I still feel a little awkward doing it, but it makes a lot of sense and I'm too lazy to use the band and I so I conceded. I don't want to be a poser. It's just that if I don't roll up my pants, the hem gets caught in the chain. When I first came to the city, I saw a lot of people with one leg showing bare flesh and I thought, "What kind of fad is that?" Then I immediately judged, "What a bunch of ghetto-losers."
Now I walk into a bookshop, a cafe, a bar – and my pants are rolled up, my calf exposed.
It seems like the city is slowly converting me. The rolled up pants thing wasn't a fad, it was a necessity. It looks a bit silly, but then again, everything else seems kind of oddball looking from the outside in.
The city had a Lights Out Night yesterday. In the spirit of conservation, there was a voluntary blackout. Everyone was encouraged to turn off all their electric lights from 8pm to 9pm, PST. A party was thrown on a hillside park to look at the darkened city. I imagine that it was kind of like the Lite-Brite toy from the 80s, as the starry sky bled into the twinkling canvas below. In New York, the only blackout we had was the emergency, what-the-fuck, governmental failure type. There, people sweated in subways and unventilated offices. Here, they lounged on the grass.
I was in Tokyo and Hong Kong for the past week. For the first time in a while, I felt homesick. Not the kind for friends and family, but the kind for a city. I missed the rebelliousness of the States, and by association, the eclecticism and free flowing daring of the Bay area. In Asia, people were crammed together in modern megalopolises, where the only diversions were malls and shopping arcades. I think the Asian emphasis on privacy, especially the Japanese variety, comes from the lack of personal private space.
I don't think I can live in Asia. In Tokyo, the temples were crammed together with high rises, electric lines slashed across their roofs. Hong Kong didn't have that luxury. Its historical buildings had given way to multi-storied condos. The skyline was deservedly awesome, though. There was no real green space in Tokyo – weird in a country mostly covered by forests. In Hong Kong, soccer balls bounced on astro-turf underneath the glare of neon lights. The modern Asian pastime seemed to be shopping. The religion, purchasing power. Seems like the West imported its best ideas over.
The food was great.
I supposed I'm a product of this crazy patchworked country. Surrounded by sameness in Asia – faces, ideals, thoughts – I was a little out of whack. I couldn't help but grin on the BART back from the airport yesterday. Around me, chattering away, was a static of German (later found to be Icelandic), Chinese, Spanish and English (proper and urban). A black boy with pants sliding down past his blue underwear slept next to a couple of grinning Mexican girls. A man shushed his infant on a sling. His friend made clown faces to the baby. An old man read his paper in Chinese, but so recently exposed to the source-culture, I sense that while hanging on to the vestiges of his parent culture, he too had succumbed to his adopted country.
Oh I don't think it's anything visible on the outside, but there is something fascinatingly open and free and changeable about all of this city, something that propels me forward.
you know, lately I am thinking that all this thinking is what has us all messed up. Why justify to our own selves that we do X versus Y, that we like X versus Y, that we want X versus Y, rather than just doing, liking and wanting? Period. No questions asked (is anyone really asking besides our own selves?). Why the self-awareness? Why the self-doubt? I come back more and more often to the whole ignorance is bliss, but since I am not ignorant and can't get rid of my brain, at least I can train myself to live more in the minute, more in the day, and just keep charging forward. But the downside is falling into a mindless routine that is eternally shielding from the emptiness of it all. And, sadly, by this line of reasoning, I once again fall victim to too much thinking!!!!! What gives??????????????????????? :)
Posted by: vinny | October 22, 2007 at 12:15 PM
i roll my pants up all the time. half the time i forget to unroll them. it doens't mean anything trendy or cool. it just means i ride a bike.
though sometimes when i'm in a hurry, i forget to roll it up and then end up with bike grease on my dress pants. it really increases my dry cleaning bill.
Posted by: susie derkins | October 28, 2007 at 0915 PM
Yes, I've come to that conclusion too. My favorite jeans now has a big gaping hold near my knee from too many times of locking and unlocking the bike. And grease stains is just a part of everyday life. Shows you how uber-uncool I am to think that the rolled up thing was a fad for the cool kids..
Posted by: j.fisher | October 28, 2007 at 09:24 PM