shoes

it started out as an innocent bunch of errands. when you don't drive, there's really no such thing as an innocent bunch of errands. when you don't drive and you're a little, well, susceptible to paranoia and it is nine million degrees, nothing is innocent.

mostly i needed some shoes resoled. i like the little places with old guys and strange sewing machines that look like something my grandma and h.r. giger collaborated on. once in a while you can get a place where the guy wears a visor. initially i settle on a place on court street. it's a hike, but it's called shalom and is right by the courthouse. both pluses. in the end i decide to go to a place in park slope that's nearer to my other errands. so i hop on the bus. then i walk seven or ten or twelve blocks to the shoe repair store. called bravo. and it's closed. the hours promise they open at 8:30 am and it is nearing eleven, but sometimes places in park slope just don't open until the owner wakes up. i figure i'll just saunter the two and a half miles on over to court street. two and a half hot miles carrying stupid dr. scholl's wood soled shoes and knitting.

a phone call from the sweetie convinces me to hop on a nearby train that will take me to within a block of shalom. fine. if i have to. on the train i discover that the knitting i'm counting on for sanity while underground is missing a working needle. this means very little to you except that i can't knit. this is very, very, very bad. no knitting means no sanity. well, what it means is that my ability to be my calm, happy self is far more easily compromised because i can't filter out anything. i know what you're thinking. of course you can do it. you're you. my sinisterness filter seems to have been broken for quite some time and generally i use knitting or a book to keep sinisterness at bay. no book. so today when the train stops in the tunnel, i begin very deliberate slow breathing. yoga breathing. this keeps me from throwing up on innocent bystanders. i do not, under any circumstances, make eye contact with anyone over the age of five. and everything is cool. for a while. but there's another one on the train. one of us. one of me. he can't breathe, either. the train is getting smaller and the people around him are growing fangs and claws. he has no water or food to last him the days we'll be trapped here (i do) and he has no tools to help him escape (i have a flashlight, sewing kit, fan, nail file, etc.). clearly, he has not done his yoga breathing because he is not aware of his own craziness. and he begins to lose his battle. the train moves but he still looks like he will cry. the train keeps moving, right into the station. he is angry and shaking. i am wishing i hadn't looked up because now i can't be on the train anymore. he is safe now but he cannot calm down and this will certainly keep me from being calm. so i go. off the train.

i've traveled about half a mile on the train and i walk the last mile and a half over familiar terrain to the court house. to court street. and the shop isn't there. the address is there in big numbers on a dirty door but there's an empty storefront behind it. i called in the morning. nobody mentioned being at a new address. suddenly the shoes feel very heavy. i've walked about three miles at this point. no wonder my shoes need new soles. i decide i'll just go get yarn. this is how i reward myself for struggle. yarn. chocolate. books. on the way back, i stop in at a bookstore and do not, at first, realize that the man in front of me (wearing a coat of some sort and a hat in this heat and flailing his arms) is a little unusual. the employees at the top of the escalator notice about the same time i do, when he reaches the top and growls. he turns and stomps down the main aisle, coat billowing, shoving people aside and knocking books off the endcaps. he snarls and mutters. there are words, but i know if i bother hearing exactly what they are it will make things worse. i am no longer here to browse the gardening books. i am just here for the bathroom and i'm quickly back on the escalator down to the exit. and so is the growling. i guess we had the same idea, because he is stomping toward the escalator, muttering, just as i step on. i do not want him to shove me. i don't think i have the energy to keep all my sanity where it's supposed to be if i have to interact with him. two crazy folks battling on an escalator in a bookstore in the heat of summer is not what anyone wants. as i near the bottom, he is a giant bat above me in his awful coat. i am out of the store before he's at the bottom of the escalator and he's so wrapped up in his own world of monsters he doesn't even know i was there.

i walk down atlantic and find that my yarn store does not believe in air conditioning, although the door is shut tight. i guess to protect against breezes. the yarn is sweating. it is so hot in there i can't think and the yarn i use to make devil pants is being discontinued. discontinued!!!! i grab the last three skeins, walk out into the 87 degree afternoon complete with humidity around the same number and actually feel cooler than in the store. this is when a woman asks me if there's a starbucks nearby. no. surprisingly, there isn't. i can see a block ahead of me my favorite cafe and suggest it to her, tell her it's wonderful. they have things you wouldn't expect like nutella panini and pms tea and, once in a while, home made peanut butter cups. no kidding. i mention that a mile and a half back, down on court, are several starbucks. i say this jokingly. i laugh. nobody would walk that far for overpriced coffee. not in this heat. not when such a nice place is right there on the same block and will not ask her for four dollars in return for a cup of coffee. and she turns around, a block away from some of the finest shade grown coffee around, and walks the mile and a half back to generic, overpriced coffee because it is what she knows.