2001-05-12
feeling kinda
tired, tired, tired today. i think the combination of heat and humidity are getting to me. i slept far too late, thinking i was just tired. but i hadn't left the window open, thinking it was going to rain, and had the blanket over me. you know when you get all hot and sweaty and your body just refuses to cooperate? yeah. that's what happened. led to very unsatisfying sleep, the kind where you don't every really hit deep sleep, you just keep stumbling through bad dreams where people are sneaking up on you.
fortunately, ChicaBeanie and i still got to go to the movies. we went to see The Mummy Returns, and sat in air conditioned bliss for two hours. it was a fun movie, much like the first one. and Oded Fehr? well, let's just say if he came running into my bedroom with guns blazing, i wouldn't kick him out. 8)
latest chapter in Small World, Isn't It?: i missed ChicaBeanie by just a few minutes the other night. i had run out of the house yesterday, after checking to see that the cats had food, i had turned off the computer, and grabbed my coat, my smokes, my pocketbook... see what's missing from that list? yeah - my keys. so i left a stupid, rambling message for her, hoping that she'd come by and get the spare set to me, or, failing that, that she would be home so i could pick them up. swung by about 7:30, and she wasn't there, but the keys were, thankfully.
and then ChicaBeanie and i missed each other by just a few feet. we were both out watching the street performers in the Square.
it's funny, i never think about going to watch anyone there on purpose; it's always just something that happens on the way to somewhere else. i was headed home and mostly trying to skirt the crowds. there's a new acrobat sort of guy on the corner where the tightrope guy was for about 4 or 5 years, and he had drawn quite the crowd. scary Political Wacko Guy was out, intoning the doom of the planet thru his acid-inspired Uncle Sam puppet. a magician was winning over a small group with a standard three card monte. and then, as i was waiting to cross, i heard the drums.
over in The Pit, there was a rather fluid group of African drummers, who kept swapping in and out. there were probably four of them playing at any point. the beat was joyous, fiery, just drew you in. and watching them play off the crowd was fabulous. as inspired as we might have been listening, they were equally inspired by us. people kept leaping out into the space in front of the drummers, dancing in more different ways than you would have thought possible. there was one older, elfin man in a blousy white shirt, black vest and slippers who twirled and pranced along. there were gorgeous women with long braids and full hips, stomping and flying around, right up in the drummers' space, and the drummers fed the energy right back to them. and two brothers, maybe 2 and 4, in matching blue polos, the younger one with pacifier firmly ensconced, danced with the abandon that we all should have. they were absolutely adorable, loving the music and the crowd, who clapped madly for them.
i sat there on the wall, drinking in the sounds and the crowd and the soft night air, loving every moment. and when the drummers finished and the crowd drifted away, i moved over closer, hoping that they would start again. instead, as they packed up their drums, finished off iced coffees and chatted with students, one gentleman started playing the kora. he sat there, in a porcelain blue dashiki, burning cigarette dangling from the corner of his lips, seemingly not paying attention as hugely complex webs of notes fell effortlessly from his fingers, dancing across the strings. that shower of music was the perfect end to the night, and as he finished, i got up, grinning, and headed home.
