Here’s audio I made describing a woman I spotted while talking on a payphone yesterday. She paced back and forth outside a doughnut shop, drinking from a bottle of beer she carried in a black bag. She had a steely, determined look about her but in this outward image I detected a deliberate and even obvious attempt to mask the fact that she had nothing to do and nowhere to go.
Most curious about her behavior was how she entered the doughnut shop, stepped onto a chair and reached up, retrieving a piece of paper from a shelf-like surface near the ceiling. She sat down and feverishly read the words written on the paper, her lips moving in what I assume echoed the words she read. Was it a note to herself, by herself? Something she saw someone else put up there? I considered waiting for her to leave and retrieving the piece of paper, but she did not leave it there upon her departure.
I see women like this and, without experiencing anything akin to love at first sight, nevertheless admit to myself that this is the type of woman to which I am most attracted, and also most vulnerable. She did not seem easy, or soft in any way, at least not in the condition she was in when I saw her. Clearly disturbed, possibly on drugs as well as cheap beer, I nevertheless think she detected my lingering glances toward her.
She would disappear around a corner and reappear looking different in some way. She left her jacket somewhere out of sight. She took off her boots, revealing slipper-like shoes underneath. She let down her hair from its ponytail. I know I was seeing the same person but she did as much to change her appearance as one reasonably could. here, I think, she knew I was watching.
I thought of possible ramifications resulting from an encounter gone horribly wrong, which seemed like the only possible outcome should either of us step through the blank wall of doubt and questions that intruded on our ability to connect. It seemed as if the only direction this could go would involve me never being able or willing to pass by this intersection ever again, for fear of encountering her. I decided I would be back, and I have been back, but she has not been around.
I processed this audio through some new-to-me filters in Adobe Audition, so it might sound even more amateurish than usual for me. This audio would be part of my overly-ambitious radio project called Shower Radio, or something like that, in which I record morning thoughts and observations while sitting naked in the shower. It’s the closest I come to meditation, which I’ve never succeeded at on account of synaptic firecrackers that never calm down inside my brain. i don’t know if I’ll ever make use of the countless hours of this kind of audio I recorded, and I question the value of even doing it in the original spirit of facing the day with ruminations and ramblings like this.
