Journal 2.6.2018 (Patreon)

Tonight, walking through Cambridge, I passed a Korean restaurant I ate at the last time I was here. I'd gotten done with a day of shooting, after an overnight bus ride in from NYC. I was carrying a backpack, a bag of groceries, a garbage bag full of vintage clothing. I stopped in before the dinner rush, and I ate soup, egg rolls, and an entire entree of fried rice in about 20 minutes because I hadn't eaten anything since the night before. 

When I went to the bathroom, they sent someone to run in after me, and they looked at me in the strangest way, and I realized they thought I was a vagrant. Probably going into the bathroom to shoot up. Something illegal. You don't run into a contained space after a person to look at them like that if you don't think there's something fundamentally wrong with them and their intentions. It was a really good restaurant, but I'm not eating there again. I paid for my food and tipped, so I don't know why they need to know if I'm using their sink to take a shower in.

I'm kidding, I didn't do that. I washed my hands like someone who is properly house trained.

I haven't been in Boston since then - 2016 - and I've only been back for a couple of days. Long enough to figure out that the bus schedule doesn't make much sense, neither do the roads, and if you think the people will, well good luck. 

I saw a guy get kicked out of a bar in South Street Station after he yelled sexual comments at a bartender about her probably cheating on her boyfriend. As it turns out, she's a lesbian. He got kicked out anyway. That's what happens when you down two double shots of Fireball in the middle of a weekday just because you're retired. He didn't get the memo that parties don't start early just because he does. 

In the airbnb I stayed in, I slowly walked around the apartment when it was empty, contemplating the silence and surroundings - a word to describe this is 'snooping'. There were framed photographs lining the shelves in the main room, all of one woman. "These look like selfies" I thought to myself. Later that night, after meeting my host, this was confirmed. There were selfies of the woman who lived in the home on the shelves in the home. It's difficult to hold a serious conversation with a person who has a line of photos of their face behind them on the shelf. It's uncanny.

I shot outside today. Edit: I attempted to shoot outside today. My hands wrinkled like they'd been in a bath too long. They turned yellow, and sticking them inside my armpits didn't do much good. A man walked past, and he knew that we were doing "naked" photos. I can always tell, because they keep turning around. I always want to yell, "don't trip over a tree stump craning around like that!" And another five feet. They turn around again. Tits must be really mesmerizing to a person who is attracted to them. I don't even remember half the boobs I've seen, and of the ones I do, it's simply because I have photo evidence. And even then...

I arrived at my other host's tonight. There is a child here. I grew up around children; I completely forgot what it's like to be around an 8 year old boy. The energy is unrelenting, the noise is deafening, the complaints are unceasing, the attention span is nonexistent. I watched him get a haircut over the kitchen trashcan. He'd cut his own hair that day at school, badly, an obvious incision into the fringe coming across his forehead; it had to be fixed. I asked him why he cut his hair, and he said "it was in my eyes." And I guess that makes complete sense. His mom cut his hair over the trash can as he blew through a whistle into her face, squirreled away from the scissors, and talked about how he'd like to not have a haircut. When she finished, he ran into the bathroom, stood upon the toilet, looked into the mirror, and let out a gutteral noise that started low and ascended to a shriek. He gripped his head and yelled "What did you do to my hair!" And she said "What did I do? What did you do? I was just trying to fix it."

I was walking up Dorchester Avenue tonight, right off the red line in an industrial district. Late, dark. A guy yelled, from the comfort of a lit up landing dock "Hey!" and spit everywhere. I could hear the echo of spittle hitting ice in the dark, he turned around and went back in, comfortable with the announcement of his presence. Comfortable with yelling at a tottering lady in a big parka and scarf, and I shrugged my arms into the air as far as my stiff parka sleeves and the double layer of clothing underneath would let me and said "Gah!" and kept walking. 

Tomorrow I head to Providence. I'll be there until Friday when I head to NYC. I will post updates. And photos as well. Very soon!