Dirt Floor

I woke at 3:50 and Lily knows the alarm goes off at 4. She starts to drool at 3:45, knowing she'll be fed. She is the doggie alarm clock. It's all about the food. Me too. That's how I know I am part Labrador. A Brighton Beach Jewish Labrador.

Dreaming words today. A cosmic yellow taxi driver cosmonaut. A cabbie who doesn't like doughnuts. Dough without the "H" becomes Doug. I'll never get over that.

If I could drive a pedicab I might love to be a cab driver. Or if I could drive standing up like in a milk truck or a step van. But I hate to drive because I miss everything. I love to walk.
I love subways but we don't have one in our city. Perhaps I should dig one.

When I sit my brain shuts off. When I was in art school. I never wanted to draw and paint sitting I need my whole body as an antenna. On rare occasions I'll drive a stick shift car. To keep myself involved. So it is not like driving a couch with wheels.

I love to overhear people when I am walking around. I love sound warping from a car driving by. Albert Einstein saying hi. Relativity. 

There's a guy who drives a motorized bicycle with a boom box strapped to the handlebars. He makes a great sound warp.

I saw my scrap metal friend Jackson yesterday wheeling an antique pram with a mini fridge and an air conditioner piled on top. "Happy Thanksgiving" he said as he wheeled by. "You too," I said.

Sidewalk friends are the best.

I had a boss a tall round man who always smelled like sugary doughnuts. He wore white shirts. His cheeks were always rosy. His white sugar mustache visible. His name was Duffy. He was very doughy. He ran a print shop that was full of white paper. When I worked for him I also was a waitress at the local pizza joint and Duffy would come there to eat. This was 1970's hippy pizza where you ordered a side serving of brewer's yeast and sprouts to sprinkle on your pizza. He would order a whole pizza for himself.

Yesterday I was admiring the sculpted marble monuments in Precious Blood cemetery.
I love the marble stones carved to look like wood.
One tree stone has an embedded black and white photo-portrait of an old lady.
I didn't get her name.
There's an accidentally headless woman statue.
She had a raven standing on her stump.

I love the flowing marble gowns.
The Jesus and Mary and Joseph statues.
I've always been curious about the naked bleeding man made of tarnished brass
worshiped by marble women
and the tenement saints
enshrined in porcelain claw foot bathtubs
stuck vertically in the cement
circled with cobblestones
and painted white and blue

I just took the last pint of expired-three-days-ago milk and simmered it to 180 cooled it to 110 and added some plain yogurt. It is in a jar resting on my boiler, growing into yogurt. It will take all day. microbiology. home chemistry. urban farming. home science. I love it. my whole wheat seven cup sourdough blob is growing in a see-thru bucket in the fridge. It will take a few more days to reach the top.
It's like growing the population of Bombay in Iceland.

He was reheated coffee in a paneled waiting room.
He was a light blue polyester suit with wide sideburns kinda guy
A math teacher at the junior high.
drove a black El Dorado with automatic windows,
red interior full of cigarette burns.
they found her body in the trunk

***
I work three jobs now, might as well since I can't sleep.
And now I also have migraines, she said.
It's probably related.
I haven't slept since my grandmother died 20 years ago
one or two hours here and there, she says.
and I take naps.
I tried sleeping pills she said. nothing works.
You hate medicine.
You loved her.
Write a letter to your grandmother.
Tell her what's on your mind, I suggested.
You don't have to mail it.
She smiled.
When you can't sleep get up
and keep writing.
I will try that, she said.

The lady raking leaves told me where I can see her Portuguese Water-Dog at his doggie day-care on the Internet.

This city Intersection has always been lively.
We've had broken legs, shot legs, no legs.

I found a 4" bright orange hard-plastic centipede on the sidewalk and took it home and washed it. it is now Sammy's favorite toy. I throw the centipede down the turquoise linoleum-covered cellar stairs and he goes wild and fetches it in the dark. We play fetch over and over. He likes that game. He's a dog in a cats body. I asked my vet if we could have his species altered. "He would be so much happier," I said.
Not a good idea, Dr. Belinsky said. He has known me since I adopted my first dog in my first apartment at age 18. I always feel he can see right into my soul. Perhaps this is why he doesn't look me in the eye. He looks at my husband when he talks to me.
Shyness, my husband said on the way home in the car.
I am very sensitive to eye contact.
My husband looks me in the eye when he talks and I am hypnotized by his blue marbles. This is a nightly trance over dinner.

I am thinking of joining the pool next door. I am not sure but since I love to swim and it is so close I might have to. I don't even have to get dressed, I said to my husband. He imagined me walking down the street unclothed to jump into the pool.
I'm just thinking less locker room time. Ladies in locker rooms gang up on me. They instinctively know I am a martian and they always try to convert me to their tribe.
I am an urban mermaid. I have a one-piece old fashioned tank suit that is 35 years old and still works. I looked on the label. It's made of acetate. Most suits rot in the chlorine. We'll see.
I don't like leaving my dog but she will be able to feel that I am next door so it might be okay.
I like to swim in the stream of consciousness. if I can't swim I wash dishes instead. It's a pool for my hands.
I do have a yellow bathtub but I only use it rarely and in the summer since my house is freezing. In the summer I prefer to sit in the blue plastic kiddie pool in my little yard.
Last summer my neighbors blew up a huge kiddie pool and lowered it three stories down onto the sidewalk beside the the mini mart. They borrowed their neighbors water and hose, to fill the pool. The young Latino moms sat to chat and smoke cigarettes and they watched their kids swimming and everyone ate Popsicles from the mini mart in the broiling noonday heat. It was so urban poor beautiful. I photographed it.

spontaneous cemetery orgasm
it happened one day
my guy friends laughed at me when I told them
they said that's every day for us.

I found a bunch of empty vodka, schnapps, and rum bottles at the feet of gravestones.
the dead drink.

I found a sexy serving spoon on the sidewalk.
She is the latest member of our family.
This is a city that tosses its silverware into the street when they finish a meal.

"Bubbeleh go put the tools on the table!" My grandmother Sophie would say
She made French toast for us.
Her repertoire was French toast and roast chicken.

Dirt Floor
That's all you have to say to a house guest about your ancestors and they'll pack their bags and leave.

11/20/8AM 2014