tue 22 jun 1999 22:00:00 — allston ma
walking around allston w aj
last night aj and i went to eat at the restaurant downstairs called six burner. then we started walking. we walked around back of my bldg to look at the alley below my balcony. then we went down harvard ave to cambridge street and up thru union square. we continued up in the direction of saint E's, but turned off at a place where the sidewalk was under construction, onto a quiet side street, where we found a black and white sausage shaped cat who wanted to be petted. he kept jumping up, walking a bit, then dumping himself on his back and squirming around on the pavement while we petted him. then we went into the big park, i forget what it's called, and up the hill, and aj climbed on the jungle gym and swang on the swings, high in the air. i held her three rings in my pocket. then climbed up, and down some stairs by some sort of community center where people were playing basketball. ended up in an unexpected neighborhood of apartment buildings that we were unfamiliar with. it was a nice place. glenville street, had a glenville market with a big bright mural on the side. "spanish and american foods." from there we turned and came up something called quint street, passing a big church on the left, and admired the apartment building at number 28, thinking i'd like to live up in one of those places with a balcony. quint street comes down a hill to meet brighton ave at "la mamma's" pizza and sub shop, or maybe they sell empanadas there too. and we turned left and went to the silhouette lounge, with the fifties-looking rhomboid sign and loosely serifed lettering, symbol of a cocktail glass, everything all kinda jumpin. the place had not changed much since last time i'd been there five years ago. if it's warm weather and you look out the open door, you can see the intersection of cambridge street and a building with a sign saying "action bearing company." the middle aged woman waiting on the bar was named peggy, and she made us great big 16-ounce tanqueray and tonics for about four bucks. we sat around and talked a lot [...] in my notebook we listed the places aj has had sex, the most notable being in hammond castle in the war room which is a big round room where she slept with the caretaker and drank old wine. and on another page, places she wants to have sex in future. by the end of the evening a lot of allstony looking alternativy young people were hanging around at the tables. i like the silhouette lounge. it's quite different from the bristol bar mentioned above.
a beautiful naked woman is reclining on her stomach reading the funny papers on my bed. that can only fill me with contentment. it's late morning on a tuesday. we're freelancers. she has an appointment to go kayaking at 2:30 with a guy named ken.
outside i heard what sounded like men sharpening knives downstairs. the guys from the asian restaurant? they have two big catering trucks with signs saying "chinese lunchboy" or something like that. sometimes when they roll their big carts onto the truck, it makes a terrible big rumbling noise that reverberates in the alley. but the restaurant itself, which faces onto harvard ave and which i've yet to see open to the public, is called "tokyo city" and seems to be about japanese and korean food. the ass end of sixburner also faces onto that alley. i think what's right under me is the asian video rental store. just a bit further down you have rangoli, the good ind restaurant, and carlo's, which i guess is an italian place, neither of which have i tried yet, and then there's the pho pasteur which i have eaten at.
in yesterday's herald it says the average person by the end of their life will have spent eleven years watching television.