Sublime in Mundane Surroundings

Major infrastructure changes going on at Hobos, Inc. This was partly the reason I have been remiss in posting accounts of my little life here. I've often wondered, well, hell, why keep writing? Does anyone actually care? Do I need to spread my bitterness and venom so widely and freely?

Well, yes. For through the dreck of daily, near-hopeless living, what occasionally passes through is that oft-invoked ray of light, a sign that living is possible, is grand, and should be done with both eyes open.

Eyes open, indeed.

Hobos Inc. shares the building with other companies. Depending on the floors, the elevators open and admit and spit out jocks, crone-ish old ladies who look like they're three asthmatic breaths away from breaking away to Florida, where they can chain-smoke blissfully and uninterrupted in their bland little timeshares, people who carry fake LVs (and you KNOW they're fake come on, and totally not your thing, you'd get the Lanvin or Marc Jacobs instead, if only you could), the old fat has-been jocks who talk really loud and finger their PDAs. Then you have the Hobos, who finger through endless pages of PDFs that always need one last edit. We work with people who are about as sour and charmless as your average third grade schoolmarm, who got her graduate degree in education and likes scrapbooking, the kind of person who wears Ann Taylor Loft suit separates and fake Gucci loafers and rubs her cell phone down before and after touching it, the kind of person who stares at you with beady eyes and calls meetings in order to go over what had transpired from the previous meeting. Then you have Cass. Then you've got me. A couple other exceptional people who are protected because they are dear to me, and then you have the men, who are sadly lacking. They are short, mean, one's a buggy misogynist who dreams of scaling great heights, great rivers and valleys and mountains, and has set his sights on something far, far above what he is ever capable of attaining. Sorry I grossed you out there with this description, Cass. This is the one time I'm really glad I didn't run an entry by Cass before posting. Sorry. He's gross, and he wants to climb you.

Anyway. So if Hobos Inc. relocates or becomes a telecommuting operation, which Cass and I have discussed in great detail, we're not losing much in terms of eye candy.

However. Witness this afternoon, lunch hour. Cass and I get on the elevator. It stops and opens for one of the middle floors. We're hungry and impatient and resent a crowded elevator. A man gets on with mad equipment. A guitar and something else, suitcase-like. Amps? Another instrument? There's a crowd behind him, but they don't get on.

The guy settles back and shrugs. So the rest of his boys aren't on this car; they'll get on the other one. He has scruffy hair, has on jeans, a light jacket. I'm staring at his guitar, longingly. My own guitar is at my mother's home, probably in the spinster attic gathering dust. But hark! Wait! the door opens again. The others pile on.

They bring their own sweet scent of unwashed hair, musty clothes from dark, damp old closets, cigarettes, and dreams of glory, the kind you can only have when you're young or incredibly stupid, or on a lot of speed. They look poor. They're totally hot. I want their guitars. I want their job. I want them.

I mutter to Cass, "Man, I'd like to work on that floor." But I think I was more than audible. I think they heard me.

When we arrive at our floor, we have to ask them to move aside to let us out. Never do we feel less inclined to leave what is a claustrophobic's absolute nightmare. They're practically deaf too, as we have to say "Excuse me" a few times and Cass has to elbow them aside. One of them finally gets the message and nudges a bandmate, saying, "Move it, Irish."

If you, Dear Reader, have not grasped the significance of this event, well, I'll try to put it in plainspeak.

They were cute. Adorable. And there were a bunch of them. They looked like they played music together. They smoked cigarettes. They had cute accents (Irish!). They were probably deaf from living rock and roll and jamming all night. They probably did crazy shit together.

For a moment, I actually behaved and thought like a girl. This doesn't happen often.

We don't even think we got a good look at their faces. Who cares? They were hot. We spent a fruitless hour searching on Google to see if we could discover who they were. We wondered if they were playing somewhere tonight or tomorrow. If they were in some bar in Williamsburg. If they were at Webster or Town Hall.

Wherever they are, they're having a great time. They're probably not sitting in a room writing about illusory gods who walked the earth among the mortals while desperately willing the heat to kick on and half-heartedly watching Gray's Anatomy. Where are they? They're playing guitars. Smoking. Scribbling down chord progressions. Writing lyrics about soulless women who work in nameless cookie-cutter corporations, who look dour and hopeless and lost. Scratching those out and writing lyrics about fear and propaganda and collapsing governments and love in the ruins and metaphors that involve streaks of color and sound and lemon trees at twilight.

I am so bitter.