i’’ve been craving sensory input like a madwoman lately. ice cream at work, meals of melted cheese and mustard, and now cigarettes again lest i become a giant lardball. thank goodness for the roof, where i’’m sitting in the dark with a beer letting the creamy breeze blow over me. the cycling is addictive; since i had it tweaked back into shape by the surly eastern european guy at the bike shop i feel more in control, pushing harder, slaloming around the manhole covers, taking the turn at the bottom of the bridge sharper than before. i love the bridge. i love bridges. i love being in transit.
on saturday kurt and i went to coney island. we meant to wait for good nick to do the fun stuff, but when we felt the first drops we decided to ride the cyclone before it was too late as someday soon it may be permanently too late. when the skies opened up they didn’’t shut down, just loaded us into the tiny wet seats and turned on the carnie lights. the ride pulled out as the thunder started. i looked down on a mile of deserted beach and kurt saw a lightning bolt touch the open water, then we roared down into the storm.
the comics i’ve been reading lately are fables and powers. after a long probation period in which i thought powers way maybe too over the top, too sexy too violent too cynical, i’ve swung firmly into liking it very much. the last issue had all these monologues delivered by characters who looked like real people and had no connection to the story talking about fakeness and the lies we live that overtake our lives, which chimes in with my second favorite vonnegut quote that we are who we pretend to be, so we should be careful about who we pretend to be. my favorite vonnegut quote is incidentally the best lie ever, the epitaph “everything was good and nothing hurt.” if i had internet access right now i’’d check that to make sure it was correct, but perhaps it’’s better this way to put it down just the way i remember it, without the benefit of fact-checking.