city of brotherly love

a mix of pollution and soft pretzels hits my nose as i exit baggage claim. this is not the sweet smog smell of LA. this is the putrid smell of piss, rats, colonial sweat, stale beer poured on some out-of-towner's head at an eagles game, gunpowder, blood, maternal tears, and angry drivers tortured by construction.

welcome to the city of brotherly love, my friend.

blue bench cold beneath me. bench to the left seats one homeless woman in short sleeves and dying house shoes/slippers. she rocks her body, in towards herself, and then back out to the world, trying to keep warm. her cigarette adds to the philly fragrance. she talks to the wind. i debate offering her my breakfast, but it wont warm her, and ive learned to be careful talking to the homeless in philly. the thought comes to mind to give her my zyprexa pen, as if the pretty purple would calm the voices in her head. but if drug-rep pens were as powerful as the drugs they represent, there would be no need for folks to pay high price for a drug that is merely a descendant of thorazine.

the philly airport is logical. a headache usually, but still it is logical. even post-'01 it is familiar and predictable. other airports-not so. LAX makes you drag your bags to TSA yourself. and it gets crowded standing there, waiting for a space behind the rope in which to shove your bag.

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this is a city i used to fear driving in. and not because of the bullets. but because of the one way streets and hidden signs. but my GPS has conquered that fear. now my only philly nemesis is philly parking. when venturing into town, the question for me is not 'is it worth it with the cost of gas?' but 'is it worth it with the nightmare of finding-and paying for-parking?'.

sometimes i wonder if DC was created into this perfect nation's capital because our forefathers knew damn well that philly had no room for the buildings and security being the center of the country would require. it's bad enough getting folks in and out to see the liberty bell. let them go down a few hours, park outside of town and take the pretty metro in to see the washington monument. cherry trees would never look so pretty here. and there's not the space for museums and statues the way there is down there.

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people are more aggressive, assertive, on the streets. homeless man trying to sell you poetry. another accosting you right outside Cosi and asking for money, and then when you give him some he goes on and on about how he doesn't do drugs, and he's different than the rest of his race he doesn't like many of them, and on and on and on. and you dont even care. you just want him to move so you can get to your car.
you wouldn't think of singing and dancing down the streets of philly the way you would nyc.

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my brother called it 'filthadelphia'. and that was in the 80s. in some ways it is better, in some ways it is worse. but what other city has a giant heart that you can run through, and an old train you can ride, right in the same building (God bless the Franklin Institute)?