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"'...the yearning for fulfillment is sometimes expressed as Heimweh, the homesickness for the father or mother and for the lost sheltered place; or else as the desire for a female [or male] figure who turns out to be the beloved we have left behind'" (Ulmer, Internet Invention, p75). |
 Adrian lives in the East Village, a neighborhood that was (until only a few years ago) considered no man's land. You didn't venture east of Avenue A. Now the neighborhood stretches to D. Fresh produce on the street. Associated (the local supermarket) has all the essentials otherwise. Rooftops, cafes, restaurants, consignment shops. Tompkins Square Park. Rue B. Sushi Lounge. Alphabet City. Split cultures living together. Grit and grime, very little crime. My favorite time in the city is summer dusk. I like the crisp air in the summer mornings, too. There's an hour or two when you won't find many people on the street, an hour or two when the city feels asleep, haunted. And the air breathes cleaner. Then the faces emerge, in pairs mostly, coffee in hand. All about smiles, they've been kept under the city's watchful eye as they sleep, dream of homes they miss or friends who have left for far away places.
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October 23 I am a slave to insanity.
No one knows I’m here. Why do they turn the heat on so gdamn early? I swear, it’s not even cold outside. Perhaps I don’t think so because I’m cold blooded. Perhaps that’s why I’m sweating in my apartment right now. Because I’m cold blooded. It’s getting lonely in this body. Sometimes I don’t know why I’m here. Outside: It’s the pretty landscape, the cumulous sky, the shimmers of light, the puddles after the rain, one bowing tree in the park. The dogs are pissing all over it. The colors are inverted: my predilection for things grim, I guess. I try: I am nice to people as they pass by (there are too many gdamn people in this city). I smile, although half-heartedly. They step on my shoes. I hold the door open for them. They don’t notice as their souls seep into their cell phone blue tooth ear jacks – the blue light diffusing energy into the pollution laden atmosphere. Chemical pollution. Noise Pollution. Now this. Soul Pollution. A person sane in an insane world must appear to be--insane. Where did I hear that? A record 6 months in my apartment. This blogging thing is o.k. My writing’s the only thing that seem to keep me together sometimes. Who do I thank for this master craft fodder we call the internet? Sir Tim Berner’s Lee? I heard he is formulating the internet version 2.0. Wrong. It’s the users who are forming version 2.0, not the originals. The users are the makers now. There are no originals because we are now the originals, and we simply do not exist. No one knows we’re here. Had to leave my father’s house a few years ago (for various reasons). Dad: if you find my words online and piece them together, you may just learn something about me. I’m not very young, although people say I look young for my age. I hate it when people think I’m too young because I look young for my age. Can’t they tell that I have my sh*t together when I pass them on the bus? Can’t they tell that I am a good clean powerful force when I barter with them in their shops, when I barter for their souls on the streets? Someone once said that a picture steals your soul. And I work at a coffee shop the other half of the time. The only place where the percolator competes with voices, with nonsense chatter and the clanking of silverware and the cheapest of china, with honesty. In my father’s house it competes with nothing, save the screams, crying and shattering cups and spilt blood, teeth. Every morning like clockwork. Every night like clockwork. Where were you? YOU ARE A FU*KING DOORMAT.
Maybe today he’ll remember. Dad, if you ever read this, take care. Christopher de la Torre ©2005 |
From Adrian's blog: "Screaming Inside"
I think I’ll get outside today. This gdamn apartment. A spider must have crawled in last night, in from out of the rain. I can see the footprints on my wall. She tiptoed so I wouldn’t hear her. Hear her bringing dreams and hopelessness. They say people ingest spiders each night when they sleep, their mouths open, waiting for the dreams the spiders bring. Spiders like warm, moist places. It’s a no-brainer. Perhaps that’s where the legend comes from: the Puerto Rican legend of Lesperanza. The spider is the hope. Hopes and dreams. If the spider dies than so does the hope, so do the dreams. But what of the web she weaves? If we ingest her, yet feel hopeless, then how can she bring hope as the legend says? I am inclined to believe the legend misinterpreted: the one that tells of a web of despair and hopelessness, and the nebulous transference each night in every home in every city, everywhere on this miserable planet.