ALI MACOMBER | Derive

Derive –

Even this bumpy stroke is part of the process. Around me I see a man with one eye, a mother, a woman with fake eyelashes, and an old metrocard on the floor. I’m traveling from Astoria on the Q69 bus toward Long Island City where I’ll then take the F train to Forest Hills, the Q64 to Kissena Blvd., and then I’ll walk to Queens College and subsequently finish my derive. I’m whooshing then stopping, the lights are daunting and slowly insult my eyeballs into a migraine. Now a woman has sat down with a bouquet of flowers. I think she just came from a birthday party. Must be nice. She looks like one of my mother’s teacher friends. Here, on the bus, my mind often strays into thought, sometimes meditative – usually the opposite. Right now at 4:27 p.m. our vessel has stopped. We’re passing San Pablo Iglesia, grey and blue, but it’s already gone by the time I’ve finished writing about it. The mundane can be itself here, it can flourish, but only when the interesting people of the city aren’t around. Then, for moments, I’m captured by interest or disgust. Or maybe a little bit of both. Oh yes, her bag says “Happy Birthday.” I’m in front of the NYC municipal building looking for things my eyes want out of all that trash. If the vessel could create its own weather, if it were a weather god, it would rain putrid stabbing light. We’d all die from drought and endless sun. Our vessel almost crashed, but maybe I would’ve gotten some money from the government out of that?

I’m on the next vessel and it’s less rugged so I won’t almost break the paper this time. I notice smells, the advertisements, subway maps, the floor, and lots of men. Lots of sausage up in here. Is there something that I’ve heard like the world is 50 percent men and 50 percent women? Wouldn’t I like to believe that… I’m flying even faster than I did in the first vessel now. I absorb looks from all over the world. I am one of them, looking at another. I’m very white. My whiteness makes me ashamed. I am too bleached and enriched, I am old news like 1991, I’m the only one without Celiac’s because I am the disease. This kind of writing makes me uncomfortable because I’m bad at seeing my environment because I can’t, literally – we, as Nietzsche says, are mesmerized and fly to the light of our own vanity. The way things are is mundane but my vanity adds something to all of this. “This is Jackson Heights Roosevelt Avenue.” “Only $44 for your first 3 hour home cleaning. Enter code: LOVE.” “My place looks better than when I moved in!” The blue seats are like the color of my grandma’s toilet cover.

There are white, red, blue (surprisingly clean) colors along the black floor in this vessel. The woman next to me on my right is spying on my writing. I hope she reads this soon and realizes that I’m fully aware of what she’s doing. We all love spying though. I’m still flying and it’s still dark out there outside of this big metal caterpillar. I’m afraid of the mundane so my thoughts often veer off. I think of all randomness, chaos, how some people are both of those things more than others.

Queens Blvd. and 70th Road. On third and final vessel of derive experiment. Sitting, waiting for people to get on the bus. I like Forest Hills, from what I’ve seen of it, pleasant enough, although a bit bougie. We leave The Vitamin Shoppe behind us, my most favorite place to go here. Bye! Yellowstone Blvd. then Jewel Ave. The process of flying from one to the other is nauseating but kind of fun like a roller coaster taking sharp turns and weaving. Would riding a NYC bus be fun for someone who’s never ridden a NYC bus before? Probably. It’s turned banal again. The houses here en route are so big, pretty, with secrets staying behind windows. I have dreams about large, eccentric houses. Tangerine orange and aqua and turquoise dreams. Over a bridge and more roller coaster. Hyde Park Gardens look tacky and yuppie. Maybe a place I’d live at when I’m, well, dead, because I’d probably never live there. I don’t like its aesthetics. I find that trash makes me happy because its mine to love, no one else wants it. Rats and

worms are nice but so are things that other people love like pretty roofs, jutting bright blue, and antiques. This derive is making me tired. I’m ending it early because I can.