Olive the cat joined us for an impromptu birthday celebration. Olive
the cat was happy and fat. French decor throughout, and the roof deck
was excellent for star gazing or twin peak tower look out. Bernal
Heights was not far, but to hike up there takes a bit of an effort.
Olive wanted to cuddle but both of us were allergic to cats. A cottage
apartment left nonrented and unused. Rum and pineapple juice did the
trick. Take off your high heels, the spiral staircase, metal ones would
otherwise cause serious damages. Can’t get over how lucky one feels when
one finds a parking spot right out in front of the house in San
Francisco. It’s like finding gold. A white convertible. A hard top.
Can't miss the car. Can't miss the spot.Then just as soon as you found
the perfect spot, the other two perfect spots opened up, you wish you
had three cars. Someone was cooking up something delicious and home
made. One could not believe how lucky one was. To be fed each and every
time, with home cooked meal, with conversations that flowed, to enter a
room filled with laughter, with a meal prepared for you. I had once
heard such stories. It did happen on occasion.
The story of pigeon was a really good one. Olive was not laughing but if he could understand he’d laugh too. The bird seeds, excessive amount of them, industrialized form, scattered around the Mission, so that millions of pigeons descend, and therefore the gentrification process would stop. Too many damn pigeons landing on fancy cars. People were discouraged about the prospects of moving into a neighborhood infested with pigeons.
"I have a history with pigeons. When I lived in the Haight, there were some pigeons always making noises early in the morning, making it difficult for me to fall asleep. So I climbed on the roof and installed wires. They stopped coming for a while. But then one day they reappeared, this time there were twenty of them. As it turned out, they had somehow pushed the wires all the way so that now the wires were laying flat, and they were able to reoccupy the spots. When I first moved to the Mission, there was a boy who was a bit slow. He was more like a young adult at this point, the highlight of his day was feeding those damn pigeons. He'd come in a giant bag every day, and he'd bring pigeons bird food from that giant bag. One day I felt that I had to stop him. So I did. I told him that the more he fed the pigeons, the less they'd learn to fend for themselves. It's time for them to grow up. The boy started to cry. He cried so much that I felt bad for manipulating him into not feeding the pigeons. He disappeared. So did the pigeons. But one day I spotted him, he took up another corner, and there he was, still feeding the pigeons. Now there are only two left in my neighborhood. In the morning the pigeons would come and stare into my living room, waiting to be fed. I fed them corn chips for a year. Then one day I realized that corn chips were sitting on the ground, untouched. It appeared that the pigeons had gotten tired of the corn chips. They still loitered around outside. But they didn't want the corn chips any more. I finally decided to feed them sunflower seeds. They loved them. Soon several pigeons showed up to ask for more sunflower seeds. I don't want the gentrification process to continue. This used to be cool. Now a new restaurant called Local just opened up. I don't mind them to go gentrifying some other street, but let it not be mine. Do you know if Costco sold bird seeds? Perhaps one day I'd be like that boy, feeding pigeons out of the bag hanging behind my bike. There will be hundreds of pigeons, and those BMW drivers would be tired of parking under the tree."
Here is the thing. I like the process of having Mission district be cleaned up, dressed up and pigeon poop free. I like that I can take my car and park there and not have to worry about how safe it is going to be like it like this. I like good restaurants and hipster crowd showing up.
Relationship talks, even theoretical ones that might implicate you, made you unease. Not married, not into a relationship. Not in a place for one. I said that’s fine but here was the thing. You could tell whatever you tell yourself, your heart would want what your heart wanted. One minute it was just a fling the next you declared love. That’s the problem. You thought you knew what you wanted but you didn't. And then everything crumbled. It’s easy to just stay a certain way if your heart was not tangled up in it. Most relationships, one party would eventually go off, because one party felt more deeply about the other party. Inevitably, relationship ended because emotions were not as easy as the rational side of thinking.
Relationship was only fun when you were not vested in it, when you didn’t get freaking emotional. But if one party lied. What if one party misled and then the other party went off on you because of it? That was when things could go terribly wrong.
No one wanted that.
Not you, not me, not even Olive the cat.
Therefore, compatibility was important. To be compatible. To know where you stood. To be open and never lead the other person down the rabbit hole. Never get emotional. That was an easy thing to say? But who could follow? Heart matters were not as simple as creating a new art object, writing codes, developing a new programming language, creating something mechanical to simulate a movement, however graceful they appeared, they were simply simulations. Machines that were enslaved to human's control.
I'm not a robot. I'm not a machine. I'm emotional. I cannot be controlled. I need you to understand that. I need someone to love me, for me.
The story of pigeon was a really good one. Olive was not laughing but if he could understand he’d laugh too. The bird seeds, excessive amount of them, industrialized form, scattered around the Mission, so that millions of pigeons descend, and therefore the gentrification process would stop. Too many damn pigeons landing on fancy cars. People were discouraged about the prospects of moving into a neighborhood infested with pigeons.
"I have a history with pigeons. When I lived in the Haight, there were some pigeons always making noises early in the morning, making it difficult for me to fall asleep. So I climbed on the roof and installed wires. They stopped coming for a while. But then one day they reappeared, this time there were twenty of them. As it turned out, they had somehow pushed the wires all the way so that now the wires were laying flat, and they were able to reoccupy the spots. When I first moved to the Mission, there was a boy who was a bit slow. He was more like a young adult at this point, the highlight of his day was feeding those damn pigeons. He'd come in a giant bag every day, and he'd bring pigeons bird food from that giant bag. One day I felt that I had to stop him. So I did. I told him that the more he fed the pigeons, the less they'd learn to fend for themselves. It's time for them to grow up. The boy started to cry. He cried so much that I felt bad for manipulating him into not feeding the pigeons. He disappeared. So did the pigeons. But one day I spotted him, he took up another corner, and there he was, still feeding the pigeons. Now there are only two left in my neighborhood. In the morning the pigeons would come and stare into my living room, waiting to be fed. I fed them corn chips for a year. Then one day I realized that corn chips were sitting on the ground, untouched. It appeared that the pigeons had gotten tired of the corn chips. They still loitered around outside. But they didn't want the corn chips any more. I finally decided to feed them sunflower seeds. They loved them. Soon several pigeons showed up to ask for more sunflower seeds. I don't want the gentrification process to continue. This used to be cool. Now a new restaurant called Local just opened up. I don't mind them to go gentrifying some other street, but let it not be mine. Do you know if Costco sold bird seeds? Perhaps one day I'd be like that boy, feeding pigeons out of the bag hanging behind my bike. There will be hundreds of pigeons, and those BMW drivers would be tired of parking under the tree."
Here is the thing. I like the process of having Mission district be cleaned up, dressed up and pigeon poop free. I like that I can take my car and park there and not have to worry about how safe it is going to be like it like this. I like good restaurants and hipster crowd showing up.
Relationship talks, even theoretical ones that might implicate you, made you unease. Not married, not into a relationship. Not in a place for one. I said that’s fine but here was the thing. You could tell whatever you tell yourself, your heart would want what your heart wanted. One minute it was just a fling the next you declared love. That’s the problem. You thought you knew what you wanted but you didn't. And then everything crumbled. It’s easy to just stay a certain way if your heart was not tangled up in it. Most relationships, one party would eventually go off, because one party felt more deeply about the other party. Inevitably, relationship ended because emotions were not as easy as the rational side of thinking.
Relationship was only fun when you were not vested in it, when you didn’t get freaking emotional. But if one party lied. What if one party misled and then the other party went off on you because of it? That was when things could go terribly wrong.
No one wanted that.
Not you, not me, not even Olive the cat.
Therefore, compatibility was important. To be compatible. To know where you stood. To be open and never lead the other person down the rabbit hole. Never get emotional. That was an easy thing to say? But who could follow? Heart matters were not as simple as creating a new art object, writing codes, developing a new programming language, creating something mechanical to simulate a movement, however graceful they appeared, they were simply simulations. Machines that were enslaved to human's control.
I'm not a robot. I'm not a machine. I'm emotional. I cannot be controlled. I need you to understand that. I need someone to love me, for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment