Death smells

 My pants smell like the corpse flower. We climbed to the top of Dartmouth’s Life Science building last night for its bloom. Outside the building smelled like flowers. It seemed intentional, like how McDonald’s fans its smell of hamburgers outside locations to lure patrons. Inside the entire building smelled like death (false advertising). This is what brought me there, the perverse idea of smelling the odor of a dead body, with the added bonus of not having to confront one. This is quite sick, in retrospect, and indicative of a certain voyeurism within me (us)—I’ve never claimed not to be a pervert. The smell grew stronger as we climbed the stairs and overwhelmed as we walked into the sticky hot room, in which it sat in one of its corners, enormous, erect, and apparently sweating, the source of all this putridness. A large fleshy-looking thing stood 6 feet high out of a fertile basket of curling maroon leaves, thick like cabbage on an industrial scale. I stuck my head into it and S wafted the smell into my face. I breathed in deeply. I had thought that maybe it’s stench would trigger some primal revulsion within me, or inspire a profound sadness, but it did nothing upon arrival besides stink and then dissolve into the fabric of the room, becoming like a high temperature of which one remains aware but adapts to all the while. What a bizarre thing to adjust to, and in such a short amount of time. I think about my friend’s grandfather, who was shot and killed by my other friend’s cousin. The murderer was something like 24. The grandfather in his seventies, maybe. Afterward, the boy lived with the dead body for days and invited friends over who complained of a smell. The boy had probably forgotten the smell at that point. It had become a part of the rug on the floor and the couch in the corner, like the grandfather’s life had once been woven into the house.

We remained in the room listening to a scientist answer questions, before a team of them ushered us out to conduct tests and collect data. We walked downstairs and the smell lessened in intensity, but still I feigned freshness. I exited and took deep breaths outside. The engineered wafting of flowers didn’t calm me. I noticed apple blossoms across the street and walked toward them and ripped a small bunch off to keep close to my nose the whole way home. It did nothing to make my senses feel normal again. I started to think about the smell of war, to which this odor must be central. I wonder what a soldier does to a blossoming apple tree, if he chops it down in desperation and drags it home, or coolly turns his back on it, realizing a blossom’s futility in the face of death and its overwhelming fragrance. I wonder about a people under siege and the lengths they go to fumigate their nostrils. Perhaps they plant orchards so they will only ever smell sweetness, or perhaps all come to work in them, seek to own, all in pursuit of addressing the rot embedded deep in the floorboards of their nose. 

Now it is today, I sit at a cafe and smell death on my pants. I notice it more and more as I sit. Nothing rivals it, no freshly baked croissant or roasted coffee. Its subtlety creeps sickeningly until it grows prolific. It, too, settles into the room or perhaps just my psyche like the build-up of plaque on teeth never brushed or black tar in the lungs of smokers, slowly until it is eventually unacceptable and then unbearable, completely untenable. I leave. In the car the smell grows stronger. I roll down the windows. Wind blows through the car and cleanses it of all staleness, though the scent remains throughout the ride and follows me home. I take off the pants and throw them alone into the washer, set it on high heat, press start. This is a thing never adjusted to.

the shake

The cats bring mice to the door. I put a heavy white glass fixture in the middle of our long wooden dining table that looks like the sun. The little bowls around it are like planets orbiting it in the solar system. Humans fly through space. K sends a postcard from India. S sends another to his brother in Berlin from a cocktail bar in Vermont. I read Maria Stepanova's In Memory of Memory, listen to a Fiona Apple on my stereo, spring melts winter away. I regulated my whole life this winter. I ate the same thing over and over, got up at the same time, exercised my body and good reason and discipline, was depended on. What a world of good it did. There is great freedom in restriction, real power in routine — this is something we know but seldom claim. But this sweet season is apparently gone, and I’m suddenly tired of militancy and want to eat new foods everyday. I will return to legal joblessness in May, live in other people's homes, and read all the while. I’ll conduct experiments and take myself as the subject. I will miss you, winter, but I must let you go. I relinquish all control and surrender to flux. These things just don’t make sense in the new. Spring, summer, take me, swallow me, spit me out. I will enjoy every bit until it's over. I love you, saliva, teeth, tongue. I will love every part of it all, because I want to see what remains by the end of it. What does the melt uncover. What does the shake unearth, what am I made of

flow

 I am again feeling sensitive and on the verge, oh the cycles of life and how it all comes back around. This time last month I was crying to Lorde and in the middle of two boys. Now one feels far away and the other calls me his girlfriend. I don’t quite feel like he’s my boyfriend, and I don’t call him mine nor do I think of myself as having one. But if he wants to he may. He’s the boy I’m seeing, my partner perhaps — often that’s what he feels like (funny, I used to roll my eyes at this word and its pretension, but now I understand it. there is magnanimity in it, downstream of respect. It is true. Partners, because we consider each other). These other words with boys and girls in them, they sound slightly wrong, just a bit of fun, not quite patronizing of me or him, but of perhaps the relationship(?) (Is that what boyfriends and girlfriends have? Relationship is much too heavy a word for these two to carry...). It is more lovely to me to be everything while nothing. And then marriage. Only these two things. Only they make sense. Nothing, and everything. Simple! well Ok, pass through partnership on the way, when you live together and share friends, that is real, but not us... so boy-girl-friendship? well Ok I see yes a bit of fun... He’s reading this, hello boyfriend

This winter is suddenly very long, distended like a sick person’s stomach; everyone feels it, everyone is sick with the same thing and our bellies arch past our hips, navel past knees. My house is cold when the outside is. I have become thinner and here it’s not advantageous. Warming up is a challenge. Food is boring. reading hard. I grey.

But allow me, give me just a moment. Yes, winter gives way to spring. And then summer. And then I will forget how it feels to be cold. I won’t even be able to recall it. And I will miss winter’s austerity and piety. How the frost creeps across my windows in wonderful patterns and snow glitters in the light. Let me soak up its last weeks! Let me rest, and ice skate, and pray. Let me feel cold and crystal. Let me make another soup and read as much as I can. Because I love extremes, I admire them, everything and nothing! and it is so cold outside one can taste its bitterness — real sensation! My hands are like ice packs! When the world begins to thaw and people emerge out into it, the warmth will feel so sweet, we will become lizards who bake in the sun, stick a knife in! we are done! We will forget how bitter cold tastes on our lips, like women forget the pain of childbirth. Winter, I love you. You pass through me like a loved one’s ghost. You leave a chill through my body, goosebumps across my skin, warmth in my heart. Winter I will miss you all of the sudden. You are sugar-coated again. And I am stable

down the drain

 2025 is in the wind! never to be felt again except in dreams and memories. New York was perfect. On the Eve, I had a perfect day. L’s roommate made me kasha and then I went to soho where a and I have made a habit of shopping, and then drank a bottle of pet nat afterward at a place among people who get younger and younger every time I’m there. Soon enough we won’t be able to go there anymore - they will serve milk in bottles and pureed peas. We sat under the American flag, but now it has a peace sign stiched into it, funny ha ha oh the irony. We said goodbye to each other at the movie theater, because I decided to see Marty supreme if there was a showing then and there, and there was (ny<3). The movie was epic, rabid and hypnotic. It reminded me how I love the movies, especially alone, how much it all makes you feel so much. I felt bad for everyone at the end, especially the baby– Marty will bounce in and out of that boy's life just like one of his orange ping pong balls. After that I made my way home in the dark and cold, but I felt warm and light (breezy), full of light (lightbulb). I met an and l and r at a dark wine bar where we sat catching up till the party. Which was in this huge multi-story industrial loft where three small girls live, and it was filled with Bushwick types. We danced and danced, and I felt this wonderful release, like a valve was flung open and every worry, doubt, and reservation plumed out of me like a cloud of steam – I was squeaky clean by the end, my body soft and fluid, rolling thanks to g and her vile. We were simple bodies, fools, heroes, whatever we felt like. And it was wonderful. I slept at a’s, returned to l’s in the morning all locked out. I stood at the door freezing, buzzing knocking cursing. She was out retrieving her phone from the loft, and then she returned to the stoop and couldn't get the door open either. Everyone in the house was drunk and asleep. We sourly went for coffee, parked ourselves at a cafe and stayed there for ages, warming up and getting cold again, growing more and more stupid and delirious which made way for good happy feelings. We laughed at everything, but mostly ourselves. We sank into baths we dreamed in our minds that we filled with vietnamese broths and sat there like children with our heads leaned back. “Do you want mushrooms in yours? Do you have your hair up?” It was exactly what we needed, and I thank God for it. Any tension or strangeness washed away, down the drain. Just love and play between friends. And then I said goodbye, and we said we loved each other and we really meant it, and the hug was long and deep and cherished. And still, I am so happy to be home, back to my life and the things that bring me sanity and clarity and heft. I have had such luck and beauty lately. and I do, I apologize for my effusions— I can’t help them at the moment, and they make for strange writing, so perhaps I’ll stop here

glass

That big empty house - I’m here again. And I’m sick again like I was then, too. I like it here, which isn’t saying much, because it’s very big and new and Designed. Something easy to like, luxury is.

I saw this article about how girls writing is Over, and I’m here to agree. Here’s my pen, or the fingers with which I type. Don’t think of me as a writer. – one of the worst things you can be I think is a diarist – I’m a sleuth. A reporter. A researcher. A smooth-talkin grease ball snake oil salesman. I have an agenda! Someone with a megaphone and thick-rimmed glasses with the horns on the corners. Thick horn-rimmed glasses. Horny thick-rimmed glasses. Rimmed-horn thick glasses. Thick glass-rimmed horns. That’s right. I’m a reporter with thick glass-rimmed horns. I see straight through those crooks, because I don’t need glasses. And I use my horns to interfere with radio signals, glass is one good conductor. Best I’ve ever seen, Choo chooooo. Once someone threw themselves onto the tracks and glass acted so quick, it pulled the levers and the pulleys and redirected the train to the other track just in time to save the guy. Unfortunately there was a nest of these ultra-rare, endangered finches on the other track. It was being preserved by some local organization that had taken a special interest in it, because this finch had laid a nest on one of these folks’ yard and she took it as a sign from God that this here was her purpose, to raise and protect this finch like it was her own human child. And then when she was having a party for the finch’s babies - they were about to leave the nest - an ecological person, some kind of scientist came and said to this woman: What a valiant effort you’ve made, you’re saving the species! And she said: What? These are just my babies. And the scientist said: Ah, so humble, so humble. And the woman let out a kind of giggle, and thought to herself: The species? God, you really did give me purpose. One greater than I could’ve imagined. And the man said: I’m apart of an ecological group with a special interest in birds. Would you mind if we paid you and your little miracles a visit, perhaps next week? And the woman turned to her birds, and they looked just like birds, but she saw in each of them a little sliver of God, and that sliver was bright bright light. And that light shined so beautifully and brightly that she thought, I would be a selfish woman to keep these bright lights, these gifts from God, all to myself. Sure! she said. Come next week. I’ll make a pie. And so the next week they same came and she made a cherry pie which some people said was a tad sweet for their taste but that didn’t matter much because they got to see this rare type of finch! a whole family of them at that. Well they got to talking and a man pointed out how, while such a valiant effort, perhaps the most! this spot was not the most ideal spot for these little hatchlings to be raised. A better spot would be on the other side of town, near the wetlands. A whole debate ensued over whether it was better to move the nest to an area where the birds would be better suited, or to not disturb them at all. The man who had raised the question was a proud and at-the-moment insecure man, having recently been left by his wife, the third to decide she could no longer live with him, unable to cope with his particularities and inability to talk about his feelings. So when most of his peers disagreed with his proposal to move the nest and not disturb the young ones, he was insulted, and grew even further adamant about the righteousness of his proposal. You have no idea what is best for these birds, he shouted. I studied environmental science at U, V, M. He pronounced each letter like a sentence, leaving pauses in-between. We relocated endangered species for breakfast, he spat. But few and fewer people agreed with him, seeing how his temperament had changed and not wanting to reward this kind of nasty behavior so unwelcome in their group. So the decision was made without him and he was left without a reason that satisfied him. That night he tossed and turned in that big bed of his, the one he had shared with wives 2 and 3 — the first wife had been the longest-kept, because they had loved each other in a way that was meant to last a lifetime. When things devolved between the two of them, he burned the bed they had shared for twenty years, it being too painful a memory and something that anchored him too deeply in the past. But yes he tossed and turned, so unhappy with how the day had gone, how the decision had been made, how unheard he felt, how without respect he apparently seemed to be. Three nights he slept like this, which is to say not at all, so that on the third he said, Enough! If it is keeping me up like this, the decision must have been wrong, and it is my duty to these little birds that they are put in a more proper place! So he went to the woman’s yard, where there were still remnants of the party she threw them, these pieces of pink streamer on the lawn, a stray party hat, and a piece of the banner she had made custom that read: Finch me, I must be dreaming! He rustled past all of these to find the birds asleep. Using the tools he brought, he carefully and tenderly extracted the nest from its place, and took it in his arms. He, too, while looking at these lovely little things, seemed to sense some kind of light, like they glowed and the glow came from their sleepy little chests as they moved, up and down. He sat there, still, just looking, and there he might’ve stayed until morning, his eyes a bit wet, thinking about the beauty of these little creatures and basking in their slight glow, but a dog started to bark, a light inside the house turned on, and so he had no choice but to scurry away back into the dull night. He got into his car, drove to the wetlands, and found a tree for the birds. He set them up there, and then drove home, quite satisfied with himself, where he fell into a deep sleep and awoke quite rested, to the sound of rain. The next day it rained all day to various degrees of intensity. At the man’s house, there were steady but light showers. Above the woman, there was a drizzle and a fog settled into her yard. In the wetlands, the showers were quite heavy, so heavy that the nest, which had been placed more precariously than the man realized, and atop the track which the man also hadn’t realized, him being all shaken up and after all half-asleep, well the rain was so heavy that the nest was knocked from its tree onto the tracks below it. So that two days later, glass struck this nest, killing all the finches it contained to avoid the man who threw himself in front of the train, which it conducted. And the man fell into alcoholism because of his guilt, and the woman gave up her faith seeing how it had all been for nothing, and that man who wanted to die became a cashier at his local grocery store.

There’s a loon where I goose

There’s a goose where I work that’s all alone. His flock left him and today he sat at the bottom of the driveway when we pulled up to the house in our pick-up truck. He didn’t move his feet but his neck quivered a bit and we said please mother goose let us pass, and he moved over. We said goodbye on our way out. He has gray hair and moves slow, he might even have a limp. He was peck peckin on the ground, like a loon, that goose. Don’t worry, I’ll say hi for you tomorrow.

little purpose

Right now I'm taking care of a big empty house. It’s only this light, cool blue color, and to walk from one end to the other takes a whole minute. The man who owns this big blue empty house broke his neck awhile ago and had no one to take care of him. Now he’s in Florida to see his elderly mother.

The big blue empty house looks out past a clear-cut meadow onto the West. Today the clouds are lined with red, like a jam-butter seeping out of a pastry fold. Sun shines and dims on sections of land one at a time. The wind is strong, very strong, way stronger than most wind in this area. Because the forest around it was clear-cut, there’s nothing for the wind to bristle against. All it does now is sweep hard and fast. The houses on this road are Designed, especially with the view in mind, and Privacy. They are Large and Spacious, Sturdy. They don’t whistle like houses here tend to. Everything is quiet, most dogs don’t even bark. The only exception is an old brown farmhouse—correction: two, across the road from each other. Cars are everywhere around the two brown farmhouses, old beaters. And their beef cows stand on a mound of dirt. Their dogs are the ones that bark. They've been on this road longer than anyone, digging their heels in. 

This is one of the few places in the area with a view—the land is usually so clouded by trees and dense forest, all closed in on. It feels open in an unusual way out here, like you can breathe. But then the wind makes you all cold and sends a chill up your spine. Go inside.

Marcus A said everything ought to be directed toward a goal—even the smallest things. The goal of rational beings is to follow the rule and law of the most ancient of communities and states. He said the human soul degrades itself when it allows its action and impulse to be without purpose, to be random and disconnected. I got to thinking, maybe marrying the old man who lives here would give me some of that. He broke his neck awhile ago and had no one to take care of him. His children live far away, they're older than me. And he had this house built with all of these double features, a double sink, double garage, lots of seating. maybe I could help these features, see they have no use without someone, we could do each other this favor. The man is nice enough, somewhat boring, apparently Jewish. I could spend the rest of his days here, all peaceful, taking care, in our fortress. Listening to the wind. 

This morning I took the dog out into the meadow. The wind was blowing real strong but the sun was out so I laid down on the grass. First on my back but then I rolled onto my side so the sun didn’t shine so directly into my eyes. I laid there for a while, looking at the grass through a few strands of blonde hair that fell over my eyes. I wove a few blades in between my fingers. I lifted my head up to check on the dog, but I couldn’t see her. I walked over to look across the meadow and then around the whole house. I found her with a bone in her mouth and love in her eyes. I walked with her a bit as she shopped around for a good place to lay it down. It was a slow process, she tends to meander a bit. Finally, with the little bone in her mouth, she dug a little hole at the base of a baby douglas fir in the old man’s garden, real shallow. She let it down into the hole, and then used her nose to push the dirt back over it, all slow and methodical. It took her a few minutes, but when she had finally moved all the dirt in a way she deemed satisfactory she patted it a few times with her paw. I told her that was a very nice place for it and a very good thing she just did, making sure it’s all safe and everything. C’mon now, it’s time to go back inside. She wagged her tail and followed close behind me.

so long

It's raining and gloomy in New York and I'm staying in bed today - it's ridiculous how easy my life can be sometimes. I was once so obsessed with the movies, especially the realist ones on film, with beautiful boyish girls who moved through the world all quiet and doe-eyed. And the girls who were disruptive and antagonistic and rebellious. But my tastes have shifted. Now I don’t watch as many movies, but when I do they are probably animated or campy fantastical ones, like The NeverEnding Story. I cycle through the likes of Ghibli, The Last Unicorn, Shrek. and then TV. perhaps because I realized all of my previous tastes. I cut my hair short and was a boyish doe-eyed 19-year-old. A disillusioned talk-backing teen. An aimless New Yorker. Now I want to be free, young, light, magic. misery wastes time

Leaving this room is sad, seeing it all empty. I can hardly hear the buzz of the fish tank. It has sunk into the bed's fabric and disappeared. Birds chirp outside, spring? Yesterday it was nearly 80° and everyone went outside to do probably many things but all I saw with an apron on was them sipping on spritzes. 

Two tables say I look like Elle Fanning, which is nice because I usually get Dakota. 

European models talk about a problematic health minister, who is “obviously so obese.” 

I work and work, make more than a thousand dollars and then say my goodbyes because I won't be returning. 

I am sad to leave but happy to go (yes). 

I sit back for a moment with f at the bar, and thanks to his romantic eye, I too look toward my coworkers and watch them do their dance, measuring ounces, pouring, shaking, flirting, rejecting. I love them very much then, and see the magic that everyone talks about - it's so important in this industry to sit back and watch, but the trouble is finding time. Despite love and romance, I stand by my conclusions: Restaurants become toxic entities all their own, and they suck from those who give, as much as whomever allows. If you are not careful, you will wake up all withered and without x amount of years. f, though, is in love with it all and it seems good for him. 

He is the exception, there are those, maybe many of them too. 

He once wanted to act, but now thinks that maybe that desire led him to another. 

This is the path, he says, smiling. 

I order a burger, medium rare.

Re: this room, I hate to leave (l,g,a,a,r,f,n,on,on,on). So many moves have been so hasty, all in a hurry. This one is slower, more methodical, more sad. I am sad but so happy that I am so sad, so lucky. I worry, too. Not for me either. I want everything to be okay (magic).

On my last day in Brooklyn we all sit on the porch. g reads. l draws the yards around us, most filled with planks of wood and brush. But here and there, something: a wire strung around a pole, a planter made out of a basketball, and other examples of recycling taken too far. Mostly her notebook contains renditions of album art or things from our table: a beer bottle, a hand made out of clay with its thumb cut off (broken, a very bad accident, don’t ask). I mend a hat that I found weeks ago for a few dollars, string thread through loops and tie it tight so it all comes together again. We sit and lay for hours, bring snacks and pillows out to sustain us, chain smoke cigarettes, layer up as the sun passes to the other side of the sky. Our neighbors must think we're bums, I think. Lazy sugar babies who work at night and laze all morning. You see we lay like this most days, with a calm about us, a certain self-possession. Hardly a word is spoken and music plays softly until it, too, fades into the background. Our heads sink into our novels and our notebooks. And nothing is left of our breath but the smoke that wafts from what hangs, lodged between our teeth and our lips. 

north

 I went north a few weeks ago to see Niagara Falls. That's Canada in the picture taken from the New York side. A ferris wheel, maybe a boat landing for the ferry that takes you through the falls in the Spring. But it was winter so the water fell through enormous blocks of ice covered in snow. Steam rose up up and then disappeared like our breath. I forgot my passport but the lady across the bridge said it was no big deal, please come over. c said it was because I’m pretty. She asked what was in our bags and we opened them up. a took out her bikini to show the lady, who laughed. Won’t be needing that at this time of year. This picture was taken before I knew I could get in. Can you sense the longing? We got across the border and all was well. Well, there was a lot of snow and it was very cold. We went through the McDonald’s drive through, stayed there a while deciding but couldn’t because the screen we were supposed to read kept changing. We parked, decided on the same thing we always get, then went through it again, ordered two quarter pounders with cheese and a diet coke, chicken nuggets, fries. We found our way into the AirBNB, took the scary painting of a woman with big eyes down, ate the McDonald’s and drank wine from bottles we got from one of those reno’d corner stores that feels wrong inside because they’re supposed to be dingy and for truckers but now they’re for girls looking for natural wine and so-called local cuisine on their way upstate. We played cards then decided to try to buy some weed but the store was closed so we went to the bar on our way back in our pjs. We played pool to varying degrees of success. Some Canadian boy came up to me and asked if I was religious because my dress was long and my socks were high. I explained to him that no, we were just going outside to buy weed from the store but when we got there the door was closed. Does everything here close so early? This is my nightgown. We were going to bed before this. We started talking about this and that, he’s a cook and doesn’t mind trump so much, he made me laugh quite hard and bought me a beer, and then he asked again: so you’re not Mormon? I laughed more and wrote my number on his arm with what he had in his pocket, a Sharpie. The next day a l and me got breakfast: some of the best blueberry pancakes I’ve ever had, all doughy and soft the kind you can taste the batter in, and Canadian bacon, which is Christmas ham—you know that I know that but for breakfast it’s decadent and delicious and we ate it all up. Ava dipped her sausage in the little plastic dipping container of maple syrup and got the peelable lid stuck to her sleeve near her elbow. Our waitress was an angel whom I named Penny, having not been able to ask her her real name. She pointed us to the shop next door where we could dig around and score some trinkets. The shop guy was a sweetheart and said that no one should ever boo a national anthem. The cat in that store was the friendliest cat I’ve ever met, all orange and fluffy and her actual name was penny. We found rings, magnets, records, gifts, pins, charms, books, all to take home. Which we did later that day, through a blizzard and a podcast all about people for whom sex is their sun moon and stars. Specifically the episode with CumGirl47 or something like that. Eventually I asked l to drive the last hour or so, and she brought us all the way home. 

25% gratuity

I am grateful for Arlo Guthrie, roads, trains, gnarled kids and sad parents, weather, laborers, workers, cigarettes, my liberty, New York- its past and its present, beauty, ecstasy, running, pain, my body (wow), the human spirit, consciousness, contrarianism, sensitivity, love, freedom, man, singing, drunkenness, sobriety, the rotten, the ripe, leather, fur, animals, craftsmanship, singularity, a select few restaurants, a select few, relationships in their diversity, my elders, books, handwriting, typing, and a New England sensibility

saltines and soup

At square in tribeca with the lentil soup. The boys in the booth in front of me get a tuna melt and start going on about the pickle. “So what’s with it? When do you eat it, do you just take bites, do you eat it all at once? Well at what point of the sandwich?” I crush one packet of saltines and pour it into the soup in a heap. Eat it in spoonfuls. New York is at its best- dark, cold, not exactly frozen. Yesterday it was—I will stop saying right and wrong, there is no such thing when it comes to places; they cannot achieve rightness or wrongness and sureness is a fraud. Still, it was the most beautiful, completely buzzing, and I loved every person I laid eyes on, even the working women in trench coats, Romaine with his crazy eyes, the men singing on the streets, cracked and on the edge of sanity. I hadn’t felt so affectionately about the city in months. The only place that holds the future and the past and rolls it all into one, a big bursting burrito dripping with juice. I have a roll of cash in my pocket that I will pay for my soup with, that I bought beer with last night, that I hope to buy a pack of nails, a new sink plug, and fly traps with later, but ultimately expect to lose. Yesterday I walked and walked. I walked from bushwick to greenpoint and then my phone died. I sat down at a bar to charge it, drank, and read a book through to the end of lost men wandering in search of God In America, in women, in experience, of hunger and thirst and eating and drinking to no avail. And so I thought of my father and walked all the way to astoria... I crush another bag of crackers, pour it into the soup, eat more spoonfuls. Now the boys are going through their letterboxds, sorted by date released, oldest to newest. Today I transcribed an interview, a grand one. The subject went on and on about wonderful far out ideas. One of them being about how men, between their adolescent relationship with their mother and romantic or spousal relationships with women (who inspire the same kind of feeling, relationship, love?), are lost. Doomed forever to debate the pickle on the side of their plate. Who knows, really, but I dig it. Especially after reading Kerouac. Men roam and roam and latch onto the recognizable boob, something that comforts, quells. But women do the same, of course. In that quelling though are we not further lost? In reversion we are surely not found… is that where searching leads, back where you started? I guess a relationship in theory, by providing what men seek (comfort, security, warmth), frees its members to do more, but that is far too healthy a model for most people... My mother kept a journal when she found out she was pregnant. She was 23 years old and was told to keep track of what she ate. She gave it to me last weekend and I read it in front of her. Most of it was her apologizing for not eating better, for her anger and bouts of depression, when she threw water at “your father, papa, etc,” and telling me that she feared passing it all on. She spoke of how in love she was, though, and how afraid she was of everything falling apart, especially due to her habit of throwing things. And of course a year after I was born, it did. I thanked her and went into my room. We hadn’t seen each other in awhile, but I’m trying to be a better daughter. I finish the four packets of saltines with some soup left to go. The waiter asks if I want more. No, I say. Thanks. The boys in front of me have left. I leave cash under the plastic water glass and go.

Gaping

Fiction drop: https://nomoreprostitutes.com/Althea-Champion

settling - good

For a week or so I was taking big bites and eating fast. I wrapped my mouth around danishes and sandwiches and pieces of chicken and filled it completely, gnawing and gnashing. The week after I was plumper than before, because I had swallowed everything without thinking at all. I ate less then and had headaches, from screens or dehydration, fatigue or my food embargo. I suspected my vision was going slightly also - I was straining to see in a way I hadn't before. I also found it very hard to focus - my brain felt weak, and I vulnerable to temptation. I wanted very much to buy things and indulge… I craved new things: clothes, decor, hobbies, knowledge. but all I felt capable of was aimless thought. The next day I was getting dinner and I though that would be good. I had also lacked a good book for a while. Still I subsist off of scrawny books we have around the house, which I read and reread. I want a large juicy delicious one very bad. (Won’t you send me one?)

The day after that I bought clothes, envelopes, mascara, a pastry, dinner, and an Uber home. My credit card bill shot through the roof.

I felt like flesh and wondered separately if everyone’s flesh felt like mine? so prone to bursts of flame and fits of constriction.

Now I have calmed a bit. I feel quite beautiful actually. settled in my body, at least for the time being, and true to my presentation. 

Settling is aspirational, when you consider it really. peace. 

I had a story published, and I did a lot of thinking about it after the fact, where it deserved more attention, etc. But I’m content with it as is, as it is, in its way, like yesterday was: simple and stunning. I got off work and circled the same few blocks. I spoke to my mother for the first time in months, and then my dad. d, too - I’m getting better at contact. Then I went home, invited w for dinner, and helped c salvage her cod and potatoes. We drank wine and debated the death of New York. Probed each other's relationships to love, sex, and gender. It was entirely unselfconscious; we buzzed, with ecstasy! somewhat inappropriate for such a simple meal on an ordinary Wednesday guided by routine impulses toward food, wine, friendship...(...another example of aspirational settlement.) Will said his goodbyes, give me a few book recommendations, and left. I put Girls on the tv, Cynthia went to bed, and I followed shortly after - we dreamed.

terminal

 All of my socks have holes in them. I am out of almost every product. I know, I know… but I did order a new calendar! I have many plans… And the calendar’s theme is hope. Funny, because that was front of mind this year. Keep the faith, I said. And the faith I kept. 

A mole on my arm scabbed over and for a few days I thought I had cancer—the doctor at Urgent Care said I didn’t (♱). But naturally I started planning: I considered potential subletters and figured I’d move in with my grandparents and then start treatment —that is if my prognosis was the manageable sort. If it wasn’t, and I had months or a year to go, then I would be challenged in a much different way. My first thought, in that case: kermit. 

I am a person deeply tied to the future—it is in many ways my lifeline. I do hardly anything without thinking about it, not so much in a responsible way. Moreso along the line of, how nice it will be. But I do consider it very much, and am highly responsible. While this was borne out of necessity—I have been in sole charge of myself for a long time now—I quite enjoy responsibility. I look forward to owning a house very much (it’s my one real goal). I relish in saving and planning. Etc. A future is the greatest gift, and to not have one would depress me endlessly. A future, actually, is the one true salve of my sadness. I do not take it for granted. Everything I do, quite literally, is for it.

But if I were to resist the reaper, which I likely would because I’m not one to really give up anything (ie. my holy socks and dried up mascara tubes), I would like to live my life quite similarly to how I do now—isn’t that sweet. I would give up my ---, surely. I would write during the day and work at the restaurant at night. I would stop saving, obviously, and eat at my favorite places, plus a few more I want to try, with my beautiful beautiful friends. I’d order the freshest thing on the menu. Drink lots of wine and coffee. Buy the best olives, cheese, and tinned fish. With my meager savings I would buy a car and take long drives alone to the woods, listen to music sometimes, sit in the sun, and stay in motels. I would use my new car to visit g in Philly, m in Boston, i in Florida, and my cousins in Maine and Sacramento. Hopefully I would make it to London to see e, who I would then grab and take to Mexico City. But mostly I would enjoy my days. 

The rest are things I already plan to do, but if I was terminal and money thus ceased to be an issue, and my pride in making it expired, I would do them all in quick succession. How lovely, though, really, to be so close to this ultimate life. How lovely to live so close to my desire. What a gift 𒀬 After all, this life is made of days. The end lends importance to the means, but the means are all we have. Enjoy, please, enjoy! And if you focus each day on the how, I believe the what will become a much richer thing.

the dream

 Yesterday was the equinox, and today is cold. Equinoxes are important to me and many of my friends, so we tend to celebrate them. That, full moons, new moons, many moon phases in general. I feel the need to acknowledge the seasons and the moon. Not woo woo. the moon and the seasons are just important, some of the most beautiful things in the universe. The moon literally. Seasons more symbolically. Though we didn’t do anything big* 

*I am unbearably exhausted. My heel is bleeding, but my burn has healed and the scab fell off. I was wrapping it in a pair of silk underwear because gauze stuck to it and stung when I peeled it off. And then n told me her French grandmother said to sleep with a silk handkerchief around her neck when you feel a sore throat coming. It will ward it off, or help it heal. And I thought, in retrospect, silk heals all things. Doctors, take note, for your sake and mine. The day before I pulled glass out of my mouth while eating a heaping bowl of rice and wilted spinach dressed with lots of soy sauce. I had already been feeling like something was wrong, but this solidified it. Though little has changed… there’s not much I can do at the moment but wait. My feet feel like only bone. And my future is very hard to imagine, though I’m trying. See:

I did rearrange my apartment with c. But I was very anxious afterward… I felt that I had disrupted our Spot. Before it was very, very beautiful. Shells were everywhere and light bounced in and out. The space was open, light, and largely impractical, ie. We had a tv that sat probably 10 feet away from the couch. For the first few months we lived there, a white metal bed frame sat there without a mattress. But still I laid a quite pretty, little, silk kind of baby sleeping bag on it. (Ah, silk again)

I have always been precious, but especially lately. I feel very sensitive to magic, that charmful quality native to beauty. Call it divinity, that’s what I’ve begun to do. Not necessarily God, but I say that too.

The space is much different now. Still lovely and special, with shells and lace hung from nails left behind by dozens of past tenants, though indefinitely divided and far more practical, and I find something about that a bit boring and sad. It’s the same way I feel when I ride the subway with corporates. How sad to know the rest of your life. I’ve always considered resignation a tragedy, even if it’s not a bad thing. I am so attached to not-knowing. I find that life lacks when it is made up. It is so much more when it unfolds like this and oh! that! But I also struggle because I cannot imagine a future… it is one big hazy cloud in which figures occasionally take form and then blow away. But it is all one big dream! Oh just let me be (free)

flushhhhh

I burned myself on a motorcycle. The exhaust pipe bit me, but it’s my fault. I was wearing ballet flats—I know, but I was on my way to a wedding. 

I wrote in August: My pack of cigarettes is flattened like a piece of bread. Some are crooked, half smoked, broke. I don't smoke unless I truly need. I’m being taught what need means. I'm not pleasant on the brink, but I'm happy because I impress myself (hard). Every week is a challenge, but the game excites me. I eat after I starve, sleep on my feet, use every second. and not just to work, but to write, sit as I am now in thought, and socialize. And it's all put to use. Ah, to make a machine out of my brain and body! (and heart?) very satisfying. A man is playing his clarinet on the train. It is a perfect, playful tune. I'm grateful for him and his instrument. Thank you, Man with your Clarinet! I am at once satisfied, delighted, relaxed, and heartened because of you!    Now I sit outside the laundromat, under the cover of the awning. It's raining a bit. It's getting dark as it nears 8 o’clock—the days are getting shorter. Thunder crackles a bit, or cars drive over metal panels that create a road. August lightning strobes. The shop opposite me is called Lantigua Deli. Its red awning casts aglow the wall that suspends it. It's such an old image: The corner store, fluorescent lights, two guys—one big, one small—leaning against a red wall. Thunder splits the sky open. Now rain pours, when before it drizzled. I'm sheltered now inside the laundromat. 30 minutes to go. Lights flicker here, too. I'm happy to be here. My life is good, better because it's hard. I am up for the challenge, it's quite amazing. I ran outside, was instantly devoured, completely chilled. I'm so awake, completely tight.

I took a week off and now I am confused. I almost regret it, but I don’t. The wedding was beautiful. l and I met at the restaurant where we met and became its centerpiece, both dressed in blue and brushed, blonde hair. We danced and talked and I felt so happy, a happiness that was manifold: 1) We were drinking quite heavily. At points I felt dizzy and maybe about to be sick, but l steadied me. So, I'd eat a bit of cake, take a sip of water, maybe freshen up in the bathroom or smoke a cigarette, and then I was ready to continue. 2) We were surrounded by an incredible beauty. The wedding was at the couple's home. It overlooks the mountains and the land surrounds the house like a horseshoe. A white tent rose over tables decorated with candles, hand-picked arrangements, garlands of perhaps grapes or some orb-shaped fruit or vegetable. In the right corner a rustic lemon cake sprawled, which the bride took a bite of just as we arrived. To the left was a sloping dance floor—which no one slipped on, mind you—that faced a band of rotating players, which sometimes ft. the groom himself. Random groups of chairs peppered the property, each marked by a canopy of lights that seemed to float higher as dark set in. And down the hill Prosecco flowed from a tap and batched cocktails could be scooped out of tin wells—a drinking station fit for Puck and the rest of a midsummer’s night dream. And 3) l is a wondrous person who makes me, in turn, feel wondrous. He drove us in his old Saab, which he started down by his thigh. He lit my cigarette with its lighter. And even called me a talker.

I’m still nursing my burn, but it's started to harden. Before, it was red and raw and fleshy, so vulnerable it hurt to look at. In jersey I ate too much red meat and drank too much coffee, so much red meat and coffee that I began to think differently. Other people's thoughts swirled. they have no place in my brain. I’ve just about managed to get them out.  It was cold in jersey. Wind blew newspapers off the coffee table and onto the floor, where they squirmed.

I do often wish that I was riding backward on the train, straight through New York, onto Raleigh, Florida, New Orleans. I’m flushing the summer away

Roxy

 I sat across a young man at a table a week or so ago. I was with d and we ran into a group of his friends outside a restaurant. We sat there and smoked a couple cigarettes. The young man was very tall and thin. He was already drunk. The blazer he wore swung back and forth from his shoulders. We walked to the bar and he walked either very far ahead or behind us. When he noticed he fell behind, he would shoot up again, though shot after shot he would miss. He didn’t seem to know how to work this long body of his yet. 

He ordered one or two drinks at the bar and talked to just about anyone. People approached him and he approached others. He smiled and laughed easily and his long hair flapped in the stale bar breeze. He sat back down with us, a table made up of the boys he went to prep school with— and me.

He sat cross-legged and called himself a poet, but other than that said nothing else. Around his friends, he seemed depressed. He crumbled inside the costume, Slouched over, the blazer looked hopelessly bigger than him. He began to fall asleep on himself. 

If I were to tap him with a spoon, I thought to myself, he would crack, maybe shatter. If he were older, I would wonder. But he was my age, so I pitied.

I asked him what he was drinking.

He said whiskey.

Straight? I asked.

I dated a gurl named Roxy, he said. When we broke up, I stopped taking it on the rocks...

How to beat the heat... sip sip sip

 Summer is a vulgar season, and that redeems it. Bride and groom sit at the end of the bar. They sip their drinks sullenly through straws. They stare down at the oak. Occasionally they look up and smile into her phone camera. 

She is Korean. Her white dress is short and her veil made of nylon. He is Italian. His tuxedo is traditional. I watch them and feel sorry, because they seem unhappy on their wedding day. But people in New York become not so much people, but impressions of them… so I’m only a little sorry. Heat is a confusing sedative. People cannot think or speak properly, so they scream out loud or in their melting subconscious. Bodies burst out of clothes. People don’t bother to wrestle them back in. Man and woman are sweating at the end of the bar. But yes, stay just as you are. sip sip sip

This week my emotions were like bombs. I saw them in front of me, popped them in my mouth, swallowed them naively, and they burst inside of me. I rode the N from les to the edge of astoria, drawing a horse, and then back to les and into Brooklyn, drawing a lady. I got off and took buses back to queens, smoking cigarettes at transfers and crying uncontrollably behind big sunglasses. sip sip sip

While cold makes me sink deeper into my body, heat makes me want to escape it. Summer heat makes me feel as if I’m on the brink. My skin feels too tight, my hair too thick, my time too long

Sometimes New York gets me in a tizzy. I can find the people in it bleak and belonging to a world that is offensively small. And I don’t mean small, like, the barrier of entry is too high, or exclusive, or impenetrable. I actually think it would be somewhat easy to penetrate; so many of those inside want so badly for love by someone halfway attractive, talented, or with some professional potential. I mean small as in spoiled, unimaginative, repetitive, and predictable. It happens. I understand. I’m sure it’s livable from the inside. But watching it has depressed me. As has the heat. sip sip sip

lamb

 I roasted a leg of lamb because I felt like I needed to. I lived with my grandparents on their sheep farm when I was growing up, twice. First for three years when I was a child, then for a few when I was a teenager. Every spring lambs would be born. Some ewes birthed three or four, others only one, a few lambs were born still. My pépère showed me how to clip their tails off with a contraption that looked like a nutcracker. You insert their tails into the slot and squeeze the handles closed. The tail falls to the ground and you plunge the nub into a chemical that sterilizes the wound. As a child I preferred to just hold the lambs in my arms as he did the chopping. I squeezed them very tight and they became still. I nuzzled them against my cheek and whispered to them so they’d be calm. When the cleaver closed, they jolted and mewed and often writhed out of my small arms. I played with them afterward.

My pepere sheared sheep expertly. He has since he was 16. He wrestled them into a position in which their shoulders were against his knees, and their back hooves and legs perpendicular to his legs. In this position they fell limp, like dummies. Their bellies fell over their thighs. They understood now was not the time to fight, but be taken. He sheared up and down with a razor, until their wool was short and groovy. Fluffs fell on the cement slab that was at the entrance of the barn. I would play with them in my hands, stretching them apart, padding them together, pulling them into shapes. The rest he swept up into a pile.
The lambs would stand close to their mothers in the field. They’d play, kick their legs up. They’d also lay and nuzzle against their mums’ new haircuts. The girls would grow up and most boys would be picked up and brought to slaughter. We would get some of the meat back and eat it for supper. Lots of stews and curries. On more celebratory occasions, my mémère would cook a roast.
I'd never cooked one myself. My birthday is near and I deeply wanted to cook a hunk of meat and serve it to people I love in a beautiful way. Providing in this way is very romantic to me.
I bought 6.5 pounds from Akropolis Meat Market. They weighed it in front of me, and I asked them to keep the bone in. I brought it home and dropped it on the counter and unwrapped the paper. It looked very much like a muscle. Pale ligaments stretched beyond its deep redness. Snow white fat fell in thick lines. 

I made a dozen incisions in the meat. 

I ground up anchovies, garlic, and rosemary and 

I stuffed it inside them with my fingers, heavily dosing the little cavities. 

I squeezed anchovies into butter with my hands and 

I smeared the paste atop the whole surface, covering it completely. 

I licked off every remnant left on me. 

I placed it on the oven rack at 325° for 20 minutes per pound, per memere’s instruction—

she likes it bloody and so, 

I like it bloody. 

I put a pyrex pan underneath it to catch excess drippings, and 

I used that to season the potatoes I roasted afterward, along with olive oil, salt, pepper, and more rosemary. (Next time, 

I will roast the potatoes underneath the lamb simultaneously.) 

The lamb is such an innocent thing, a famous beacon of purity. But there is something so vulgar about the act of cooking it. What a delicious contradiction I served on a silver platter

sophomore

a and I likened our twenties to high school. 20-22 is freshman year. 23 and 24 is sophomore, 25-27 junior, 28 and 29 senior. As a freshman you try and flail. I flailed up right center. We were babies, learning how to walk, and still we feel like crying. I tried a lot on and most nothing fit, but that which did: delicious, really [New York, writing fiction]. Now we’re rising sophomores. 

Summers have always been hard for me. I am and have always been with Lana. Summertime sadness is the greatest one. I reread blog entries from last year; it’s all there. [I can get so tired of reading writing. Voice, style, it can all be so embarrassing. Clarice stands above all in her deployment of style, but it’s the absence of Voice in her work that makes it great. She writes automatically (a method I am partial to), one can tell. Can someone send me My first book. I’m curious.] 

All I want to do is take a roadtrip, though not now.

Sometimes I think I’m running in circles, sometimes in an upside down cone and that's terrifying: the thought of running in circles, lap after lap after lap after lap, at a downward tilt. Not spiraling, I must make that clear. My fear is that it’s gradual. It's far harder to correct that way.

I’m not sure yet what sophomore year is about. Digging your heals in? Realizing the path? My prediction:

filtration

Clarity

Greater quality (minor but meaningful)

Probably more flailing

 

Ah, another year. I’m pretty tired, excited for my birthday to be over, but desperate to be loved on it in all the familiar ways. I will cook a leg of lamb in celebration. Renewal, redemption!!!!!!!!!!!!