Bits and pieces from an unsound mind wandering through a mall
1Read book while waiting to get off freeway. I look up at one point to find a blue car jutting its head into the line (Fuck off, lady! I've been waiting for a long time, and you aren't getting in that easy! Line's back there!) The man in the truck in front of me applauds; his girlfriend turns around to look; I laugh.
2
No parking? No problem! Strategy's in place. Oh, darn, too few people leaving. Find a miraculously empty spot in 10 min. Wow, how did that happen.
3
Coffee is not supposed to be this hot. Burnt lips. Burnt tongue. Burnt mouth. Ouch.
4
What is it that drives people to a mall on the day after Christmas? Okay, the sales. But it's the day after Christmas! Nevermind, too tired to analyze the idiocy of Americans. Another theory: it's "the place to see and be seen." But no. However simple that explanation would be, no.
5
"...consumerism, bastardizing a religious holiday, which is true!..." -young Caucasian woman, slightly overweight, to woman beside her.
6
Reading... "The snowflake is the most fragile thing ever created...look what it can do..." -man with stubble to his companion.
7
Utter, complete happiness. Incredible. Weight off my mind for the first time in a long time because of something someone told me the night before. I miss being on my own. I hadn't realized how much I missed being able to think and analyze and criticize and just watch, just observe. My thoughts have been occupied by one thought and one thought only for too many days now. It still haunted me now and then, sure. But I've made peace. Until the end, when the pebble was thrown back in my shoe. But I'm going to pretend it's not there.
8
Two young men, signing to each other. The thinner, taller one, with olive-colored skin makes an odd sucking noise while forming a hook with his finger. It's slang and you can tell, don't ask me how, but you can. Red-streaked mohawk, black and white pants from the when? 60s? 70s? Very distinctive. His friend leans over the railing, blows out smoke. At the table next to them, three girls, high-school-aged or so they look. One stands, walks to another table, her fag's about done. Two women dine at tables beside me. Two women, two tables, strangers. Plus me. I wonder what they're doing at the mall by themselves on the day after Christmas? Come to think of it, what am I doing at the mall by myself on the day after Christmas? Oh well, je suis contente. C'est suffit.
19
CONCIERGE With speakers above blasting "Voulez-vous voulez? Voulez-vous voulez? Voulez-vous voulez?..." What a pointless song...and they call that music.
10
Follow the well-dressed couple ahead without looking up. You're always at the front anyways--why do people walk so slow? "I don't want to get hit!" --boy with baseball hat, behind you. Look up. Don't Walk sign still up. That big, red (no, it's orange) commanding hand telling you the cars are going to run you over. Why the heck am I in the middle of the road. Oh good it changed. Those bastards.
11
Interesting day. Same thing on my mind again. How troublesome. Driving with left foot. Same hours as day at museum. When a sign says 280, it means 280. Not miraculously 880.
