Thu, 19 May 2005

skin allergy
[02.92]

I was standing in the tunnel beneath the train tracks on the path from EPB to the . The snow had stopped, but it was still cold, and I was high enough to relish the temporary comfort of being out of the wind. I had lived in Iowa City for half a year and had already read all the graffitti in the tunnel, but the ceiling lighting was out and in the half-light certain symmetrical images were kaleidoscoping, and I told myself no, don’t get stuck on anything, keep moving, you’re halfway back to Quadrangle, but I must have got stuck on something, because after some unknown period of time I felt someone touch my shoulder and ask if I was lost.

“I’m not lost,” I said. “I’m just busy.”

I looked over my shoulder and watched her nod, as though she were taking me seriously.

“Are you busy-busy or just busy?”

“I’m not too busy. I mean, if there was a busy which required immediate attention, and. And also a busy. Like a different busy. Then I’m to be the other, which is to say the second of the two busy kinds.”

“Are you hungry at all?”

I wasn’t hungry, was absolutely detached from the idea of putting food in my body, but I knew that food was often warm, and it was a good thing to be warm, so I said yes, yes I am hungry.

“Do you feel like you’re up to lifting half a couch?”

I tried to remember gym class and thought I can do eight pull-ups, and I weight a shitload more than half a couch, so I said yes, yes I can lift half a couch.

“Awesome. I have uses for you!”

This should have worried me, but I suspected I might be involved in an adventure if I followed this woman, so I shook my head and followed. Helping someone move a couch out of her ex-boyfriend’s apartment isnt’ even an adventure while high, but I did get some half-decent Chinese food out of it (I was less high and more hungry by the time we finished), and she did drive me back to my dorm by about four am, so it worked out pretty well. I never saw that girl again, and I don’t remember what her name is, but she shouldn’t take that personally, as I don’t remember much of anything anymore.
(12:25.05.19.2005) [/scrytch] #