in the end it's just people, collections of people, or collections of people believing themselves to be more than just a collection. the shell of an accumulation solidified into something else, like the curvature of paper-mache after the balloon inside's been popped.

and I say it as if it is a hopeful thing, or at least something to depend on, but I cannot tell, I am not sure, I am not sure if that brings with it more hope or optimism or joy, or if it means plunging into the sea of immanent activity, "everything on this level", inescapable participation. inescapable, because I myself am a person, and because I have my own relationship to myself that is not just "me thinking", it is "me thinking about myself", and from that it all starts, I have enough to create a little society of one. and if she joins, he joins, you join, then here we go!

faced with the visceral-tangible-sticky I find myself resorting to novels. I watch as the city changes in front of me, rearranges its paths, snaps out of place. well-worn routes have weeds growing in them. my body learns the heights of new buildings, learns how to flow by other buildings in a state of distraction, the back of my head, the skin on my arm, the heel of my foot altogether absorbing in this new neighborhood, terrain, atmosphere, sentiment, emotion, timbre.