This is killing me. I know there's a term to describe a guide in an art museum or perhaps a neighborhood, and I know it sounds like "bosun" or "dosun" but I can't for the life of me remember what it is, and the the tenuous relationship of the word to its literal definition makes it impossible for me to look it up. Damn, this is driving me nuts. I have a story where this word would fit perfectly and I simply cannot go on until I find that word.
In related news, I'm in the library and I just annoyed a homeless guy with the sound of my fingers on the keyboard. He glared at me, snapped his paper shut, and left. Interesting on several levels. For one, I'd imagine that, if you're homeless, there are all sorts of annoyances and indignities with which you must learn to live. Rain, for instance. Or snow. Or poverty. Perhaps the unfettered freedom of the homeless life makes up for these sufferings in some way. Perhaps my companion in the library had achieved a perfect but tenuous balance between suffering and freedom, and perhaps my fingers on the keys put him over the edge?
Or it could be simpler than that. Maybe he's learned to just walk away from anything that annoys him. Maybe that very ethic, the refusal to remain in a situation that is in any way uncomfortable or negative, is in some way responsible for his current homeless state. Or maybe I'm just an idiot who is looking to reduce a complex issue to a single cause that just happens to justify my underlying prejudice against the homeless. Guilty! But it's not prejudice! It's jealousy!
I might enjoy that freedom. It might be fun out there on the streets. God knows how many times I've wondered if there's really a payoff for all my hard work, the constant egress of monies to various creditors, the stress, the sleepless nights. I might find the homeless life congenial. I might enjoy indolent days swaddled in my own funk, defecation behind trees, grass-rolling drunkenness, the furtive hammering of some leathery harridan in a creaking shelter cot.
Aagh! I still can't think of that word!
I'm closing this account!
13 years ago
1 comment:
If you imagine that the life of a homeless happy camper enjoying indolent days in the parks and gutters of the sidewalk jungle may be too much freedom for you, perhaps you can consider that of an indolent docent dude wandering the spacious rooms of, oh, I don't know, perhaps a space museum, barking at hapless alien visitors following you around due to your daily docent duties.
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