“expansion: the process of escape and return”

1/06.
Lady walking actual dog. Street swarming with cops. Bustle down by the bodega. Broad fucking daylight.
“You going down there?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Guns were popping down there four minutes ago.”
“Well I live down there.”
“Well, maybe stay close to the ground, then.”
THANKS FOR THE ADVICE.
12/05.
One day last November, I found myself in a room in the Union Square W, with an editor from High Times magazine, waiting to interview Josh Homme of QOTSA. Homme was otherwise occupied with friend and noted motormouth Elliot Aronow. High Times dude had already interviewed him, but he was just sticking around. While I waited, ate catered jicama (the root of my people) and tried not to puke from secondhand smoke, High Times dude told me, in detail, about his ROCK WALL–the wall of his apartment designated to showcase his no doubt vast collection of rock posters. (In my mind, they are all posters for Big Brother and the Holding Company, but I am probably wrong.) When he was younger, he used to just paste ’em up there, but at some point in his late 20s, he decided that if the rock posters were framed, they would better impress ladies, since framed posters connote an operational level of class and responsibility.
So the other night, considering the fact that my bedroom/office decor is largely defined by a T.I. poster hanging by a strip of packaging tape, Jessica and I discussed ways I could redecorate. I envision the room as a “THEMED ODYSSEY” (in the tradition of “ICE CAVERN,” my old room on Mallory Street in Portland), but I do not want to sacrifice any of the fundamental fourteen-ness that makes it, and me, so awesome and special.
I decided one way to achieve this goal is to frame the T.I. poster–not to impress men, per se, but to glean the same feeling of class, responsibility and confidence enjoyed by the editor of High Times magazine. “I’m going to hang my poster above my bed in an ornate frame I will score from the thrift,” I said. “Then I will purchase lavendar satin sheets and hang some lace from the wall in an arbitrary fashion. I want my bedroom to scream Apollonia Kotero lives here!”
Soon to enhance my newfound age-appropriate design scheme is the GIANT AALIYAH POSTER Jessica sent me for xmas, not to mention Thoughts, the terrific, thoughtful and SPOT-ON BOOK OF SELF-EMPOWERMENT POETRY/ESSAYS WRITTEN BY TIONNE “T-BOZ” WATKINS. !!!!!!!