Sprachgitter Done

So here I am, one last time, actually, in Portland's Central Library. Internetting away. I'd been roaming around downtown Portland a bit, taking in the scene for one last time. The weather has been steadily improving (warmer, less rain), and with that the homeless population is beginning to bloom as well. All the homeless kids that were down south somewhere for the winter have hopped on the freight trains, and wound up in Portland now, filthy as ever, dogs and cardboard signs galore. Depressing really, the sight of them, glad I won't have to see them on a daily basis this summer - the kids are smart enough to know that the System doesn't work for them, smart enough to be homeless and to ride the rails (I, at any rate, infer some kind of ability in such activities) but too jaded/disenfranchised or whatever to do anything but opt out entirely. Well, not entirely, 'cause most of them do partake of Portland's numerous social programs (easy to get two square meals a day). Although, I suppose my reaction to the badness of America is similar in its way - generally pessimistic, unimpressed, but my aesthetic has no room for doing nothing. Or not much anyway.

Anyway, I had to swing by the library to drop off my stack of books that I had checked out. Mostly poetry, as it turns out, which seems appropriate (Celan, Roubaud, Jarman) and Danielewski's newer book Only Revolutions which seemed conceptually and typographically interesting, but didn't grab me (not in the least). By which I mean to point out, I didn't just go to bars in Portland, but I read a lot of books too. A good three months. Nice change of pace.

Paced triumphantly out of Trader Joe's yesterday, not working there anymore (hopefully never again). They bought me lunch. Got to take a friend. Worst Thai food I've ever had, but at least it was free. Did manage to get a new pair of glasses and some prescriptions filled with my health insurance before it lapses (although a loop in my brain fires "GO COBRA!"). But now this post is feeling like a journal entry, so I'm gonna stop.

("Keep going. (They don't know who they are either.)")