Thursday, November 02, 2006

I'm walking around a Chinese street with an older male relative. We part ways and I'm looking for an electronic store to replace my camera. I hop into a cab & he takes me around the corner to a store. He pulls me up into the stairwell of the store & I get out to pay him. I dig through my pockets and only find dollars. I dig deeper & come up with a 20 yuan & he gives me 12 yuan change. My relative has caught up with me and is also looking for a camera. We walk through the dark store, trying to find point-and-shoot camera. We walk by dislays of fancy digital SLRs, including a gold-plated Nikon or Canon and a Leica covered with fake fur. We walk by some video cameras & I show my uncle/grandfather how small they've become. He asks if they take good stills and we try a few. They all turn out badly & we decide we'd better stick to a regular camera.

The store begins to look like an art gallery and they begin turning the rest of the lights out. We start heading out, walking by some art students finishing up some large installations. Hollis is walking with me and I begin getting nostalgic with her. I say to the young art students, "Make sure when you're 30, you can still remember how you were now, what you were like as an art student." As we walk out, I tell Hollis that I have a few projects going on but nothing cohesive. I'm a little angsty about my progress and she talks to me patiently.

Outside, my mom walks with us and I tell her that I need to catch up w/ Hollis. My mom runs along ahead in the street (the sidewalks are major rubble) and I yell for her not to run too close to the cars. Hollis and I cross the street to the unbroken sidewalk. We walk by a chain link gate where a man is coming out with his 2 dogs, a boxer & a pit bull. Sofia is with us and wants to play with the "puppies." The dogs are a little too aggressive and we back off. Just ahead of us, I spot Vince Barker and another UK alum and point them out to Hollis. I want to say hi to Vince but feel embarrassed that I don't remember the other guy's name. The stroller gets tangled up in the fence and they come over to help us free it. They tell us it's broken and I assure them it's okay and unfold it. I say, "You're Vince Barker." and Vince says he doesn't remember where he knows us from. I remind him that we were in UK's art department at the same time. I put Sofia in her stroller with some struggle.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home