eavesdropping.

There are so many other things to be doing right now. There always are.

I give advice freely, party because people ask, but partly because I have a grand delusion that I know the right way to do things (all things). I give advice, but I don’t often follow it. Last night, in some conversation with Jacob about something that I don’t remember, as we were walking down K Street after hours, when it was quiet, when he was pushing his bicycle and I was carrying a bag of cat food, I told him, There’s no such thing as: I don’t have enough time. There’s only: I choose to spend my time on something else. I was trying to say something important about priorities, I think, but I am struck now with how rarely I own the hours I have.

Sometimes I think I’m not really a writer, because sometimes I go a long time without doing it. But then, on days like today, when I know I’ve waited too long, when it is literally blasting, beating and bloody out of my chest, then I know.

I've been saving up snips of things, things I’ve read and seen and overheard and felt. They are a wave, an army, a storm on the horizon. They are nothing more than my observation, but keen observation is worth something.

I read this piece on eavesdropping last week, and I’ve been thinking of it since. Not only do I eavesdrop every chance I get, but I write down the things I hear. I can’t help it. These strings of conversation feel so precious to me. I want to preserve the wild, grotesque, common, hilarious, and human things that people say. I want to acknowledge them. I don’t want them to go unheard.

I think of these bits less as material and more as finished found art, like the perfect postcard or anonymous snapshot or canned food label you come across — beautiful until you frame it and after that, dead. Or maybe it’s just a matter of living in the moment. Do you photograph every beautiful sunset? Or do you savor the ephemeral moment, then let it slip away and accept the dark that follows? - Margaret Hawkins

Speaking of finished found art, two weeks ago, on the bus:

Woman #1: “Squeeze your buttcheeks together.” (muffled chuckling)
Woman #2: “Oh lord. Ooooooh lord.”
Woman #1: “Just squeeze ‘em together.”
Woman #2: “Ooooh lord. Oh Jesus.”

And then -
Woman #1 (to me): “She gotta take a shit.”

I don’t even remember what I said. But life is here and now.