backforthmenu Just a Walk. I walked to the post office this morning. I never walk. For some reason, I thought I should. So I did. About 4 miles, maybe. It was still overcast and early when I got there and checked the box; all that way for what turned out to be a French skateboard magazine and an envelope stuffed with a poorly silk-screened t-shirt. No judgments, just mail. Stuff. On the way home I took a different route. I’d managed to avoid people the entire walk until about Sixth and Harbor. A man came towards me holding a coffee and small brown bag. My quick impression; green t-shirt, shaved blond head. Dirty. Looked to be about my age. I kept my eyes on the sidewalk as we approached each other—until he was a few feet away, then I looked up. He stared into my eyes, laughing, then slurred the following; “You’re (the next word was one of the following three; 1) lovely, 2) lonely, 3) loathsome) man! Ha, ha, ha.” Surprised, I slowed to think, then turned to see him round a corner. Lovely, yeah, lovely. 7/7/00 Another Walk. A woman about 100 years-old in a beige sack dress, over-scuffed black shoes from some distant era. Her veins bulge through translucent skin. She moves impossibly slow from tree to tree on the sidewalk, inspecting each from roots to head-height. Her hands very meticulously hover over the trees surface as though she were reading the bark. Only, her eyes are barely open, if at all. She takes much of the afternoon to finish the entire block. Sycamore Street, Los Angeles, 1/31/93