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Another trip to the 'mat

2004-10-27 - 11:03 p.m.

Ever since I watched To Sir With Love with Hark and Mick the other week, I can't get the song out of my head. But it's only this one line, over and over.

to sir with love.

Also my friend Debbie teaches skating and on her skating dvd for kids she sings songs to them. The other night at a party I saw her at, she sang To Sir With Love to a baby to make him stop crying. 'Cept she didn't have skates on, but she skated around him in her shoes.

to sir with love.

Then my day resumes. It's like a cut and paste option in a word document that I keep cutting and pasting over any people and scenescapes that I take note of .

That alley cat that lets me love him from a distance with the jacked up mouth and

missing fur.
to sir
with love

Whenever there is a break in conversation I hear it in my head.

Here's your change have a nice day. To sir, with love.

The young guy in the laundromat with the burlap skirt who kept trying to get me to look at him while I was reading.

to sir, with love.

I mean he did everything. He walked up and checked himself out every 2 minutes in the reflection of the washing machine next to me. Then he told the old guy that came in with him to bring the radio into the place and he blasted it, planted right between an old Mexican lady and a nervous intellect. Then he paced back over and looked at my book. I was on the 'eat only sun and live to be one hundred' page, with pictures. He looked at his reflection again in the machine window.

There's a notion that if you hold a camera on a subject long enough without giving the person any question or direction, they will start giving you all kinds of information that you didn't ask for. I tried it in college, and it worked. There should be a reverse order notion that if you ignore someone long enough and they have something to say, you should just acknowledge them before they pop. For all I knew, his parents ignored him all his little life, and he needed the attention.

To sir, with love.

But I kept reading. Surely there were other people in the 'mat that were already staring at that gel spike - tipped head of his. But not everybody. Not me. Not the little worker guy who cleans the liquid detergent off the machines. That little worker guy even missed it last week when the scruffy blond guy stole my empty laundry basket and ran out. I meant to yell after him, hey that handle just broke an hour ago, but I knew he'd find out.

To sir with love.

And it was fucking up my reading, this guy needing attention. I kept reading the same line over and over. 'The food and drug addicted....the food and drug addicted...to sir with...the food and drug addicted masses through habitual gluttony have closed the entry of the spirit.'

He changed the station to Mariachi music and yelled to everyone "This is my song." His next stunt was, he puts on this white t - shirt over a blue dress shirt and walks back over to his reflection. He smooths his spikes and looks back over at me. No, sir, with love. I heard him say to his friend that he wanted to look sexy, not just fun.

Finally, he takes a purple ink tube and starts making drawings all over the t - shirt he had on in the reflection. I wasn't interested in the design but he was pretty funny. He took off the t - shirt and finished it on the folding table, then put it back on. When walked back over and stuck out his chest I knew it was our time. The time had come for closing books and long last looks must end.

"What do you think of this shirt. I just made it."

"You look pretty."

"It has a peace sign, some crosses, and on the bottom it says 'give love.' "

"I thought it said 'need love.' "

"No it says 'give love. And look what I wrote on the back of it. 'Shave Bush in '04.'"

"Cute."

"Well I guess we're leaving, have a good night."

"Thanks for everything."

My stuff was dry ten minutes later, and so were the sad purple ink spots that were desperately imposing themselves all over the sturdy folding table.

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