: white, middle aged, in loose multi pocked thin hemp-like pants? Really? Even John Stewart dresses like a Yuppie in Manhattan come July.

My neighborhood is a Chapel show skit cliché waiting to happen. The "Hasley" stop, 24 Wierfield, just two stops from the café-cool parts of Williamsburg Brooklyn N.Y. There's a Korean convenience store owner just around the corner. He stares diligently at every black boy under 17 that comes in, but holds my orders till I have time to visit the ATM and come back. To make up for it, 4 African American men call me "Jungle Love" as I make my way home after picking up tofu and Noodles everyday on my way home. I don't think I'd care except here they don't know I have Iron Triangle creds, so catcalls come off condescending and borderline threatening. Here, I'm just another 4-year-degeree bitch looking to change the color of the Jamaican line.

I wish I could walk around in a T-shirt letting everyone know with one chiche overdone Che-style T-shirt that I was born in a war zone not unlike this one. Of course if I could then the scenesters in Williamsburg would start silk screening coppies, then Urban Outfitters would catch on and sooner or later our despiration would be sold at falling prices during back to school week at Walmart...and no I don't want that.

July 1, 2006
He's got cornrows more intricately patterned on his scalp then the Subway systems many interlocked and intertwined lines and his fingers are small but steady. He grips the pole keeping steady with his ashy brown toddler size hands pressing so hard that the pale parts of his fingers turn pink. I stair at him and smile. I've taken to staring at even more children in New York then in California, they are the only people who aren't scared to look and occasionally smile back. Here I feel honored just to get a pleasant nod in acknowledgement of smile offers directed toward strangers, neighbors and people I'm crammed against for greater parts of an hour on the J train. The little boy doesn't smile back at me, he just stairs with gigantic brown eyes at the quickly moving world around him. A man gets off the train holding a baby and the woman falling asleep next to gets up just in time to realize she has missed her stop and her "baby Daddy" now standing outside at the station waves mockingly and laughs as the train takes off and she mouths "You fucking asshole son of a bitch!" through the window. She begins to cry gasping and heaving with her tears hidden poorly by the window reflection she leans against. All I want to do is walk over, touch her back and say, "leave the inconsiderate SOB." But I can't, this is NY.