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Seen on a streetcorner in North Berkeley:
A girl, about 25 years old, with blond hair about half an inch long. She wore a black coverall jumpsuit, and black cat-eye glasses. With her was a guy of about the same age; he had a pompadour hairstyle, and he was sporting black dress pants and a black leather jacket.
The two were standing around in an exceedingly normal manner, such that I didn't really notice them until the girl calmly handed the guy a sledgehammer, and an object (which looked like a cassette tape.) He took the object, put it on the ground, and with great gusto, proceeded to smash it to pieces with the aforementioned sledgehammer.
When he was done, he wiped his brow, and the girl unzipped a pocket of her jumpsuit, removed a small dustbroom, handed it to him, and smiled.
It's funny, how often I feel the need around here to assert that I don't make these things up.
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As I mentioned earlier, one of my close friends goes to school in New York. Around here you may know her as Genevieve. I cannot imagine seeing firsthand the things she is seeing now, though her words make me understand to a small degree. She might not remember this, but one of the earliest memories I have of meeting her was when she was telling a story. And so now I'm sharing her story here.
**********
1) Two towers, emitting a horizontal line of smoke in very clear blue sky.
2) Very clear blue sky.
1) What I saw on my way walking south to class on Tuesday morning, and 2) what I saw facing south after that class. It wasn't until I got home and my roommate caught me up on the news that I realized that I had seen the World Trade Center Towers for the last time. Since then, the things I have seen have been pretty frightening, both on the news and in the streets.
I thought I was the saddest and scaredest I'd ever be when an aquaintance was kidnapped and murdered nine years ago. I thought I was the saddest and scaredest I'd ever be when my father was in a coma for days after being burned and mangled in a plane crash four years ago. Now, I look out my window and see lines of police barricading my street from the rest of the city and the world. I see the President of my country vowing vengeance, and I hear people I respect agreeing with him. Now I pray that I am the saddest and scaredest I'll ever be, because I know that if the United States declares war, the world can only get more depressing and more frightening for all of us. My friends who have lost loved ones and my loved ones who have lost friends agree: adding to the carnage would be a horrible legacy for the innocent and the brave people who are gone and missing.
I could add dozens of second-hand anecdotes (my friend whose building had the windows blown out and had to step over dead bodies to get away from the WTC as it fell; the man who felt such compassion for the people who couldn't get home yesterday that he bought 15 bicycles with his credit card so they could ride across the bridge; my friend who had to pretend to be a highschool student to be allowed on a ferry after running down 48 flights of stairs; the many if-onlys of people I know who were late to work that day, or who decided to telecommute, or who had apartment-searched the financial district the day before) but this is my eyewitness account, such as it is.
It is all I've seen in passing.
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Seen:
A girl about 4 years old, wearing a pink dress with a full skirt, running down the sidewalk. She was followed by a man wearing a suit, top hat, and handlebar moustache, carrying a balloon, after dark on a street in St Francis Wood
It reminded me of Herr Drosselmeyer and Clara, except for the fact that they were walking down a street in San Francisco, and not, say, in a ballet production onstage.
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"Help yourself."
--The message written on a scrap of paper in front of 5 two-liter bottles of "Pepsi One," sitting curbside on Ellsworth St.
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Seen:
Near midnight in a cafe in Berkeley tends to be a great place to meet... really, really crazy people. Tonight, for instance, was "Strange People With Newspapers" night at Sufficient Grounds. (Oh, sure, it might not have been officially that, but it certainly felt like it was.)
For instance, we had:
--Strange man #1, who was reading the paper quietly enough, both hands above the table, except for he made a loud "Mmmmmmmuuuummmmhhh!" noise every time he turned the page.
--Strange man #2, who was slowly tearing each newspaper page in half, and then folding those halves into eighths, and then stacking those like Jenga blocks.
--And strange man #3, who circled the words "Cisco Routers" in the business section -- again and again and again, while carrying on a conversation with himself about how he had a lot of reading to do before bedtime.
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Seen, on a dark December afternoon:
A man walking down Telegraph Ave with a woman on each arm. Not just any women though -- they seemed to be drop outs from Bond girl school who had found refuge at the Playboy mansion. Clad in 70's sunglasses, bikinis, and fur coats... you get the idea.
The beautiful part was, everyone was gawking at the fact that there was camera following them, and not at the three themselves.
Ah, Berkeley.
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Seen:
A large semi truck, pulling two trailers behind it, stacked 15 feet high with Christmas trees, bundled and bound for some lot by the side of the freeway.
And I wonder, if such things were always the sign of the start of the holiday season.
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Seen:
An ad for a "Do it yourself" storage place -- you know, the kind that's just basically rows of tiny garages -- boasting "climate controlled areas for wine storage."
Sheesh, only in Marin.
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Seen: Two women, identical twins about 65 years old, with matching 1940's era hairstyles, prim green suits, grey shopping bags, and leopard print jackets, walking in step near Union Square in SF
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Seen:
Your typical Berkeley street punk kid, 17 or 18, spiky hair, spiky jewelrey, tattoos, etc, standing on the balcony of Pauly ballroom... blowing bubbles, while 5 children playing on the plaza below ran shrieking and gigging below, trying to catch the bubbles.
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"Be My Roommate!"
--Sign held by a girl on Sproul, looking desperately friendly, with posterboards behind her of what was presumably her apartment.
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Seen: Two grocery bags filled with newish Converse tennis shoes of all sizes, styles and colors, sitting on the curb on parker st.
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Spotted lying near the river:
One of those really nice labyrinth games-- the kind made of wood, where you move the metal ball through the maze by turning dials on the side of the box to tilt the platform suspended inside.
If you haven't seen one of these toys, you likely have no idea what I'm talking about. But you can still understand the randomness of it being down by the river.
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