as i said to tony yesterday in answer to his question, no, i’m not where i want to be nor am i doing what i want to be doing, lately.  it’s not, however, that i don’t speak up or that i give in to the wishes of others, it’s that i don’t know where i want to go or what i want to do, and even when it occurs to me that i’d rather be somewhere else, i never know where that somewhere else is.  at least, i never know of a feasible somewhere else.

i need new.

masking-taped to the marquee outside the bering memorial methodist church is a short strip of yellow plastic police-line ribbon that, instead of “POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS,” says “HATE-FREE ZONE.”  the rightmost piece of masking tape has ceased to stick, so the right end of the yellow plastic ribbon hangs down towards the ground.  “HATE-FRE” is all that is readable.  breathless and cold from our long night walk, we try to fix it.  we twist the tape around to see if there’s any sticky left.  we try threading the ribbon through the loop of masking tape.  none of it works, though, and the yellow hate-free still dangles sadly from the methodist marquee.

so we steal it.

tony’s dorm room is now a HATE-FREE ZONE.

and we don’t feel the least bit guilty, either.  the dark and narrow sidewalks of one a.m. on a saturday belong to us, after all.  and as such, churchyard-wandering and branch-breaking and townhouse-investigating and sign-stealing are allowed, nay, encouraged!  through thick tree roots and leaf piles and mud puddles and dumpsters and orange construction net and stray cats and lawn sprinklers and and and things make sense, if only for a brief while.