I have a new obsession.
No, strike that.
Obsession is a very strong word. And I don’t feel I’ve reached that level.
I have a new strong interest. Yes, that’s a bit more accurate.
I have a new strong interest.
As I walk through my neighborhood, I find that my thoughts tend to end up thinking about one person. Whether it’s early in the morning and I am headed to the subway to go to work or late at night and I am coming home after a long day. Whether I am heading to the laundromat or heading to the gym. Whether I am on my way to the grocery store or on my way to a friend’s house. It doesn’t matter. This person is always present in my thoughts.
I can’t stop thinking about Boog.
Boog?! Who the hell is a Boog?!
And the honest answer is that I really don’t know. I can’t even be 100% sure that Boog is even a person.
I suppose I should explain.
Ever since I moved to this apartment/neighborhood a year ago (to the day almost) I’ve had a mild fascination with one piece of graffiti that is in the alley behind my apartment. It’s just one word. Four letters. In a nice neat font.
Boog
I would even take to walking home through the alley instead of the main roads just so I could look at Boog. And I always had intentions of taking my camera with me once so I could stop and get a picture of Boog. The color of the paint against the color of the wall and the placement of it against the other things attached to the wall gave it serious artistic qualities and I wanted to capture that on film. I never got around to it though. And now, unfortunately, someone has spray-painted a silver line through it, thus ruining my ability to get that picture.
And then as time went on, I started noticing Boogs elsewhere in the neighborhood. And now it’s gotten to the point where I can’t go a day without seeing Boog. Not that new ones have sprung up, I’m most likely just actually noticing them now. My eyes have become so accustomed to that word, that now I can spot it anywhere.
Sometimes, on the train ride home, I sit and stare out the windows looking at the various graffiti along the way and have my own little Boog Scavenger Hunt. And I’ll make whomever is with me join in the hunt too. Boogs are like the Hidden Mickeys of Astoria.
I don’t know who Boog is. I don’t know if Boog is a man or a woman. Young or old. I don’t know his or her race. I know nothing about Boog. It could be someone I see and speak to everyday. It could be someone who is now dead. I have no idea. And I kind of like it that way. The mystery is far more fun.
All I know is that Boog has captured my imagination and made my neighborhood a little bit more interesting to me. My own little mysterious Astorian celebrity. And there’s no need to hunt him or her down for an autograph, because, well, s/he has already given us plenty of them.
Now, if you start seeing Nax tagged all over the neighborhood, well… don’t look at me.