fraud in the 80s

flashbacks

2012-01-03T13:08:00.000-05:00

some things i can't stop thinking about. we met yesterday at the nassau g, about to take a long, winding ride on the ghost train to the bergen stop so we could walk on the brooklyn heights promenade. sitting next to you, asking about your brothers, making a few jokes, i was quite aware of how my heart was pounding (i know there was no reason) and wondered if you were experiencing any sort of similar sensation.

only 10 days away, but you seemed so new to me. gazing at you while you searched for a place to eat, my elbows on the table, six inches away from your face. the same position, again, in a disorienting williamsburg thai restaurant, making plans to make something together, just for practice. your generosity, your point of view, the advice and possibilities you offered; you weren't hiding any of it.

fiddling with my computer, sitting indian style on the rug in my living room, standing behind you and putting my hands on your face, around your neck. kissing you for what turned out to be almost an hour. it was one of the most exciting things i've ever done.

naked on my bed with the lamp on, pressing into each other; desperate is a terrible word for it but it's not far off.

that is how it feels every time. how to classify something you want so much more of even when you're sure there isn't more to take, to enjoy?

tossing and turning, readjusting pillows behind my head (this is what happens), i felt a teary anxiety lurch up a few times. post-vacation blues, perhaps, but no, i know. i don't think you'd make me feel ashamed or strange for admitting it. i'm not sure what you'd say, if you'd say anything at all, but i know it would be the right thing, and i hope we don't have to talk about it at all.

the call

2011-12-16T12:06:00.001-05:00

"want to wander around with me?"

i love letting you drive things. the text or invitation always comes at the right moment; 20 minutes into a desperate after-work nap or during that awkward space on friday or saturday when i'm wondering if i'm going to stay in or start rustling up peripheral acquaintances ("boiler?" ... "ok").

i met you on bedford and we easily found a cab. time to shoot b-roll. of course you sat on the right side, and i photographed you as you captured long takes of the city as we cruised over the williamsburg bridge. maybe never have i enjoyed watching someone do something so simple, so obvious (it was almost a chore; there are holes in your film you need to fill). this is not a bad way for you to be remembered.

we slinked around meatpacking, out of our league, my short black jeans and your new black sweater with the big buttons. things happened; lit up for us: the girl diving for the cab, the young men holding hands (truly a lucky break). i watched it all over your shoulder, and it was good.

a bar to ourselves, wedged between bedford and the water; compared to where we've been, practically the heartland. old fashioneds (rye); white beans and tomatoes on toast; hard pretzels and beer mustard. the discussion revolved around formative sexual experiences in foreign countries. when the sidewalk board came in, we knew it was time to go.

brushing against your front gate, i try to choose. it's late, and this is much easier, i say. already i feel warmer, the mild middle of the day long gone; back to december. reality.

in my shirt and pants, under the covers, i witness your return and your change. emotion bubbles out and away from you, imprecise and mostly pure, like hot springs, and i wonder how and why you do such a masterful job of pretending like those things aren't surging just under your surface every single second you're awake.

i knew, when i realized it, it would be too late, and it is. i want everything that's unfit, ill-advised, invented, impossible. i may be able to count on two hands the number of times we have left together, but isn't that thriling, to know you're hurtling toward an end, a finale, opposed to just fading out or slowly shutting down?

when you break and remind me everything i like about you isn't just mine, well, that's when it gets interesting.

november '11

2011-11-07T22:26:00.000-05:00

life, life is a long time, too long to my mind, too long by far
between my waterfalls and your landslides there's cartography in every scar
life, life is a long time, too long to my mind, too long by far
because it starts pretty rough and ends up even worse
and what goes on in between i try to keep it out of my thoughts

unbelievable

2011-11-01T13:58:00.007-04:00

not writing it would deny the romance i've felt, the specialness, the queasy sensation of chance, the overwhelming conviction i am doing something very wrong.

it was the first time i truly did not believe what someone said. i did not appreciate what someone was telling me, the effort and dexterity involved in the kind and gentle bracing, the admission, the steely strong deflection of the automatic, careless joke i made.

"casually cruel."

i had never so quickly determined that someone must be making something up. fifteen seconds, maybe, and i accepted so little of what you wanted me to know. setting the scene again in my head and reimagining the words, after the fact, trying to understand it more, wishing i could have been better, bigger, more balletic when you actually spoke. obsessed, i can't stop myself from going back to that moment, tying my shoes, you above me, a foot or two away, maybe adjusting your shirt collar, and each time, you seem colder and smaller.

it is strange to wonder if you've already lost someone entirely, an important truth of theirs, even as newer and ever more interesting parts of them gather and coalesce like snow sticking to a pane of glass in front of you.

we both acknowledge the danger, primarily by not talking about the danger, real though it is. in kissing and drinking and poking each other's ribs under scattered sheets, there is an alarming familiarity to which we both give voice, as if it justifies the recklessness, or even matters at all.

in a north brooklyn bar on halloween, you mentioned a new awareness of your mortality and a couple moments later, something i said gave you goosebumps. steve jobs achieved death, his sister wrote, and the last words he spoke, as he gazed into the eyes of his children and his wife, were "oh wow. oh wow. oh wow." the fat, greasy bartender scolded me for peeking into that cavernous, forbidding room, and after one of the three songs you paid for played, we walked across the park to my apartment.

i want to ask you everything. i want you to tell me, half in words uttered low, half in vibrations felt through the flesh and bones of your face. if i can help it, i won't tell you how scared i am, how confusing and measurably exhausting a handful of meetings and conversations have proven to be, how i'm probably making all the same mistakes for the dozenth time since i moved to new york, how i'll realize it sooner than i ever think, like an inevitable hangover.

"a mystery. all of it."

i want to give back to you what i feel like i took at the beginning. in the silence i might laugh, but i want to know. stripped of everything but an anemic, invisible kindness, i'll wait for you to start.

she & him

2010-12-12T23:58:00.000-05:00

how the seasons change! four months ago, i lived in manhattan, and i had no idea what was next -- how strange!

maybe i'm having a hard time writing the next great indie script because i'm living it. blowing through an entire paycheck in 48 hours, a minor-key bender sweeping from the upper west side to the heart of north brooklyn, little corrections in the trajectory made by a perfect americano here, the better part of a bottle of cheap champagne there. now i sit and scratch and leave playlists on repeat, trying to relive, even though i know there's more.

i've never had an easier time kissing anyone. i've never been so unashamed to want to hold, and to be held. i let you lead me around, give me some of your merguez, show me the park on the east river -- it seems so much wider than i ever thought, standing on its low, sandy, surprisingly uncluttered bank.

i don't know if it's the first time i've felt inklings of this, but i see how some people induce in you the ability to see past their imperfections and others, take the whole thing in, brace yourself for what's coming no matter if it's glory or high water. some people distract you, cast a spell, pull you in with your elbows on the table, not caring, on a very rainy day in brooklyn.

shiva

2010-08-13T00:21:00.004-04:00

without the seasons, i wouldn't know what to think.

a couple dormant tracks play, and instantly i'm back up in westchester, sitting next to a drafty office window, blissfully unaware of the storm i'd face in 2010.

these songs i have on were not the first ones to make me feel like i'd be alright in the city, but they were the ones that opened me up to the textures and point of view i had always assumed i'd inherit upon my full new york conversion. i still imagine i might feel this way if i lived in a townhouse in the west village, and every day was november 1st, and i had a new shirt on, and dinner plans.

the bathroom in my ancient apartment still smells the same, equal parts clorox and must. nothing in this building has moved. buildings that have claims in two centuries have done all the moving they're going to do, i guess. it's refreshing. i can't keep track of who i meet on the weekends, but the stairs and bricks and pipes in this structure refuse to budge.

i look forward to rushing somewhere in the rain, emerging a few hours later to whipping breeze, coat pulled closed, the temperature soothing me but pushing me slowly indoors. but coffee first; the shopping. i think this feels nice. those change times are what i love, even though every day during the summer is progression too; wake up disoriented, shower, sweat, unwind, shower again, slip back into the temporary coma.

as determined to progress (and disorient) as weather is romance. did anyone i've met until this point happen? does it matter? three drinks or half a roast chicken is the same, no matter who with, so what's the trick that compels me to look forward to every new tease, every chance to leave work 2 or 3 minutes early to primp, or anticipate?

i suspect 25 to 40 is a plateau, expansive, unshapely, and unknown as the sahara. nothing really happens to us then. we might grab onto some things, advance a little forward or take a few steps back in the name of career or experience or love, but it's really just one big freebie to the tune of a decade and a half. wonder who makes it to the other side, who leapfrogs over, who stays behind, and if we'll even recognize each other when it's done.

handwriting

2010-05-02T23:39:00.000-04:00

i've allowed myself very little lately. the act of coming here, inputting a few thoughts, maybe coming back, tweaking--it felt good. but new york leaves little room for ideas, consideration--either you're doing, or you're nothing. i've all but surrendered, but there's still a tiny pulse that wants to indulge. i think i need to listen. it's been a strange loneliness and sensation of barely existing--instead of the howling, late, empty nights in southern california, the new york burden is the texture and proximity of everyone else's patterns, habits, preferences, joy, pushing down from above, pushing in from out, leaving very little room for me, for self.

that's how i feel, anyway.

i've been choked up, even more remote than usual--cause for alarm. i wonder how far i can go, how little i can convince myself i care about what i like, about whether or not something matters. little things keep intruding, though--if there is fate, it's inserted a stranger into my orbit, and already i'm convinced they know everything. in this case, no matter what happens, i had no choice, no way to sway the outcome. i'm tipping my hat to a faint pulse i usually ignore, allowing it to rev and spread like a pool of oil or blood. that's called going with it.

to the person who knows everything about me--keep sharing.

have one on me

2010-02-25T00:25:00.002-05:00

joanna newsom has taught me as much about art and feeling as anyone has, ever.

i don't belong to anyone, my heart is heavy as an oil drum
and i don't want to be alone, my heart is yellow as an ear of corn
and i have torn my soul apart from pulling artlessly with fool commands
some nights i just never go to sleep at all and i stand
shaking in the doorway like a sentinel, all alone
bracing like the bow upon a ship and fully abandoning
any thought of anywhere but home, my home

last one

2010-02-14T03:02:00.000-05:00

the scientist in me is fascinated. i've been way up and way down for days now, but lately deeper--it's been jarring to fall so far--than i've been prior. it's terribly oppressive territory, physical, specific. the inside of my head as i experience it has shifted from wispy gasses, clouds, watercolors to something more solid, rubbery, pink, a little warm, but unforgiving--more in line with the matter that's actually up there, occupying space. it's real, just the facts, current, it's biology, and the cells that are as of right now still dividing from head to toe are one of the few systems i'm aware of that are still properly functioning.

i've known as long as i've known anything this was coming, and i couldn't escape it, and that i couldn't count on anyone to just trust me on that. now that i'm here, there's certainty, and some safety. for once i've arrived where i'm supposed to be. at least that's how the signals are being processed at present. more healthy, reliable narrators and witnesses would presumably see things differently.

i wound up without the ability or skill to meaningfully attach or let others attach, without the will to compensate with other purposeful things, without the luxury--and i do imagine it would be luxurious--of being unable to see it all. i'd much rather be an evil, productive asshole than a deferential, harmless non-event. i've always been mystified by the interest and affection other people seem to exchange so easily, thrive on. i think everyone should know at my most optimistic, this is what i hoped for myself. this is the point of everything.

my daily currency is too much jealousy, too much defeat, too much hopelessness in the nastiest, vaguest, most wasteful, vulgar, pointless way. i'm ashamed, it's poisoned me, and the parts it's eaten away are irreplaceable at this point.

i think it's beautiful when people really pull themselves up, mold their opportunities, make something out of their lives. but what i've always envied and wanted much more are the effortless gifts, looks, circumstances of the luckiest. i come from nothing, i want nothing, so i take nothing, and i get nothing. i've stopped seeing the point. i'm sorry that in 25 years, with so many advantages and no real, significant roadblocks, i wasn't able to figure out how to join everyone at the party.

it shouldn't surprise anyone that i hope i'm never found.

these streets will make you feel brand new

2009-12-16T23:02:00.005-05:00

everyone's putting their take on the decade, and it seems warranted, appropriate. after a lot of mess and uncertainty i think more than a few people are surprised to look back and see something tidy, singular, memorable, specific. that was a decade, y'all. periods end, even the ones that seem like they might not, ever.

the same 10 years is home to kid a and m.i.a., katrina and 9/11, myspace, facebook, and the iphone, the obamas and the duggars. i lived it on the same plane as anyone else with a set of eyes and ears and a reliable internet connection, so i can't pretend i have some super-poignant analysis that cuts to the heart of the period. what strikes me though--as special, or at least worth considering--is that for me and other people my age, this is the first decade we've lived in full, the first one whose beginning--and end--we're conscious of, were present for. the last 10 years are all i know. i certainly don't have a memory or experience worth a damn pre-9/11... with a handful of exceptions (which i should flesh out later, if only for my own sake).

after the towers fell i started checking yahoo, the times, the tribune, and cnn daily, voraciously, for new signs the world was imploding further. the addiction to news, events, and information continues, and i wonder if it's changed my brain. if not, certainly drugs and alcohol have.

at the end of 2009, enjoying the comfort and expanse of my 20s, i'm a much scrappier, much stranger, much sloppier, much more cynical person that i could have reasonably predicted i'd become, even by the end of college. but i'm also more grounded, sturdier and malleable. i'm aware of a growing sense that there are no real consequences in life; it's all a matter of attitude, framing, outrunning, interpretation. i also know there's no substitute for hard work. everyone has talent, everyone can perform a job or a role capably or admirably, but discipline is harder to wrangle. i never thought i'd have to figure out which side of this equation i'm meant to be on.

i want to consciously reflect in part because i have higher hopes for everyone--myself included--coming into this new age, who knows what will shape it. even if the pace of things keeps up, our computers keep getting faster and shinier, our presidents continue to deploy our troops and ignore our most basic needs, and general comfort and optimism remains in short supply... artificial transitions are helpful. we get kicked out of our parents' house, out of college, out of cities we've just begun to understand (in my case, anyway)... if the course stays the same, at least we can treat ourselves to a shift of perception, and maybe a meaningful detour along the way.

at the end of the 00s, i wound up in new york. my experience so far has been enjoyable enough, a little bland, though, no real struggle, somewhat unspecific. in the last few weeks my friends and i have, surprisingly, embraced a pop anthem by jay-z and alicia keys called "empire state of mind." in a year of truly great music (more on this later), i'm happy to award an honorary crown to this tune. in a lot of ways, the song brings to mind exactly the way we ushered in the new decade--all the bombast, the cocksure swagger, the smug sentimentality. but all those things are exactly why i moved here, why i want to stay here, and why i think it's a perfect way to cap off--and move beyond--a period that has no parallel.

now you're in new york. there's nothing you can't do.

bottled up

2009-12-05T01:19:00.000-05:00

tonight: i'm a little sad, a little lost, a little wondering how come.

there have been some nice, close things in new york. nothing i've lived with; only brushed against, enjoyed for a few moments, watched walk away.

very bright streets, old rooms, someone else's dust and things. i live here, and well, but nothing sticks to me.

a lesson

2009-09-21T22:01:00.000-04:00

i think the thing our parents, or elders, are most afraid to tell us - so they never do - is how quickly time slips and moves, impressing you again and again because overnight, time tunes its speed and efficiency, perpetually besting itself, leapfrogging outrageously, unapologetically, never satisfied, piles of medals stacking up over months and years.

the older i get, time really fucking flies.

how have i had four months here, or a year? how have i survived a month without a paycheck? (i've done this more than once.) why does no one question what i'll be doing in december, or next june, or 7 years from now? (never mind i'm not doing the questioning either.)

the older i get, it starts to feel less important.

if the lesson is, a year's not as long as you think, then the extra credit corresponds roughly to accepting five or ten minutes for just what it is. it's an uncomfortable reimagining, of how things are supposed to work, to be laid out. the major markers in the distance grow obscure, blurry, drop away all together. i spend more time tracking the dust under my shoes, the texture in front of me.

at 73 or 89 do we run the risk of intending only a quick nap in the sun in our rattan chair, but the next thing we know we blink, and straighten our back, and we've lost half a season? is that how it starts to be, a slow doze, deleterious? i'd like to think we learn to hear the pages flapping. a little kineograph in your ear, like a hummingbird, wings beating faster and faster.

everyone digs in at a different place. but i think we all do dig in.

anything to narrow the scope, squeeze the brakes a bit. anything to pretend.

new york

2009-08-22T20:24:00.000-04:00

i didn't realize how much i needed it until i went away.

it hasn't stopped being strange, though. before every flight back i've cried, terrified at having to make the running leap back onto the treadmill. the suffocation has become familiar; in the deepest parts of night the traffic still whooshes, the horns blare, the crowds shuffle and the sounds they make have nowhere else to go but up, bouncing off the brick faces of buildings and reaching an unlikely crescendo before sunrise.

days of dark and moments of light seem to exist at the same time -- the hours clack by with unreal speed, multiple spinning dials on the face of a complicated watch. i usually can't account for a an evening, a day, a weekend. all i have are the sounds and smells and scars of being here, layers that, in a cottage or on a dock or a slow-moving ship somewhere, i'll peel off sometime, recounting, wondering how and why it happened at all, mourning the time i've forfeited, but unable to imagine an alternative.

the city plan

2009-07-07T00:29:00.000-04:00

so it blows down and twists things around a little, a cool, calm blast into the middle of summer's slow, churning furnace. it could be peace, but it's mostly imagination. these moments require creating; they might not exist at all. avoid that question, and avoid the stress that comes with considering it. adult skills 101.

they say los angeles is all glitz and artifice -- new york is manufactured, too. everything here has been leveled, built, sculpted, tamed, condensed, bred, polished, perfected. the obsession that it could all slip away at any moment, that each day done drives home this capital's warrant, our right to exist here -- it's not the mark of a comfortable, native new yorker, but perhaps one who truly belongs.

everything is a fiction, requires some work to keep up. i found some beachlike calm on the grass in the park the other day, until braying american princesses drove me away. i must try harder.

i sense panic creeping up sometimes but it always goes away. it doesn't ask much of me, but it still bubbles up, ticking my toes. there's always a hook i can wrap around; a reason to dive back in. i always wind up needing less.

two threads

2009-06-03T22:40:00.000-04:00

some mornings i wake up, or walk home, and i can't believe who i am.

then there's the part that's as good at running as ever.

blindsided

2009-04-05T20:24:00.000-04:00

if you had somehow known five years ago, and told me: in april, 2009, you live in new york, and you wake up in the sun with the breeze in manhattan, and you smile at someone who kisses and dresses and goes, and you spend the day on cobblestone streets with a backpack and a friend and an idea, and in the evening you sweat and drink on the first day of spring, alone but happy, making thick soup and snacking on crackers -- would you have been able to convince me i'd be so happy?

i would have laughed, and my insides would have folded in on themselves, because imagining how this feels is suspiciously close to how this actually feels, and your body prepares you for feeling this way long before you're ready, or aware.

the way you put the pillow behind me, half asleep. all the apartments that ring tompkins square park, colonial red and blue and green, all right angles, holding their breath. the luck i feel, the peace. for a few electric minutes, i'm full.

starry night

2009-03-14T23:23:00.000-04:00

the city reveals itself in time, spinning shades of grey that stack like plates, overlapping, basic hues hinting at blues and greens and pinks to coincide with spring.

strung along its 20 odd miles, so many ways to be and ways to live. what i've experienced so far: the dust from the comet, the debris from the launch of the rocket. on the next revolution of the perpetual satellite, the chance to grasp on, pick up some speed, feel the freedom of trajectory, the faith in flight, the sting and grit of reentry. sending signals out, little mental lines and lassoes, blocking the slush that comes inward because i must connect myself to other things, make progress.

arrangement

2009-03-08T17:53:00.000-04:00

i woke up, searching for a missing hour and, impossibly, birds were chirping in the middle of new york. i thought about how unnecessary a curtain or blinds are since the sun only shines down just so a few times a month. you sat up, found your brown shirt on the dresser, and i spent the rest of the day pressed against pillows.

if i knew how to do things, i would explain how you make me so sad, and so happy.

a little wind

2009-02-13T16:08:00.000-05:00

the big disappointment in the big apple has been friendship; sneaky, slippery, flakey friendship.
people are over it in la, but we were over it together.
here, everyone is over you for weeks. and time together is spent in wisps, like vapor on the avenues. it's gone, and you go, and exist in your few square feet.

but the best part has been getting to know the okay parts of myself. and those parts fill the small space required; proud, taut like a helium foil balloon.

so, i puff myself up, little sips, and i hold it longer and deeper.

green grass

2009-02-08T21:42:00.000-05:00

even though it feels like spring on the tall, skinny island, and i walk past american castles every day, and i like someone (in that way), and i have a kitchen, and a job, and a body that works, and so many good songs,

this night would be nicer in los angeles.

page turner

2008-12-11T18:16:00.000-05:00

i don't have anything to put here anymore.

possibly, i blame:

-the crook of a stranger's arm on the S train, which is very often where i find my head during rush hour
-the crowded L train to brooklyn
-the crowded N (or R, or W) train home
-the crowded trader joe's on 14th street
-my crowded apartment (that's really not that crowded)
-the robotic bulk of the new york times building that blocks the sun through my front window
-our superintendent, diego
-the underage drunk girls at the bar on the corner
-a studio on west 100th street

nothing that happens from now on belongs to me.

everything that's here, i thank los angeles. but since i'm not there anymore, it makes sense to try something new.

i still have energy. i still have things i'd like to say. i'm just saying them in other places.

stay tuned.

below 14th street

2008-10-12T22:36:00.000-04:00

you think you were in the maze, but all along, the maze was in you.

the old country

2008-10-06T15:16:00.000-04:00

standing on some lower east side corner, one more layer of clothing than yesterday, fumbling with the electronic, designed-by-apple-in-california equivalent of a ratty map, half a hot pastrami on rye with swiss, mustard & russian wrapped in paper, safe in my backpack; above, granite clouds tickling the tops of tenements, sweeping us across the grid toward the bridges like ants on a cinderblock.

what you wish for

2008-10-01T15:01:00.000-04:00

already it's difficult, and more than half the time i do not know where i am going.

unemployed mornings are the same in any city; the airless, anxious hours trolling craigslist, making cold calls, changing the font on my resume.

the refrain through all of this, so far: i have been here before.

i am aware of the dangers. my first night out, after more than a handful of beers i ended up on my slick roof (and in my bed) with a stranger from the ivy league.

my second night out, i sampled more chemical excess, got on the wrong train at 3am, and -- lower than low -- needed the entire next day to recover.

you discover your beasts and burdens here, and you discover your friends.

brand new colony

2008-09-22T13:13:00.000-04:00

5 floors above west 47th street. i made it.

now i just have to keep holding on.

the eraser

2008-09-01T20:34:00.000-04:00

good choices cure anxiety.

tingle

2008-08-29T03:01:00.000-04:00

waking up has never been easier.

what days ahead. what luck to have these friends, these connections, these chances.

everything gets better.

i don't know how to describe happiness like this.

leaves

2008-08-22T01:17:00.000-04:00

the first minute of "weird fishes/arpeggi" -- which i get to see live on monday -- never fails to place me into an imaginary los angeles autumn, the air imperceptibly cooler, tickling, moving in ways it doesn't for the other seventy-five percent of the year at this latitude.

i remember this sensation, less than a year ago, driving with the windows still down, wishing it were chillier, letting that track, and the ones before and after, frame my reality for countless, anonymous weeks.

now, with the promise of a real season of decay and transition imminent, i wonder how it will feel there in the east, facing the gradations -- solar, barometric, sartorial -- head-on, whole self exposed, stakes higher; time, emotion and reality somehow more precious; rawer.

twenty-four

2008-08-20T03:03:00.000-04:00

a few things about me:

i have a soul mate. i fell in love with her when we were college freshmen and she performed "the yellow wallpaper" in our analysis and performance of literature class. she brought me a birthday card and chocolate tonight. our waitress threw both of them away. i'm upset my friends didn't grab them first.

i don't really like coldplay, but my mom sent me their new album. the first time i heard "strawberry swing" i curled up in a ball in my bed and sobbed for half an hour.

i have a once in a lifetime job, and i'm ecstatically counting down the days until it's over.

i'm poor. i'm lonely. i'm pessimistic. i'm going to be a new yorker.

lightning bolt

2008-08-14T01:28:00.000-04:00

"i'm reading a book and drinking beer in my underwear."

i hadn't even finished typing those words to someone -- an acquaintance with whom i've barely spoken since college -- when i realized i'm living exactly as i should and i'll recall these moments with not a small amount of wonder, and fondness, and longing, so much sooner than i can comfortably acknowledge.

clear and true

2008-08-05T02:31:00.001-04:00

disappointment.

different than sadness, where you're not quite sure, and maybe you want to stay in bed a while or you don't want to be alone, or you want to keep busy, distracted.

this is a strange, very specific sensation, a pearl of pressure in my chest enveloped by dozens of layers, gaseous, cloudlike -- all the reasons why not.

the scenes in my head brief, vivid, but incomplete exposures of imagined lost opportunities, moments, locations, love. flip-book pages torn from the past, or the future, or maybe the perverted sidelines of my imagination.

sadness is current, imprecise; it feeds and fades away. disappointment is the vacuum that's left when you're aware of everything.

i am disappointed, and i am feeling this for the first time.

excerpt

2008-08-04T02:55:00.000-04:00

Regardless of what he felt, it was not worth the danger, the shame, the risk of arrest and opprobrium. He felt, that morning, with his ribs bruised and a wan flavor of chlorine at the back of his mouth, that he would rather not love at all than be punished for loving. He had no idea of how long his life would one day seem to have gone on; how daily present the absence of love would come to feel.

--mc

une année sans lumiere

2008-07-20T19:43:00.000-04:00

the last sixty seconds of the third track from the arcade fire's "funeral" is how i feel eighty-five percent of the time.

if someone ever needs to know, i know how to show them. concise and efficient.

USA, USA

2008-07-17T00:38:00.000-04:00

to elaborate on later:

independence day with generous metal-chic hipsters in a working-class latino neighborhood, hemmed in by barking dogs and chain-link

the absorbing teenage fashion show the students put on near highland & sunset, in spite of the traffic and really, everything else going on right now

waiting on line 4 hours for a new iphone

advertisements for a blood-flavored energy drink, which turn out to be advertisements for... a television show

[america is a broad, rickety ferris wheel whose spokes and slats are painted day-glo green and orange.]

second row

2008-06-30T14:21:00.000-04:00

late june weekends where i take my time, enjoy fresh meals alone, cold beers at dusk, heels resting on the hardwood, the last twenty minutes of light lingering in the room like radioactive powder.

midmorning, we hiked up the jagged sides of the bowl whose edges host the hollywood sign, numbered metal silos, scattered hitching posts, the griffith observatory. through the hanging fog and the still air, an intimate and familiar 98.6 degrees -- so that outside felt like in -- we gazed across valleys that overlapped like the zigzagging waves of a cutout cartoon ocean. standing, winded, at the top of los angeles with a few dozen strangers -- asian tourists, tan and knobby equestrians -- i couldn't help giving into a casual, temporary communion -- part satisfaction we'd all made it this far, and the rest a suspicion we were trespassing or transgressing, breaking some tenet of humility and altitude; humans out of line, above the gloom, luxuriating in the weird, remote vastness.

finishing an incredible book on a public patio, shaded by old stucco arches painted an unamerican red, ignoring the broiled collar of skin around my neck. the epilogue is right on; breathless, i race to the end and swallow. on the other side of the crease, the paperback jacket is right there -- not even a single blank page to contemplate, to distract, to cushion from the last word. no choice but to thumb it shut and hurry home.

a saturday night and sunday afternoon where everyone i know and love is exactly as close and far as i know and need them to be. dozens of hours where i don't shower and don't change, fascinated by the shapes and textures my hair and clothes take on as i amble toward monday.

the robot movie from the second row, a warm, sonic purr in my heart, lips, limbs; the shapes and colors warped, radiant, pure. a little freaked out by the greasy, sticky spill on the floor under my seat.

harpsichords and metallic yelps in the car back home, my torso twisting in the backseat, hands out the window, rotating on my wrists -- "the music tells my body what to do!"

after midnight on an empty street in the chilly, neon valley, going far too fast, just a passenger, wishing there was a sunroof to absurdly stick myself out of.

intimacy

2008-06-25T01:08:00.000-04:00

no one ever really writes about it the way it goes.

"tasteful" eroticism on the page is always rendered in wispy, imprecise indirects. fingertips against a tummy, arched and taut as a circus tent, the effortless invasion of secret physiological pockets. it always seems so slight, so unintentional, so subcutaneous in comparison to the rest of the relationship, no matter how true or epic. at the dinner table, great, frank truths are spoken -- but sex just happens, gently, like a full moon or a blooming rose.

try, instead, a twenty-minute conversation about how you're going to get that -- THAT -- in there.

it's a lot of work.

deep into monday night, arms and legs intertwined in an impossible sequence, a full, fraught, heavy moment -- "it was one of the best moments of my life, a moment during which I lived my life and didn't think about my life at all."

i only know you up close; warm, brown, eager -- either so near you're half of me, or so far away and otherwise engaged i wonder if i dreamed you.

rock star

2008-06-20T00:19:00.000-04:00

jschwartz (1:57PM): when you leave for NYC
jschwartz (1:57PM): there will be fireworks above the water tower
jschwartz (1:57PM): in mourning

impressions

2008-06-17T01:37:00.000-04:00

a weekend wedding in chicago dovetailed beautifully with a rattling emotional nadir; after a few hours in the low, humid midwest, everything was all blurry lines and smeared intentions.

i love and loathe weekend trips as strongly as you can possibly love and loathe something simultaneously. in few other occasions are there so many closely clustered opportunities to revel in the moment and enjoy the break from monotony even as you're inquisitioning yourself for forgetting the toothbrush or the tasteful, congratulatory card. the whole time -- in the plane, in the cab, in the unfamiliar bed -- you're a pendulum, back and forth, happy to be there, happy it's over soon.

on the phone in the car on the kennedy, i told my mom i wasn't going to stop crying because i don't cry enough. she said there was nothing i could do; lots of people miss the ceremony. i tried to convince her how my tardiness proved the fact that i'm off in life; i can't make things happen anymore, my inability to simply be in a set place at a set time being the least troubling symptom of the disease retarding my maturity. she blamed traffic.

on the return, california was cool, orderly, pleasant. my apartment is large, accommodating, clean. i have a life here, one that's insisted and poked through the cracks despite my detached, lazy, unmotivated smothering.

from a state away, 38 seconds of attention paid over the phone. a welcome distraction set for sometime this week.

at any moment in any place, what a privilege to contemplate what you are and what you aren't and how much further you get to go.

agenda

2008-05-19T03:43:00.000-04:00

or, things i'd like to do before i leave los angeles:

- visit the ocean at sunrise, alone
- cook all day using only things from the farmer's market
- cross the border into mexico
- visit the zoo
- hike up to the observatory
- go to a really obnoxious club
- buy some junk in venice
- have some high-end sushi
- have a party in my apartment
- go to the hollywood bowl
- go to the opera
- go to the disney concert hall
- stay awake for more than 24 hours (altered states optional)
- see a dodgers game
- drink on a rooftop bar
- ride a bike, anywhere
- take the subway, anywhere
- camp in the desert/forest
- have a fancy picnic
- have coffee at lamill
- ride a horse
- purchase a "luxury item" (open to interpretation)
- visit a spa/get a massage

to be continued...

thanks

2008-05-19T03:17:00.000-04:00

when i was little i used to watch a lot of cartoons, and in one "tom & jerry" miss mammy two-shoes gives tom a "token of gratitude" in the form of a pie and for a long time after seeing that, i thought gratitude was some kind of dessert black people made.

i would like to extend some warm, gooey gratitude to some of the people that really popped for me today, because i don't think i usually pay enough attention to all the interesting things going on around me.

the kindly checkout lady at trader joe's this morning with the pearl-white teeth and her silver hair in a ponytail, who might seem more at home in rural vermont or maine, reminding me my carton of eggs was stacked sideways against the small bottles of juice in my bag.

the aging hipster (my two worst fears incarnate) at the table next to us in the thai restaurant, bragging about the book and the record and the film he'd made to a younger woman who was clearly trying to figure out why exactly she was eating with him in the first place.

the guy in the bookstore on vermont, in clothes that fit him better than should be possible, that i kept track of through the gaps in the shelves.

cracker, my roommate's cat, clean and soft as ever, wrapped around a chair and swatting at me from the other side.

in different ways, they all reminded me that empirically, i'm just as much myself when i'm not trying.

too big to touch

2008-05-15T02:03:00.000-04:00

friday, saturday and sunday in new york. one long, fast take, the wind and rain and grit against my face, under my shoes, seeping up the cuffs of my pants and into my socks.

a cab through the queens-midtown tunnel to east 33rd st. an old building with arched doors, keys under the mat, a quick nap. another set of keys for later then coffee then a friend's massive pied-a-terre in soho. back to murray hill to meet my host and prepare for the evening. shots of vodka and a cranberry wine chaser; in certain company, some things never change.

a short walk under big gray skies until we find a cab. a wine bar in greenwich village with a college roommate. i take a glass of the happy hour special; she tastes more than a few before she finds a good one because she can. the boys finish their pork sausage and we pay and we head to brooklyn.

in an eerily cozy tavern with an impressive menu, i have the pizza with feta and capers and the two-for-one drink special. in front of his colleagues, my friend reads from his masters thesis, some prose about breakups and blowjobs. later i end up on the street, in a booth in another bar, in a bodega chugging a gritty "energy shot," in another booth in yet another bar, against the wall outside the bathroom kissing someone who liked my voice and that i was from california.

manhattan-bound, we find the friend with the soho apartment and we follow her to a downtown birthday party at pete wentz's bar for someone i went to college with. five minutes of this, and i have to peace.

at this point i remember paying a $10 cover to watch some naked dancers on top of a counter.

saturday afternoon, challah french toast in chelsea. i found my way to 49th & 9th and let myself in to use the bathroom. he comes home, an old dear. we finish a bottle of champagne on the roof, and he points out landmarks: empire state building. jersey.

rejoin the teacher at his place, then a return to brooklyn. the writer shows me his place under the el, we have dinner, and my fatigue catches up with me. my only option is to down a triple espresso with sugar and find my own way back to the island...

somehow the journey requires six trains. meet the once and future roommate, down from new haven for the night. we walk 22nd st. and have a cupcake and a cookie from a glittery bakery where everyone dances behind the counter. in the meatpacking district we bandy about three bedrooms or four and then, like always, she's gone.

i walk all the way to the east village. i find two fellow alums -- "oh my god," i hear them say before i even see them. it's so late and i'm tired but everything around me is broadcasting its atomic energy, sounds and cars and people buzzing and sliding past like ore and silt in a sluice.

in the bars on 2nd ave., i dance. after meeting the dear one's friends, long after the inevitability of my relocation has settled in, we split a cap uptown.

another night's sleep that felt like a blink; the next afternoon, another meal downtown. it's mother's day and the couplings of moms and sons and daughters on the 6 and in the restaurant calm and charm me in some slight way. i try a bloody mary for the first time (blech) and devour a plate of biscuits and sausage and poached eggs.

armed against the chill with a black jacket and a coffee, i wander through the markets and the sea of students moving out of their dorms and nod at george on the horse in union square. one last trip to hell's kitchen. a long walk up central park west, the colorful people giving way to pale middle-aged caucasians shepherding children in skates and strollers. i call my mom.

at the end of a long sunday, it's time to leave.

i lug my bag down 33rd and duck underground. the trip to jfk is short, but the entire time i can't shake the feeling i've left something behind. from the glass and steel concourses within the airport, i stare across queens, over the plump, green tops of trees and the drab frame houses and see how the parts of me fit into new york -- as i descend toward the sharp, geometric tops of buildings, my extremities slip through the cracks between boroughs and dig into the strata deep beneath the earth, my torso intertwining with manhattan's length like a full-body pillow.

the view from the plane on the runway is diluted, disappointing. a handful of midtown's skyscrapers poke through the ashy orange haze and by the time we're airborne, all i can make out in the dark is the incomplete, electric outline of brooklyn and staten island, and some blurry blinking in between. the plane climbs and i burrow under my blanket, watching layers of dense, particulate fog zip past the window with a tumbling, smeared silkiness that betrays our unfathomable speed.

taking the pulse

2008-05-07T01:49:00.001-04:00

from time to time i like to get in touch with (or at least acknowledge) the little people, the assorted thoughts and events that make up any given day. so, This Is What Happened:

today was crisp and cold. a perfect fall day, in chicago or boston. i drove around with my windows open a few inches even though i really wanted a sweater. the easterners in our office noticed it and we were all oddly upbeat. says a lot about los angeles. like, where are we?

i ran into someone at trader joe's who happens to work on a beloved and very funny nbc show. we both figured out we were shopping for our offices and even though i was sort of charmed, i still neglected to a) introduce myself nor b) project any sort of delight or interest. next time, i guess, next to the bananas.

i received a small "job well done" for an even smaller task i completed, but it made my day. verbal (or blackberried) praise doesn't come my way often.

this is a night for flannel pajama pants.

all of that, combined with the influx of greens and legumes into my diet and the absence of alcohol in my bloodstream, has me feeling pretty good. and it's only tuesday.

transliteration

2008-05-03T20:14:00.000-04:00

eastward. my life in reverse motion. the things i bought sold off, given away, thrown out -- possessions reduced to a car trunk's worth or less.

the last two years folding down and overlapping like pages closing in a pop-up book.

the span, scope and undulation of the region, finally clear in my head. in santa ynez with my parents this week, i found a little closure, adjourning my life here with pinots and ports and meals in the sun. leaving with affection is the best i ever hoped for.

pared down to my essence and a shirt or two, i cross the rockies and the plains. off the edge of new jersey, the leap of faith: i free-fall through westchester and ricochet between rivers, tumbling like a pinball with a suitcase into the narrow maze below 14th street.

reopen the book. everything shoots up and comes in, a city in a corset. the canyons: deep, not wide; glass, brick, concrete. no sand, no stone, no palms. seasons that urge you to hurry up and do something, and people that do the same: shoulder to shoulder on trains, at intersections, in line to buy milk. my square footage and personal space compressed into a mist and sent up to evaporate in the air. in a new land, there i am, with only a backpack and a good pair of shoes to save me.

los angeles is spanish. new york is portuguese.

in a hovel on an island at the center of the universe, i figure it out.

manhattan

2008-04-29T03:39:00.000-04:00

my heart leaps
and everything goes with it.

rapture

2008-04-21T01:26:00.000-04:00

the full moon outside my window, beyond the fronds, white, one-dimensional, a stenciled sphere.

when i was little i used to watch it rise and travel across the sky through the huge panes next to my bed, sending my wishes past the old, thick paint and lumpy glazing and into the craters.

for a second, through the glass, that's all there is.

fun is...

2008-04-20T04:51:00.000-04:00

...riding a segway up and down holly(weird) blvd. for two hours on a saturday night.

my favorite comments:

"damn, what the fuck?"
"are you from the future?"
"nice segway."

none of the bouncers we talked to would accept our offers to ride but curt, a drunk man with platinum chains and a kangol hat, took to the scooter quite naturally.

i saw at least three squad cars full of oblivious cops, one of whom saw me, looked at his partner and just shrugged.

disassociation

2008-04-17T01:00:00.000-04:00

the part of me that speaks in song, that dreams in colors without names, that feels to the core of things, that gets it right, that has great hope, that knows, that loves with urgency--

sealed off, so tight.

(a pulse, rumble, muffled yip. it's there.)

door, cracked

2008-04-14T01:59:00.000-04:00

in spite of the viscous heat, the weekend had room to breathe.

eight hours of isolation and disinfecting gave way to tapas with an old friend in my own neighborhood. plans were made for trips together in three time zones, their pace frenetic over the next two months -- i will be everywhere but here. saturday night in my apartment, alone, i enjoyed some butter pecan and the smell of pine-sol and air conditioning.

sun had me up the next morning, dressed in last night's clothes, standing in line for a cup of coffee from el salvador. after some oatmeal, cranked up and inspired to do everything, i settled for a six feet under marathon and two trips to the market. my friend dropped by early with baby broccoli, brown rice and a warm bottle of viognier. i made a budino with meringue topping; my roommate couldn't finish a whole one.

with very few comforts, i grab onto these days until i can't feel my fingertips. the rosy, grinning me you see on the couch next to you knows that tomorrow, most likely, it all goes. it never happened.

i never liked games much when i was young, nor do i now, but what stands out for me is playing a pinball machine and feeling so frustrated because your hands press buttons that control paddles that slap the ball, and that's as close as you can get. you can't just get through the glass and hit the ball yourself. i see the point but i don't. the ball gets stuck, jammed, goes down a hole, and you have paddles.

in one of the episodes i watched, ruth fisher says fuck fuck fuck at a seminar and everyone congratulates her because she finally gets it.

here today...

baseline

2008-03-28T00:11:00.000-04:00

zooming east on forest lawn after work, a sunset so orange and generous it gave me a pain.

the oaks and pines in griffith park, the car slapping through pockets of cool air under the trees like a sailboat's hull against the swell.

my hand on the wheel, the tires on the road, pebbles tickling the machinery beneath.

the turn onto los feliz, bumper to bumper, the slow roll past church steeples, over hills, to where i live.

spicy dumplings with frozen broccoli in a pink bowl with pink chopsticks, a gift from japan, two years old, used for the first time.

my beating heart, its size and location certain between my lungs.

tonight, 4 miles northwest of downtown los angeles, a lawn sprinkler i can't see clicks and oscillates.

our little place

2008-03-23T20:47:00.000-04:00

remove the teabag from its wrapper. chai, a scent linked to late nights, college apartments, temporary dread over papers. today, it's a last resort to heal the sick, paired with a few macaroons, taken at my desk in my room in front of the window that looks out into the green, tropical tangle that obscures a house and separates buildings.

the view is magnificent. even my roommate said so the other day, jealously noting it for the first time. his window provides him with a view of the hollywood hills and a few freak-tall palm trees across the hazy distance, but mostly all he gets is the unpainted cinder blocks of the courtyard-cum-garage and the creaky orange gate (and, occasionally, a muffled taste of whatever our married neighbors are arguing about).

below my window the man in the house with the porsche and the motorcycle constantly comes and goes. he has to open his gate (wooden, manual) first, take the tarp off his car (the one that protects against falling bramble and, i guess, bird shit) and then drive through our garage just to get to the street. i appreciate the privacy. i like to pretend sometimes i live in a little hut in a rainforest. from the back windows all you see is green and yellow and red and orange, waving vines and blossoms.

at night the view is completely dark except for the lit-up windows of the nicer, tres californie apartments at the top of the hill behind us, which you can't even see unless you walk right up to the glass and tilt your head upward. on the weekends the hipsters who live there have parties on their patios and in their sloped backyards and listen to kevin barnes remixes and talk and laugh in measured, pretty voices. i drove up there one weekend to check it out and there were a few of them in front of the house which butts right up to the street and as i was staring them down and trying to turn around, i backed my car into a wooden fence. barely a scrape, but still, no one flagged me down and invited me in.

i miss tall buildings and dense grids and ducking underground to negotiate color-coded transit. nostalgia fueled by a life i'm not sure ever existed.

but the view, man. i could do with letting more outside in. magnificent.

manifest from a past life

2008-03-08T15:04:00.000-05:00

often i'm surprised by what i forget. memories, moments, facts hurled back to me, one, two, three at a time. "i did that." "that happened." usually that's all it takes, and i move on. reminders breaking the surface like bubbles, gone just like that. i'm grateful.

mom's station wagon, hot as an oven. candy on the passenger seat after school. my parents' social life. their parties, their dinners. they're different now.

the old house, huge. temperature: the basement, always damp and cool, a concrete tomb, the furnace like home alone, the pipes in the wall my brother hit that split his scalp open. outside, extremes: winters, snow on the street and between houses so bright it lit up the bedrooms and kept us awake. snowball fights, igloos made with bricks made with blue recycling containers, fences between every yard, the best exercise of your life. snowpants. infinite summers, too hot to ride bikes, so nintendo on the rug with lemonade.

the front yard, the back yard, the garden, strawberries behind the garage. the painted gray stairs to the driveway that weren't safe but we played school underneath them, the deck behind the house, the shade underneath, the wet mulch, the ferns that tickled my face. the old gate in the neighbors' fence, strangled by blackberry vines, that no one had a key for. power lines overhead, all the birds. the clubhouse my dad built me, two stories tall, made from two-by-fours and plywood, windows downstairs, a flight of stairs, a safety railing because my mom said so. the men who dug the hole for the pool, the pool, the same men who filled it in.

day(s) of rest

2008-03-01T01:28:00.000-05:00

coffee from a press pot, cotton shorts, acknowledging the sun, cooking a meal and a little wine is what the weekend means to me.

plot twist

2008-02-28T13:51:00.001-05:00

"i have such doubts."

24, 48, 72

2008-02-23T02:12:00.000-05:00

the fog vanished this week. glimpses of happiness. i've felt my heart pounding under layers of fat and protein. i've felt stable, optimistic and alive. my brain's still easing into how this works. i'm afraid to point fingers or name names because i don't want to break it.

maturity

2008-02-20T02:42:00.000-05:00

i want to bottle up the feeling that blooms in your skull and spreads to your knees when you realize what fun and magic and beauty is possible and what it might feel like in five or ten years when all of that is even more possible, even more within your grasp, and perhaps you've experienced a lot of it and i want to sell it in a fancy store but maybe at wal-mart too because everyone deserves some.

outlook

2008-02-15T23:02:00.000-05:00

my
brain
is
smashed

between two plates
that are getting closer and closer together

i'd sooner take cancer, some blood disease, a missing limb or two if it meant some access to peace or contentment. this is the worst.

doubting myself into inaction; invisibility. it takes entire weekends from me.

i am always wondering when i'll wake up.

sun dial

2008-02-10T23:41:00.000-05:00

saturday and sunday: weather to slow you down, make you feel immortal. i read under an umbrella on a patio and watched toddlers inside the bookstore press buttons on electronic toys and wondered what i'll look like when i'm the one telling them to stop. how it'll feel to pick them up and throw them over my shoulder because it's time to go.

in between chapters i took bites of a ginger molasses cookie and considered the funerals of people i know. i thought of how difficult it was for my mother to read a benign, forgettable poem at my cousin's wedding last summer and decided i'll have to do better if i'm ever in that sort of position. my eyes got hot, though, when i imagined great-great-great-great-great peasant grandparents in boots and babushkas and relatives of all ages, perhaps contemporaneous, slipping on wet tiles or nodding asleep behind the wheel on the kennedy or the eisenhower. these things happen.

real estate

2008-02-07T01:00:00.000-05:00

i've lived in a lot of places over the last 5 years. beginning with my first college dorm, a breakdown:

september 2002-june 2004
allison hall, evanston, il
(floors 4 and 2 respectively, with breaks in chicago's west suburbs for summer)

roommates: josh, then adam.
perks: no air conditioning. 20 people, 1 bathroom. cable tv the second year, kinda.
music: pre-"transatlanticism" death cab. rainer maria. christina aguilera. (02-03)
"transatlanticism." howie day. the postal service. (03-04)
food: anything from (now defunct) osco. giordano's (jew) pizza. soft drinks.
triumphs: jello shots. straight As.

june 2004-august 2004
apt. A1 (the sauce)
ridge & davis, evanston, il

roommates: isabel, carolyn, ruth, alix, aaron (all graduates)
perks: own room. free furniture. ravinia. vodka. working 20 hrs/wk.
music: "wicked." taking back sunday.
food: mac & cheese. anything from panera.
triumphs: sex. the greyhound from new york to boston.

september 2004-july 2005
apt. 3A (swp)
chicago & lake, evanston, il

roommates: adam, rachael
perks: hardwood. tivo. dishwasher.
music: "the last five years." kelly clarkson. m.i.a. bright eyes.
food: cheese & crackers. salmon. pasta.
triumphs: dating. singing. acting. writing. paris.

july 2005-june 2006
apt. 603 (the house of mirth)
chicago & clark, evanston, il

roommates: adrienne, kira
perks: gym. pool. location x3.
music: pussycat dolls. the wrens. jack's mannequin. of montreal. "illinoise."
food: chicken. turkey burgers. whole foods salad bar.
triumphs: bars. directing. prague.

july 2006-august 2006
park labrea
3rd & fairfax, los angeles, ca

roommates: david, the talmud, a shofar
perks: private. bathroom. (coffee bean?)
music: cassie. ciara. beyonce
food: south beach diet.
triumphs: learning to drive.

august 2006-september 2006
some apartment
hollywood & kingsley, los angeles, ca

roommate: morgan.
triumphs: up before dawn. every. day.

september 2006-september 2007
apt. 130
sherman oaks, ca

roommate: erika
perks: kitchen. granite. parking.
music: joanna newsom. grizzly bear. lcd soundsystem. "spring awakening."
food: everything.
triumphs: staying in LA.

september 2007-right now
apt. 3
sunset & lucile, los angeles, ca

roommate: adrian, replaced by james & cracker
perks: silver lake. nature. pot.
music: radiohead.
food: anything frozen. coffee.
triumphs: unemployment.

super

2008-02-05T21:26:00.000-05:00

sometimes i have faith it all works the way it should.

and sometimes i don't:

In Virginia, voters were so eager they turned up at polling places across the state and deluged the Board of Elections with phone calls — and the Virginia primary isn't for another week.

In Florida, election officials across the state fielded hundreds of phone calls from confused voters asking where they could vote Tuesday, apparently unaware that Florida's presidential primary was last week.

full potential

2008-02-02T15:11:00.000-05:00

last night i ate and drank so much i could barely sleep. i made a loaf of challah (for the sabbath, duh). di came over and we ordered indian food. i drank a bottle of wine, she drank a bottle of peach beer. we watched britney spears in "crossroads." at some point i attempted to drink gin and orange juice. between the hours of 1 and 6am i tossed and turned like a stinky, disoriented sea mammal.

coffeeless, i read some news as the sun came up. i popped a piece of gum in my mouth. it was too cold outside to run. i turned off everything electronic in my room and went back to bed. i woke up and realized i still had the gum.

garbage can too far. i stuck the gum on the metal part of my clothes hamper next to my bed. more sleep.

it's still there, an impacted chemical-white blob, reminding me politely i should probably get it together.

swept

2008-01-23T18:15:00.000-05:00

i drove to runyon canyon in the rain today around noon, hopped up on coffee. the sky was overcast but high over everything like a hammered steel dome.

i ran past benjamin mckenzie. that's the second time i've bumped into him in the last few months. he's even smaller than i am.

miles above my head, the winds pushed the clouds toward downtown, stringing them out like scarves from a sleeve, diagonals, a perfect perspective. the sun blotted through the thinnest clouds above the skyscrapers. downtown looked holy.

a woman with dogs lost her keys. she asked me if i had seen them. i hadn't. (thought: it wasn't so long ago i didn't know what a green carabiner was.)

at home, rain is slapping against the window in front of me and sliding down the glass. the film on the window provides friction, so each drop keeps its shape. i'm happy.

tuned in

2008-01-21T00:44:00.001-05:00

nuance, the ellipses, even the thought in progress deserves attention, just as the big picture does. and in this space, so it goes. call it a resolution if you like, but i prefer a casting off, a release from always trying to find the answer. less chance for guilt that way, and it's easier to glance over and recognize progress.

but isn't it the relentless identification of progress i'm trying to escape?

oh, right.

tonight someone invited me to a house to watch some dvds. "are there going to be people there? because, you know, i'm afraid of them," i actually said. and oh, i mean it.

but i'm going. (there won't be people i don't already know.)

soft familiar things

2007-12-22T04:16:00.000-05:00

home for christmas this year. business mostly as usual; electric candy canes along the walkway in front, an unbelievable number of snowmen inside, of the stuffed, wooden, illuminated and even motorized variety.

hard to sleep at night. i take the battery out of a clock -- much better. my bed is made as haphazardly as possible. thin, gauzy sheets my mother has kept around for too long, almost certainly discards from her parents. that explains it, probably. two cheap, lumpy comforters covered in fuzzy pills from too many careless washings. everything smells like tide and it's driving my skin crazy.

i search in a few of the closets and cupboards and find much nicer stuff in there. i ball up the comforters and throw them in the hallway, an admittedly passive-aggressive hint i don't really care if anyone picks up on or not. the sheets i consider throwing away, but don't -- they're trash, i'm positive, but something i recognize as simple, adult courtesy or respect stops me. i take a black down comforter -- thin, light and smooth; reminds me of my california bed -- and try to sleep.

what i really want over me is the shit green corduroy comforter i bought with my mom when we were shopping for my first college apartment. i was pretty indifferent when i picked it out but its heft and texture grew on me immediately. so soft and bouncy on the outside, cool and smooth underneath, i used to wake up wrapped in it like seaweed. even in college, when my priorities roughly consisted of securing a given week's alcohol supply and the recordings on my tivo, i took the time and money to get the comforter dry cleaned, the first time probably necessitated by certain hurried, passionate activities. lugging it through the dirty slush on chicago avenue, protected by a garbage bag, i guess i cared about it. i didn't have pets or a plant or a relationship -- there was one nice thing in my life, and i was going to nurture it.

when i moved to los angeles there was no room for it amongst the dishes and books and clothes, so i just assumed it would stay on my bed at home, preserved, waiting. i gave my mom strict instructions -- "dry clean only" -- because she has a laundering fetish and as quick and easy as it is, some things you just can't throw in the top-loader. the last few times i came home, there it was, unwashed, unperfumed and free of pills. mine, just the way i wanted it.

my youngest brother's girlfriend has been living in the house for the last year or so. i think it's an exceedingly strange situation since they sleep in my brother's not-terribly-large bed together, every night, and obviously my parents recognize the numerous implications of such proximity. they don't seem to mind at all, though. she's a really sweet girl, and since i think my mom has always wanted a sweet girl to dote over, it's working out. i respect my parents a lot for letting her stay because where she came from wasn't so great. it's not a completely parasitic arrangement, either -- i'm pretty sure she helps with groceries and cooking. she's taking care of my brother, too, improving his diet and his self-esteem. he doesn't look as good as i want him to but he's brighter and more open than i've ever seen him. these kids give me a little relief in this fractured, domestic wilderness. but they're fucking sleeping on my comforter.

it's strange because when i asked my mom about it the day i came home she told me it was on my brother's bed and it didn't really bother me then. "as long as someone's using it," i think i said. but time worms along differently in our house (or maybe just my head?) -- much slower and indirect -- so it wasn't until tonight around 3 in the morning i started worrying about it and feeling like i'd lost something. the anxiety is equal parts "doesn't mom get it?" and "if they're using it i'm sure it's been stuffed into our tiny washer and ripped to shreds." i keep telling myself it's still as much mine as it was a year and a half ago and sharing it with someone else just adds to what it is but since my little brother is probably having sex on it like i did, i'm uneasy.

i've talked to my mom before about the strange and unpredictable things she does with things i've left behind at home. i've been moved into different rooms with no warning whatsoever, my furniture has been handed down or sold, my coats and shoes jammed into closets or cabinets no one even opens. but my wardrobe is full of strange mementos and bent, ripped, ancient rolled-up posters i just didn't have time to throw away before i moved, and mom didn't see the need to. (among them: records of every production i was involved with in high school and a huge, full color glossy from a certain puccini opera.) i found a few genuine goodies: my baby blanket is around my shoulders like a shawl. my great-grandma, now almost 100, made it out of pastel yarn and gave it to me the day i was born. it's covered in holes from fingers and tugging. i am so happy i have it.

ralph's here, too. he's a stuffed dog hand puppet nearing complete disintegration, a gift from my grandmother's boss when i was a few days old. i'm pretty sure i dragged him with me everywhere for the first 3 or 4 years of my life. his hard plastic nose fell off in a department store. his eyes, each half of a marble, are scratched and cloudy. his ears and body, once dark and covered in fuzz, are as worn as old dishrags. he is a relic.

meaning and significance is intensely personal. before i could even hold myself up, my mom wrapped me in the blanket after she fed me and flapped her hand around inside ralph to make me smile. of course she keeps that stuff, and i can guarantee any baby items haven't been washed in years. she was universes away, though, when i hid under the green comforter, carried it, barfed on it, wrote on it, washed off those stains, shared it with someone else. some things start only with me. i can't explain it, but i can reclaim it.

up in smoke

2007-12-10T21:47:00.000-05:00

someone in my neighborhood lost their opium pipe.

the fliers say so, the ones stapled to every utility pole on lucile. i walked past a handful with my coffee this afternoon, returning from a rare pedestrian experience on sunset. they go something like this:

MY OPIUM PIPE IS MISSING.
NOTHING SEEMS QUITE RIGHT WITHOUT IT.
THE COLORS AREN'T AS BRIGHT, THE WORLD ISN'T AS NICE.

there's a sketch of the long, skinny apparatus in question (narcotic clip art?) and an email address, too. i had a new thought as i passed each one and read it. those went something like:

1.) that's funny.
2.) how do you lose an opium pipe?
3.) what exactly is opium?
4.) should i email them?

a quick wikipediaing yields opium=morphine and, by certain chemical magic, heroin. also, a kilogram at $300 wholesale sells on the street for $12,000. damn.

i'm not surprised i live amongst opium fiends, but the flier's disarming desperation both amuses and saddens me. it's something straight out of a jonathan lethem novel, especially "you don't love me yet," which is the only novel of his i've read (actually, haven't finished reading yet; this is my second attempt and i should finish tonight). it revolves around a public "complaint line" set up in los angeles as an artistic experiment by a bunch of hipsters (who eat way more and work way less than they would in real life, especially here).

i keep wondering if the fliers serve to actually bring the pipe home or simply open a dialog with whoever decides to get in touch. i think i'm going to find out.

if all else fails, maybe i'll offer them the epic bong my old roommate left behind. like my friend said -- and i agree -- "i don't really have room in my life for that thing."

and like my other friend said, "god bless silver lake."

versed

2007-11-21T08:31:00.000-05:00

haiku for wednesday:

a bottle of wine
that's like, almost five glasses
drink less tomorrow

on depression

2007-11-11T14:46:00.000-05:00

at this point, perhaps more important than curing it completely, watching it dissolve like a tablet in fizzy water, is simply forgiving yourself for feeling this way.

yes, i think acquainting yourself with an indulgent, even scandalous, level of self-forgiveness is crucial.

during each descent, instead of performing infinite mental belly-flops onto a table saw, a little neck massage. even an "it'll be all right," whispered, not all together without hope (that part's key). better if someone's there to do those things for you, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

focus on building blocks outside yourself. there's plenty to do and even enjoy that doesn't require any thinking or analysis on your part. take a shower. get out of bed once in a while. you might feel different. not better necessarily, but different. think of it like a climbing wall. grab on to what you've got in front of you and just keep striving for the top. if you fall, that's why we have harnesses and pharmaceuticals.

when it comes to decisions, try flipping a coin. the stakes for you are so blissfully low it can't possibly make much difference one way or another.

i understand the desire -- no, the need -- you have to waste away physically. i will tell you two things: your metabolism will never be more helpful or more forgiving, and at this point, emaciating yourself is probably one of the few outcomes within your reach that will likely improve your mood a shade or two. you will wear those jeans again, i'm quite confident. just promise me you won't start purging. most people start by now, but in your state i think it's prudent to never say never.

progress. sunshine. peace. that's what we're shooting for. your aim will improve with time. right now you're scattershot, a wobbly newborn fawn, no sea legs. did you know i get paid per metaphor? that's not true. i wish you the best. i have faith in you and good feelings about everything we've talked about. best of luck. you should be very proud of yourself. yes, already. now go home and give yourself a massage. you deserve it.

return

2007-09-12T01:38:00.000-04:00

i'm back.

i almost thought i'd never get around to saying that, but i'm here. somewhere along the way, i realized it's worth doing this, here, every once in a while.

for the last two months i've been back and forth between los angeles and chicago: weddings, concerts, half-aborted interventions. i'm moving to silverlake on saturday, albeit temporarily. my job is thrumming at full speed. my romantic and social lives are as frustrating, confusing and complicated as i've ever wanted them to be. things, almost all, are up in the air.

the time of year i love, even here, is near. the days are the perfect length, the air gets thinner, the tilt of the sun flatters the tiredest neighborhoods, everything breathes, is refreshed. i wear a jacket at night. the heat in my car comes in handy.

recently i committed to a project. no written, or even verbal, contract exists. i simply made a promise to myself. and in an interesting development, i've only become more confident that i can pull it off. i'm going to write a play. it's been finding legs and dancing around in my head for quite some time. getting it onto the page has been tough, but the challenge is welcome. no one said writing about a child molester was easy.

that's what this summer has been. the foot feeling the foot when it hits the ground.

hourglass

2007-07-08T22:59:00.000-04:00

the vacation is over. i cringe and moan before i realize another one begins wednesday after work, when i fly back to chicago in the middle of the night. my mother has already let me know she will have coffee waiting for me in the car by the curb outside departures, not arrivals, which is where my family has always picked up anyone who is coming home.

my roommate will be on wednesday's red-eye to new york. in our apartment there is a lifted sense of relief and impending repair, something like the tangible tingle of another school year's end, a break in the sunny days and in our accumulated time here which, without seasons or events, might go on forever if one doesn't get on a plane once in a while. it is time. we dream of humidity, hometown shopping districts, public transportation. we have not been this synced in a year.

i enjoyed it. a long, blurry weekend bookended by premium lager beers and full of processed meat products and dessert food. somehow i feel better than when i started. i think that's called "just enough."

there are three stories surrounding the holiday i would like to tell, but they may take time. two are merely observations, but one crystallizes something i've thought a lot about and plays significantly in the work of two writers i really like.

july is here. a friend today talked about stocking up for the summer, buying some pails and beach towels and maybe a big, portable umbrella, the kind you can tie to the roof of your car and stab in the sand. the requisite getting in shape figured in, too. but isn't it july?, i kept thinking. maybe in california things like that don't matter. maybe you're allowed a month of grace to get in shape. maybe in september or october when, to your surprise, it starts getting too cool to go to the beach, you just shrug it off until next memorial day? it is a wonder anything gets done here at all.

the surest sign it was over were the fireworks, late on sunday, right outside my window, waking me from my nap, louder and nearer than any i saw or heard all weekend. thirty seconds of hiss, whistle, pop, an assault, then silence. someone wanted to finish them off.

control

2007-06-27T02:11:00.000-04:00

i'm tired of talking and thinking about the landscape and the hot air that barely moves or blows and how the best views of anything are from the bends in the freeways because they're built higher than most buildings. i'd like to focus on my hair, which has grown in and hasn't bothered me much for a week or so, as well as my skin and body and self in general which is feeling fairly young and capable, also tired, but up to the challenge, all thanks to finally being freed from the tyranny of an overupholstered chair and twenty-five square feet of desk and office without a single window. i finally feel as young and capable and also as young and inexperienced and completely unformed as i've been thinking i've ought to be feeling for the last year or so. you must take my word for it when i say this is, to say very nearly the least, refreshing.

i might be at a point where i can deal with six months or twelve rationally and the associated slapping of my heart against my sternum no longer resembles a basketball being dribbled three inches above a hardwood floor.

memories and associations are being forced and injected into the cracks and open spaces, the black holes between sunday and monday, the shapeless weekends. too much down the hatch, in the lungs, up the nose is liable to leave you pale and twitching near a cafe's toilet during brunch, your body a liquid canon, aware of the birds outside the jailhouse window and vaguely proud of your aim and elegance through it all, but at least now you can attach something to the edifice you stare at every time you exit the 101 by your friends' house.

it's the sudden crease in the shirt you've been carefully ironing that just won't budge, the unexpected ripple in the dutiful repetition. that is the kind of comfort i am looking for.

inventory

2007-06-11T00:31:00.001-04:00

there will be nothing poetic about this; it's just what's going on.

i didn't plan on going to the ocean today, but that's where i ended up. something different -- a personal requirement lately. i rolled down the windows to smell the salt air but all i got a whiff of was burning rubber. santa monica, go figure. i took topanga canyon back into the valley. that drive might be one of my favorites in los angeles -- near desolation. it was getting dark, too, and the views over the cliffs were magnificent. i was gone for an hour. i think i could be alone forever if i was always going somewhere new.

the long weekend: squandered; all fits and starts. dinner on friday was nice and delicious. my friends' new apartment is unbelievable. i found time to clean my sink.

my last job ended like a boeing going into the side of a mountain. i hope i never see anyone i worked with again. i pray i didn't leave anything personal/embarrassing/incriminating on the computer.

my new job starts tomorrow. i should be beaming but it's been hard. i couldn't possibly be starting a better job in a better place with better people, so i think it's just going to take a while to sink in. but boy, have i missed craft service.

i got a terrible, artsy haircut today. it probably wasn't as terrible before i took the scissors out to fix it. i sat in a chair and got mad at myself for always ruining things i can't have back or reverse. but the hair grows back, quickly too. it always grows back. haircuts can be bad or ruined and it (the hair) will usually turn out alright. with everything else, you're not always so lucky. i just wish i wasn't going to look like conrad jarrett on my first day at work.

contact

2007-05-30T14:44:00.000-04:00

at night i like to run down dickens street.

"south of the boulevard," nestled just at the bottom of the hollywood hills, it's a quiet, pleasant row of stucco apartment buildings and condos with squeaky garage gates. it's tree-lined. there's a school, and a retirement home, and many churches. if it's early enough, mommies pull daycare-fresh babies from m-class SUVs and arrange them in strollers; later, after dusk, old indian women in saris pace under streetlamp light, overweight men in their 30s with spiky hair walk their dogs or stroll with their much prettier girlfriends before bed, people my age sit on the tiny balcony on top of their duplex and smoke cigarettes in front of curtains made from sheets.

guitars and piano pump up through the wires and into my ears. i run behind, around, past, past the playground, over the slabs of sidewalk pushed up by tree roots into concrete tents, following the snaking cracks in the street, maybe from the last earthquake? i reach cruising altitude, autopilot. along the edge of the sidewalk, on the grass when i can, more toe than heel, more muscle than bone; stride, not shock.

but first i have to get there.

my apartment complex sits at a major intersection that doesn't resemble the 4th circle of hell so much as it does a massive drain, a whirlpool of oily, sulfurous exhaust, streams of steel and rubber pouring in from four directions, stinking, hot to the touch, splitting off, turning, weaving, reversing direction, all twirling and sliding toward certain collision but avoiding it at the last second, maintaining various trajectories, sending fast flashes of air from between bumpers, flapping my shirt against my stomach as i stand at the corner, shivering, attempting to cross through the eye of the storm.

the bright white stick figure built from bulbs appears, an angel, my saving grace, my window of opportunity. two fat stripes form a drawbridge, a portal. i float over, confident as moses, touch down on the other side. i have arrived. i see single-family homes. there is a whole foods. i start to run, beginning the same slow pattering pace i will maintain for the next 40 minutes.

at the intersection with van nuys, a break, a traffic light; i press the button and wait for permission to walk even though there aren't any cars but it's still los angeles and people get tickets for less. at dickens and van nuys i try to look to my right because there are cozy, tudor-style buildings that look like winnetka or oak park but to the left, ventura boulevard is a neon nightmare, dickens' evil, parallel twin; it annoys me at night which is why i don't look, let alone run on it.

i usually try to push myself on the tiny stretch between van nuys and beverly glen. it's around that point there's less light and i'm always nervous about coyotes because the hills are right next to me. i've never seen one, but their cries cut through the air if it's cold and thin enough.

there's another church, sometimes with a man smoking in front of it, at the corner of beverly glen which is where i turn around. the run back is a little easier because i've warmed up and i can ignore the pain in my shins.

at the end after i've passed the el pollo loco by the whole foods across from the massive green sign for the 405, big as a movie screen, i slow to a walk. last night i passed two kids with fishing poles walking down sepulveda, on their way into the hills. they might have been coming from the los angeles river, i thought, but it's usually dry and it didn't look like they had caught anything and let's just be honest, all the river is is a cement tunnel with no top that cuts through the valley so people can say if they're on one side of it or the other.

back at the edge of the whirlpool, i can see my front door through the cyclone of traffic. a half-dozen people are waiting for the bus; i look at them but no one looks at me. when i go to press the button for the white walk signal a small lady with brown skin is trying to do it at the same time and our fingers almost touch but she pulls back and so do i and my heart goes racing faster than it did at any point while i was running. i jab the button with my thumb and she looks straight ahead at the bus that's turning the corner across the street.

alignment

2007-05-14T00:59:00.000-04:00

life changes fast.
life changes in the instant.
the dean hands you a diploma and life as you know it ends.
the question of self-pity.

this is how my last entry started, the one i published but then removed and published again, and probably removed and published sixteen times more until i finally decided no, this is not the statement i wish to make, not the pity party i want to throw for myself and all my friends (but mostly just for myself because my friends wouldn't show up anyway, that and i really only have three or four in the region, dear ones, but not much of a party).

i've been brushing up on my didion. she's fabulous. i see a really funny parody of "magical thinking" based on my first year out of the gates and all alone, but i'm not so sure i'm ready to write it. i'm not so sure i'm ready to write anything.

last week i started telling people i was leaving at the end of the summer or maybe in a few weeks, that i wanted to get out of here and slow time down and think, really think, about how i wanted to spend my time and energy and maybe catch up with my parents in the backyard with some wine from the little store by the train station in hinsdale and meet my brothers' friends and girlfriends and gulp, move back into a bedroom in my house which isn't even mine anymore because they've moved things around and slowly, with my knowledge too, i've been erased, or transferred. i left some books. if i go home i plan to find those and call whichever room they're in headquarters for the next 6 months to one year.

whether the last year to happen to you is a year of magical thinking or brilliant excess, insufferable loss or butterfly-inducing fortune, you can't help measuring things up like that, taking the year-long yardstick (yearstick?) and holding it along the length and girth, taking note, assessing. and the logical thing to do after such an assessment is to make a plan, take stock in the fact that a) yes, this is the direction in which i want to be heading or b) holy smoke, i've lost sight of the shore and i really hope my friends in the fancy motorboat notice i fell off the water-skis.

so, have i made a decision? absolutely not. so i can't go posting things like, i hate it here and i want to leave because that doesn't quite ring true. i miss chicago like crazy, but at the end of the day what do i really know about it? i spent 21 years in the leafy suburbs. i went into the city for cubs games, field trips, and brunch on the weekends. the feeling that's pulling me back is a mirage, a tesselation. chicago's a nice place, but no panacea. not for what's going on right now. what i go looking for when i finally get there will not be what i remember. there will have been a shift.

more than ever i imagine myself as a writer. i think like a writer, "by which I mean not a "good" writer or a "bad" writer but simply a writer, a person whose most absorbed and passionate hourse are spent arranging words on pieces of paper. had my credentials been in order I would never have become a writer. had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. i write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what i see and what it means. what i want and what i fear."

you know, a writer, one with a g&t in one hand and a cigarette in the other, a ruddy ghost sailing through a creaky severe old house in malibu or montauk, one without a boss but plenty of meetings in town and even more time to just write, write, write, occasional breaks to entertain, bi-monthly breakdowns, friends in all the right places, parents that remain confused but doting until they die, proud and hopefully by that time, immortalized in a short story or an essay. that kind of writer. i cannot imagine myself fully as anything else (other than a daddy, but that is a box i would rather not unpack right now).

and i do write, i do. i write this. you tell me. should i keep it up, or go to law school, eventually spawn wounded, remote children who attend the latin school or something with "country day" or "international" in the name and become the incrementally more realized version of what i had always hoped to be?

i think for now, there has to be me. "what i want and what i fear." i need to make a running start and leapfrog right over it, landing on the other side, breaking through the cloud of dust, brushing off my shins, smiling like james franco in spider-man 3. then i can really get to work.

for love of the game (hen)

2007-04-22T20:47:00.000-04:00

my relationship with food and its preparation has never been particularly precocious or privileged. i grew up in a house where we grilled in the summer and ate leftoevers in the winter (not from the summer, more like tuesday night's fajitas or turkey sandwiches). neither of my parents were (or are) gifted cooks (with the exception of dad's "special" oatmeal and mom's kolachky, which is probably the most unnecessarily decadent and most delicious cookie in the world). when i was fairly young they gutted the homey (i recall wallpaper with kettles) kitchen in our old house and in went everything chrome, black and shiny -- equipment and style of the minute but, to my prom-age embarrassment, not much good for a second after. neighborhood kids were fascinated by how smooth and secret everything was: the invisible range whose presence in the counter was betrayed by glowing red discs when you clicked the right knobs, the miles of cabinets that afforded everyone their "own" drawer for junk and convenience, the dishwasher with the mirrored face that scared our dog whenever she saw her reflection, the vast pantry in the corner with the spinning shelves that i'm sure i forced my brothers into once or twice, the mysterious aluminum panel on the wall that actually controlled the lights and the longer you touched it the brighter they got.

my first culinary memory is asking my grandma one summer to buy me an onion, just one, so i could make onion soup. i heated some water, peeled the onion, dropped it in, and sipped the water with an onion in it while everyone else at the table ate their steak and salad. later on, old, boring betty crocker cookbooks provided recipes for the most basic yellow cakes and crusty puddings. i experimented alone, occasionally dragging a friend onto the gray stone floor, instructing them to hold this or crack that while i attempted custard (we ate sugary scrambled eggs) or bagels (the most pillowy donuts). for a while, baked goods were my specialty. cookies for holidays, cakes for birthdays, i was everyone's favorite pubescent baker.

there was the high school vegetarian stage. another summer on the deck by the grill, but instead of chicken i handed my dad tofu. that did not last.

since then, i guess i thank college for ingredients and my life after graduation for technique. at school, seducers in off-campus apartments introduced me to shallots and rich sauces, roommates moved in with weapons-grade all-clad copper-bottomed pans, sending my nonstick toys from ikea and target into the corner with their handles between their legs. weekends we snacked on wine and cheese because we liked it and some nights before rehearsal i spent precious hours not doing homework but experimenting with vegetables i forget the names of and the most delicious way to cook a turkey burger.

i have a nice kitchen this year, everything white and new and granite and adult-sized. another roommate, another great pan which yields good fond, not too browned but full of flavor, the kind that washes away with a splash of wine and a few scrapes of a wooden spoon. sweets sometimes, but lately the savory rules -- roasted potatoes and steak au poivre, laborious french onion soup with the best bread i could find, buttery, sweet mustard sauce with raisins, great for chicken and halibut or really not bad by itself, simple but salty bowls of rice and veggies, and wine. there is always wine.

here in l.a. making dinner for my friends (or just for myself) has been a sort of safety net, a comfortable challenge, sometimes about being modest and resourceful ("i have three kinds of rice and some frozen edamame"), other times about calculated indulgence ("peach tart! peach tart!") sitting at the table, taking the first bite, it's almost always about more than just the food.

the next michael chiarello? i love cooking. this i could shout from the rooftops. my affection for writing is usually expressed in something like a whisper. i'm not pretending there's some fork in the road, some choice of unprecedented size or import that needs to be made so choose wisely and truly, not really that sort of thing. the two can happily coexist and anyway, i'd rather write a novella than give my name to a cocktail. where i find dead ends in writing, in cooking i sense the space to leap and glide. i can see ahead and on all sides when it comes to food. suzanne goin: a genuis, and i can tell you why. when i'm writing sometimes it feels like a stroll through hampton court. james joyce? please wake me up when it's over. i don't think i could even try.

cooking and eating is just a series of events and endings. make it, eat it, savor it or rush it, it's over. if nothing else happens to me today, i suppose, at least i made some food. it keeps me going, looking foward, never fixating on the same thing for too long. i've actually lost sleep over a new recipe or idea, even if it's just a promise to myself to make french toast in the morning. getting out of bed, making something happen, and moving on.

on line

2007-04-17T14:13:00.000-04:00

lines, lines everywhere. one lies before each of us, for some blinking and flashing, beckoning us closer, daring us to jump, to transgress, to see what happens; for others, it's thick and deep like a moat, terrifying, shrouded in clouds and barely visible, shied away from and ignored like the scary house on top of the hill when you were growing up.

lines, invisible like the beams of a security system, criss and cross in front of our eyes and through our bodies, slicing and dicing us, dividing us, connecting us, keeping us in formation, fragments of a picture on a sliding tile puzzle. if one piece moves, the rest can't just sit still. communities and societies share lines too, pushing triumphantly through the finish line, a massive sack race, 600 million legs tied together as one. history shows we can fall back too, ants sprayed off a sidewalk by a garden hose, our massive number no match for the brutal deluge.

at what point are we actually changed? what constitutes no turning back? does a splatter of blood measurably alter the course of a life? does watching thousands starve in a camp or explode in a ditch harden something in us, inject us, dismissible at first but slowly and constantly working its way through our skin like a splinter, tampering with our internal chemistry, souring our soul in imperceptible ways, obvious only in twenty years when we snap?

such a scary place, the distance between what we normally do and what we're capable of. all too often a no man's land, a minefield that takes some fancy footwork to navigate. only the most determined and resourceful make it. what's on the other side? that just depends.

mussolini and his mistress clara, captured and shot in 1945 as they attempted an escape to austria, hung from meat hooks in a public square. a gory, possibly inevitable, denouement to a nation's disorientation. peaceful people, strolling up to see their former dictator dangling upside down, flies buzzing around his body, a matter of course. mothers with children, taking it in, crossing that line, if only for twenty seconds before the nausea overwhelms. in the presence of that, you change.

so much death, not caused by disease or disaster. one person, his face at the top of every page on the internet, his plays and final words to the world, transparent and angry, available for anyone to see. one person, a running start, leapfrogging the line and disintegrating before he even lands on the ground. one tile shifts, countless others accommodate.

for most of us, unthinkable. but we do think, we can't help it. and somewhere swimming in the river of sympathy and shock that's inside is a sickening spark of recognition, a twisted little leach, capable of commandeering our whole machinery if so provoked. wielding guns or gassing millions isn't a matter of physical might or cunning. all that matters is where the line lies and what's pushing us over. we hope our wits will be intact when we reach that point, that we'll be able to weigh the evidence and options and consequences, make the right and rational choice. so much is founded on our faith in that simple process, its guarantee to carry us along with minimal harm and maximum progress. when the equation breaks down, though, when it stops making sense, we are animals, buzzing past each other and burning up like the fuse on a stick of dynamite, our trajectories reduced to a flash of heat, an explosion, an erasure of what existed before.

the beginning

2007-04-12T16:48:00.000-04:00

a jump, a plunge, the thrill of pure intention, equal to the shock of siege, an accident. falling all the way down, limbs like swords slicing air, feet pummeling imaginary pedals, ridiculous revolutions, knees grazing chin, desperate for contact, traction. at the bottom, the slap of feet against stone, arms stuck out and fingers spread, palms to the ground pressing columns of air, joints become fault lines, tremors like bullets from the ankles, knees, elbows, neck. balance. a bandana tied around the forehead, sweat trickling over knobby veins, fast twitch fibers taut in the shoulders, forearms, calves, rigid protein sheets of potential energy, loaded traps with teeth. breath drops in. surveillance.

a slick and chilly cave, a cloud of burnt orange dirty light. the walls, ceiling, floor, fragile as obsidian eggshells and the air, so cold and thin, tickles the nose like fumes, tastes like frost scraped from glass. touch knife in sheath, draw, point, quiver. drops form overhead, freeze as they fall and land with a tiny crystal crunch, powdering the floor. motion. sharp hairs coated in instantly frozen sweat leave pink scrapes on the neck. some creaking steps, another look, and certainty. there is nothing else alive.

encounter. toes touch a puddle that jerks and slides over the ice like magnets opposed. in. up to the ankles and deeper still, an aromatic soup without a bottom, another plunge but peaceful, all senses simultaneously fed and relieved of duty.

drowning in a red and rusty lukewarm sludge. that is how it begins.

place and time

2007-04-06T17:20:00.000-04:00

arthur phillips, on his novel "prague" (which is set in 1990s budapest):

"the novel is named not for a city, but for an emotional disorder. ... if only i were over there, or with her, or doing that, or born fifty years earlier, then i would be where the action is."

and with los angeles, so it goes.

one of my favorite things to do here when i'm walking down a street or eating someplace is pretending i'm actually somewhere else. los feliz, occasionally dense and gothic. a bus zooms by, a cloth awning flutters and for a second, you could swear you were in manhattan. the eclectic residential street in studio city behind aroma cafe that, at night, looks exactly like the one my family lives on, right down to the antique-style streetlamps and the two rows of cottagy ranches and cape cods interrupted by the odd, new stone and timber chalet that's twice as tall as anything around it. i drive slowly, ignorning for a moment the parking restrictions and the twinkling hills hanging overhead. the 405 at rush hour: yes, i think, this is actually what traffic looks like in greece. squint and the license plates become european.

the scenery here is both overwhelming and inaccessible, a mirage, a lush illustrated backdrop that hangs behind everything, always as far away as could possibly be no matter how hard or fast you approach it. the mountains give way to more mountains, the ocean, through the haze, is there but then it's not; through the windows of a car the palms and spiky plants radiate prehistory -- i see dinosaurs crossing bridges over the 101. i miss my absolutes: lake michigan and the sears tower, the x and y axes on top of which everything (size, location, history) could be graphed. here the compass needle spins and spins, perpetual motion, hypnotic.

after more than 9 months, i'm still a stranger here. completely elusive has been a sense of growing more comfortable with my surroundings, of feeling more connected to what's around me, of being at home. i'm always reminding myself, yes, this is a Real City, a globally influential metropolis with all the opportunities and blight that comes along with it. but so far all i'm interested in is staying small as possible, slipping in between the corolla and the 3-series and making it to back to my apartment.

what if chicago? what if new york? what if anywhere but here? those are the big three, the roosevelt, churchill and stalin of my skittish 22-year old conscience, bossing me around and more often than not clouding up the lens with which i view what's happening right in front of my nose with smoke from their chubby cigars.

no one's going to be interested in my memoirs if the words "los angeles: 2006-2050" are anywhere in the table of contents. take chicago, the inimitable city i call home but never gave a chance; new york, the center of the universe where, regardless of the summer stench, the simple act of walking down the street sends my blood whooshing; israel, a place i need to see before i can believe it exists; india, another planet by itself; south america's outrageous decadence; eastern europe's shadow of anomie; the deep south's fables. worthy destinations. necessary experiences.

adventure isn't cheap. sacrifices and plans will have to be made. spanish monarchs must be befriended, funds secured.

a long highway. the likelihood of regret marked as clearly as the way to santa monica. keanu and sandra aren't in this movie; you have control. you decide which way the wheels turn. there are 27 freeways in los angeles alone. a detour.

dayenu

2007-04-03T17:07:00.000-04:00

collared shirt to work, a toothbrush too. a quick transformation, some yellow tulips, off to la cañada before sundown. baby's first (real) seder.

why is this night different?

knock, dog, mom, here, flowers, kiss. israelis around a table. hello, hello, this is jon, i am jon, hello. sit down, not there, wrong chair, here, next to me. how are you? how have you been since december? here, kippah. baby blue.

candles, bones, bowls, eggs, children. clink, crunch. fingers tapping. kids, stop talking. don't tease your sister. bark bark. i miss my gun, the girl with red streaks in her hair says, i miss the tzahal. dad reads in hebrew. i read in english, the first two plagues. too fast? the pages turn from left to right. oh.

wine! ("chug it, you need to catch up.") get ready to dip... aaaaand go.

dam! tsfardeia! kinim! arov! dever! shkhin! barad! arbeh! choshech! makat bechorot!

did we do it right? eh, time to eat. sandwich, sweet. fish, fluffy, a carrot (i've had those). soup, delicious. chicken, brisket, apricots, asparagus, farfel.

dessert. so much dessert.

the afikomen, an anticlimax. q: "how much money do we get?" a: "is a million dollars enough?" eyes wide. where did you go to college? is princeton a good school? which one is the best? elijah's cup sits forgotten. i keep taking macaroons.

clean up. leftovers, tupperware, thank you. bags, driveway, handshakes, kisses. in the car, my friend, mountains, music, night. back to new york she goes. so far away again. our tradition.

jesus loves you

2007-04-03T13:05:00.000-04:00

this morning: foggy, humid, gray. post-pesach hangover. (only one glass of wine but about 15 macaroons; more on that later.) shower. donned the uniform. crept to work, 9:30am. coffee. stupended by the pressed shirts, made-up ladies, the fact that everyone is several hours into their day and i am just barely beginning to function. i am caveman.

walking across the driveway shared by the starbucks and the big boy, a woman looked at me. she smiled.

"jesus loves you."

she triggered a well-worn, primordial reflex. if jesus, then smile. so that's what i did. i smiled right back. a huge, wobbly, meaningless smile. cheek muscles crunching but nothing behind it. i was raised to always be polite and suspicious.

this could easily be the end of an uninteresting story. who hasn't witnessed the woman on the subway shouting about the lord? sweaty, manic preachers on late-night tv? the prosaic christian pamphlets in your orthodontist's office that promise to answer all the questions you have about happiness and purpose? (the man did good work.) looking on in sober awe? usually not. giggles, raised eyebrows? most likely.

i should be honest. if jesus, then crazy. that's what really goes through my head. that is what i really think.

but this woman, her words, they worked. she got to me.

she was a surprise. young, smart, pretty, stylish, friendly, sane, sweet. maybe she works in my building. maybe today was the first time she has ever said it to anyone. did the thought just tumble out of her mouth when she saw me? was she just struck, a conduit, god's lips to my ears? here, these words, they'll help, you need them. is that how i come across?

i turned around and watched her walk to her car. i got in line for coffee. i wanted to know what just happened. i was open, curious to hear exactly why jesus, that second?

if jesus, then thanks. if only just this once.

the year of magical thinking

2007-03-29T16:30:00.000-04:00

i hear oprah has a secret. i don't know what it is, exactly, but perhaps i could benefit.

happiness, i think, is the most slender solitary wooden pile rising tall as a tree from an ocean of noise. it vibrates like a jackhammer, chipping your teeth and turning the base of your brain into a hinge, your spine flapping like a flag as you hug your way up. at the very top, the whole thing sways and jitters, a sieve sorting nuts. arms flailing, toes en pointe, find a moment of balance and the view is your reward. crystal clarity and urgency like a suit of pins, no room to move. happiness is like that, precise and unforgiving. a microscopic bullseye on a fuzzy dartboard. a coordinate with 14 decimal places on a map that has no borders. good luck, explorers!

it goes against what you'd think. aren't you supposed to lose your way to find it? let things go and have everything you need? loosen up, man. surrender, not concentration?

no. i think you have to worm your way in, even if the hole is five times too small and it scrapes the skin off your bones, putting splinters the size of scissors in your vital organs. and once you get there, even if the crowd surges and knocks the air out of your lungs, your foot has got to stay on that tiny, tiny spot. you have got to turn into stone. your happiness, your delight, your ability and right to do and conquer, it's right there. claim it, cover it, smother it, do not ever move. absorb it into the bottom of your bleeding, mangled foot. let your healing skin poke roots in the ground.

concentration, not surrender. there is no room for mistakes. that is the only way.

standard issue

2007-03-29T13:27:00.000-04:00

this is me today:

the jeans, looser every day because i don't wash them and lately, i don't eat much. the hoodie, with PENN in big crimson letters and the crest with the fish and books (yale's is cooler; it has hebrew), the rest of it navy, a hole in the pouch, the fabric pilled all over. (people ask me if i went there and i always sheepishly say no, but i don't tell them how i spent a week in philly teaching kids they need to eat vegetables, or the only reason i ended up with the hoodie in the first place is because my friend had a discount at the campus bookstore.) the shoes, an ugly pair of new balance, purchased at a discount department store in the western suburbs of chicago, broken a few days after i bought them (a missing plastic grommet). the watch, a thick black elasticised strap with a lucite clock hanging from it.

this is the uniform. this is what i'm most comfortable in. this is what i choose to project to the world. this is what i wear almost every day. shapeless, frumpy, forgettable.

style is excruciating. some people look great in spandex, others need all the darts and shape they can get. 33 leotards? i know someone who has at least that many. straightened hair or unruly curls? whatever frames your features better. i wasn't meant to wear suits. i'm at my best when i look like i've just rolled out of bed. that's a legitimate choice, i think. don't mess with me, i might have dragon breath.

continuity

2007-03-20T13:07:00.000-04:00

in my last post i brought up the idea of "me," quotes and all. when i try to define "me," figure it out, peg its precise nature, it isn't very long before i've moved on to things that seemingly aren't about "me" at all.

i can't bear the thought that the innumerable couplings of humans leading up to my birth might not matter. i am troubled by the fact that most likely, each of us exists in a vacuum -- immune from the moment of conception to our immediate past and future. i resent not having a sense of who my great-grandparents were, let alone their parents who lived and died in other lands and probably never knew my language.

there are clues, of course, links i have noticed recently and come to take comfort in. primarily, it's the physical -- i share the same nose, eyes, and face with my father and brothers. growing up i wasn't so sure, but as we all get older it's undeniable. we are of each other. something has been passed on, preserved.

i look like my dad, but my mother gave me her particular pulse, her ability to ever so slightly disconnect at times when paying too much attention might fry your brain or flatten you.

we're five of a kind, the five of us. but that's just the surface, the immediate, within arm's reach. deeper, there's more. what's found in the past, the future holds as well.

from mom's side, the melanomas. the heart and blood problems. most terrifyingly, the alzheimer's. from what little i do know about my pedigree, this is the documented, the feared, and certainly for some of us, the inevitable.

and thank you, dad, for the following predispositions: mood shifts, malaise, desperation, eating disorders, schizophrenia, alcoholism. this too is documented, shared, known. some of us have been lucky enough to have the means and find the will to cope. others have had no idea where to start.

this is what we've been given. gifts and curses travelling across thousands of years, arriving on our genetic doorstep.

i used to wish for a perfect past, or at least a clean slate. but now, why would i? i see my brother struggle, i watch my mom hesitate. i've done it too; it's an echo. i understand.

our own lives, each with their guaranteed beginning, middle and end seem epic. the here and now, the i i i, it's enough of a burden. why would anyone want to think about the joys and struggles of some far-off ancestor with whom they might share a nose or a name but little else?

the possibilities are as infinite as they are unknowable. am i descended from warriors, criminals, kings? an unheard-of fortune that i missed by just generations? in an ancient shtot, did someone carrying pails or baking bread wonder whether i'd exist?

i'm a project and a product; my talents and flaws, my triumphs and failures, shaped by circumstance and tempered by heredity, held up to lean against a record that is both indelible and a complete mystery.

i imagine a pinhole through a stack of dominoes, snaking as long and far as history will let it. shine a light at any point and it will find the ends, touching everything along the way.

tied

2007-03-17T16:09:00.000-04:00

i have a lot of shoes. these are my favorite. but i fear their number is up.

i got them my senior year of high school when i played clifford in "side man," a play i got to stage manage in college. clifford was a RISD student. i remember they wanted me to look artsy, you know, like an art student.

they've been through winters, summers, rain and snow. finals, rehearsals, nights out, a wedding (kinda). gum, beer, salt, grease, dirt. up the steps of montmartre, along the thames, right past the statues on the charles bridge. the streets of new york, chicago, los angeles.

i got them before i knew a lot of important things about myself. for the "me" there is today, these shoes are forever and a little bit before.

the soles are cracked and thin as paper. there's a hole. what does one do?

lace, tie, stand, go.

suspension

2007-03-16T16:47:00.000-04:00

right now.

well, what about it?

confused. distracted. ever so slightly annoyed. as it stands, itchy.

it's the fleece, i think, especially fragrant with the scent of detergent, detergent i've been meaning to replace with the allergy-friendly frangrance-free stuff ever since i discovered there was such a thing.

never quite got there, though.

part of me likes the scent. (namely, my nose.) but it's making me itch. and part of me likes scratching. mainly the itch.

recently it's come to my attention that in a few short months a fresh bumper crop of college graduates are coming west, young man. not unlike the war; more of a surge than relief. the better to get the job done. the more the merrier.

in the tivo playback of my life, things are fast-forwarding smoothly until the little marker hits the last few months. it slows down, hesistates, skips a little, freezes, everything a rainbow whorl of pixels. frozen in some awkward pose, my head, arms, torso and legs are just twisted stacks of blurry boxes, every size there is.

maybe you rewind and it doesn't happen again. maybe it's just noise in the wires; nothing you can do. or maybe that's all there is. no more to see. "delete this recording?"

keeping it around until i need the space, i guess.

something from nothing

2007-03-14T02:47:00.000-04:00

tonight a friend and i did something we haven't done much in 9 months.

we wrote.

together.

from suggestions and compromises came characters and events and possibilities.

this works better than i ever imagined.

jackpot

2007-03-13T13:03:00.000-04:00

"I wanted to look ugly and frightening, exactly like you would if you were addicted to methamphetamine and you were just getting out of jail."

this is what minnie driver told the bbc about her character on "the riches."

i watched last night; i'm pretty into it. i bought almost everything except the extended carnie family, and the kids are a little boring (so far). granted my golden standard for television kiddos is george michael and maeby (from "arrested"), i'm excited to see what trouble they get into.

eddie izzard plays the sort-of straight man better than i expected. he succeeds in coming off as a man who's interested in snatching the best possible life, but only from the options that are floating right in front of his face. (if he was inclined to reach any farther, he'd be a real lawyer or a college professor, not a career vagabond.) i like that the family's lifestyle seems to be motivated more by a perverse affection for bohemianism and adventure than by deprivation or ignorance. it's kind of like the parents who live in the city when the suburbs are cheaper, cleaner, safer, easier. they see something in it, some value. this grounds them in reality and, when you think about it, makes them completely fantastical too. and that's why i watch tv.

there was something in the air that night

2007-03-04T01:42:00.000-05:00

today a mattress (three, actually) came loose from the back of a truck on the 134 and struck the top of my car at 70 miles per hour.

had it been anything else in the world, we would be dead. thank god for the pillow top.

i didn't pull over because my friend and i weren't hurt and i couldn't see any damage from inside the car. we just heard a "thumpthump" on the roof and it was over.

the california highway patrol had already heard about the mattresses by the time i called them a half-hour later, but i'm not sure yet if they have any information from the guy driving the truck. i'll file an official report on monday, call my insurance company and hopefully someone will be able to find the driver.

we surveyed the damage at home. the roof above the driver's door looks like the outside of a space capsule after reentry. that a tyrannosaurus picked it up with its jaws. di said it looks like the fluted crust of a pie. physics doesn't fuck around.

a few hours later, someone hit my other friend's car.

it's only 11, but i think i'm staying in for the night. and i'm going to sleep under a sturdy table.

murmur

2007-02-14T18:50:00.000-05:00

in my office:

a woman. velvet pants with pink embroidered hearts. red shirt with flashing (read: battery-powered) hearts. text: "i'm a keeper."

(i overheard her tell some guys she is attending a reading of erotic fairy tales tonight with her husband. maybe she was inspired by this?)

happy valentine's day.

get the guests

2007-02-09T12:58:00.000-05:00

the new of montreal album is called "hissing fauna, are you the destroyer?"

not only is that the most awesome title for a record ever, but some of the tracks literally blow my mind. are blowing my mind, as i stand. splattered sauce all over inside the microwave.

go here and listen to track 7, "the past is a grotesque animal."

this is what the end of the world sounds like.

the mousy girl screams violence, violence
she gets hysterical because they're both so mean
and it's my favorite scene
but the cruelty's so predictable, it makes you sad on the stage

that is albee, y'all. fucking virginia woolf. who's afraid? i'm terrified.

my favorite part:

but you know no matter where we are
we're always touching by underground wires

restraining order romance.

shore

2007-02-06T22:59:00.000-05:00

even though it's freezing there
even though i live next to an ocean
sometimes you just wanna cross sheridan
walk past the boats and the trees
and sit on a giant rock by the lake.

found

2007-02-06T19:13:00.000-05:00

mantua, italy. 5000 years old.

tiptoe

2007-02-06T14:35:00.000-05:00

"we make strange deals with ourselves."

don't we, though?

forget new year's resolutions for a second, those precocious, hyperactive children of our best intentions that grab and shake the chain-link fence that surrounds the january 1st merry-go-round. a few days later the bell rings and they scamper away, inside for lunchables, maybe peanut butter & fluff, never a peep from them again. we love them because they never outstay their welcome.

i'm talking about the quiet kid with glasses, perpetually held back, the one that stays at his desk for recess and feeds the class gerbil because he needs the extra credit. he is the manifestation of the little daily bargains we make to get ourselves out of bed in the morning, unnoticed and neglected until he brings a gun to school and starts firing blind during assembly.

those are the thoughts you have to watch out for, the quiet ones that keep to themselves, just squeezing through, just passing by, slipping like a note under a door through the folds in your grey matter.

some of your high-achieving neurons want to do something great. they spark and squeak, rubbing their hands together and spitting out the steps, one by one, their voices helium-high. you can't help but pay attention. they paint the picture so convincingly. it's going to be beautiful.

meanwhile the dunce stares at the floor, his heels hitting the legs of his rickety stool. he's whispering. speak up, you say, giving him a chance. the whisper becomes a mumble. i still can't hear you. more mumbling.

you'll just have to speak louder, you tell him.

you turn back to your little geniuses, your precious eggs full of green greatness, but something's changed. their vibrations are slower, their expressions blank. they mill around and bounce off each other, dead and dumb. you leave them for a second and look what happens.

the dunce is still there, staring straight ahead. he sees your loss. then, something extraordinary. across his face, what would be a smile on any other living thing breaks out, but on him it's a thick black line.

easy

2007-02-05T12:57:00.000-05:00

i woke up buzzing, but i think i might have caught a bug. i can always tell because i get that feeling like my brain's made of hot, pulsing oatmeal and it's spread thick on the inside of my skull, temple to temple. i'm not feeling terribly original today, so i'm going to post someone else's words...

this is how it works
you're young until you're not
you love until you don't
you try until you can't
you laugh until you cry
you cry until you laugh
and everyone must breathe
until their dying breath

no, this is how it works
you peer inside yourself
you take the things you like
and try to love the things you took
and then you take that love you made
and stick it into some
someone else's heart
pumping someone else's blood
and walking arm in arm
you hope it don't get harmed
but even if it does
you'll just do it all again

i think she's right.

skill crane

2007-02-01T17:06:00.000-05:00

headache.

too much caffeine? too little? i'm never sure.

maybe it's my new jeans? i didn't wash them. perhaps the skin on my legs is absorbing the dye and i'm being poisoned. intravenous indigo.

i'm not walking today; it's more of a trudge. something's dragging me along. i know how the teddy bears in those toy machines feel, there behind the glass. the metal claw pinching your head sure hurts, but it's nice to let something else do all the work. down the chute. point a to point b, in pain, but still.

swaddled

2007-01-31T14:08:00.000-05:00

if i came across a hole in the ground today that looked especially comfortable, i wouldn't think twice about crawling in and staying there for a while.

some people need a break maybe once a year. a nice week in hawaii. business is brisk? take the family to spain. i need one every few days.

cindy, i'll be leaving the office early. hold my messages. i need to go home and hide under my down comforter.

if only we knew

2007-01-30T13:34:00.000-05:00

i am terrible with money. chekhovian. i buy silks and stoles while rome (er, moscow) burns.

also, the tip of my index finger (near the puncture) seems to be a little numb. i have not yet decided if this gives me some kind of tribal street cred or terrifies the shit out of me.

sliced

2007-01-29T13:41:00.000-05:00

on sunday i was wiping crumbs off the kitchen counter with a sponge and my finger ran right into a brand new knife that was hiding in the dish rack between some bowls and plates, waiting to pounce.

i saw the blood, everywhere, before i even realized what happened. then the pain. very dull pain, the kind that seems to mean "you just did something dumb."

i watched the blood pump out for a second, warm and thin. i noticed it had splattered everywhere, the floor, the dishwasher, the toaster, even on the cabinet doors above my head. i pressed the cut together and stuck my fingers under the faucet. held it for a few minutes and let go. still gushing. held again, longer this time. let go. more gushing.

i couldn't find a bandaid so i made a napkin/scotch tape bandage and called my mom. i asked her if she thought i needed stitches. she said she was 2000 miles away and didn't know if i needed stitches, but she thought it was unlikely.

i've always wanted stitches.

the bleeding stopped, of course, but throughout the course of the day (driving, shopping, cooking, washing, hammering) i kept bumping and smacking my finger, each time snapping the chemical cables i imagined my body was building to bring the two pieces of skin together, the tiniest versions of the peninsulas in the san francisco bay.

i bought some bandaids and went through four before bed. the tip of my finger was pasty and raw. swollen? looked like it. infected? hoped not. remembering the logic that seemed to govern all childhood injuries, i decided the wound needed to "air out." so, back to the homemade bandage, toilet paper this time. i gave my finger a final rinse and blotted the gash with the toilet paper. still giving little red kisses. i was worried about a potential eruption. white sheets be damned, i thought, i'm going to sleep.

when i woke up the bandage had slipped off and my finger had indeed aired out. a stiff, satisfying crust had formed over the cut and the wound itself was clearly defined. it almost looked like an arabic character, a combination of angles and curves.

i showered without incident, being careful not to apply too much pressure to my fingertip lest the burgeoning scab dissolve. despite my best efforts, after drying off the cut was fresh and pink again. i could see the blood on its way. magma in the canyon. i put another bandaid on and tried to forget about it.

at work now; so far, so good.

i'm hoping for a scar.

rote

2007-01-26T02:54:00.000-05:00

i used to know this by heart:

Ruth's caught short by the brutal, hollow, anonymous question. It goes in one ear and down those canals, freezing all the nerves in her face and pushing blood away from her heart in fast hydraulic whooshes that leave her thrumming, bloodless but wildly alive. "I'm Nobody -- who are you?" Ruth says, recovering at once.

i forgot it so i had to call my mom and have her find the book (the bostons, by carolyn cooke) in a box in the basement and send it to me.

so here it is.

russian breakfast

2007-01-25T12:51:00.000-05:00

the security guard in the lobby at work is really cool. she was born in latvia, has lived all over europe, speaks at least 4 languages fluently, and comes into our office frequently for a snack from the kitchen.

this morning she offered me some russian chicken salami. at 9:30. she sliced me off a nice thick chunk with a plastic knife. "all for you," she said.

all for me. a grey disc of gristle.

i didn't make any promises. i told her i might not like it. i wondered why i didn't just say i don't eat meat.

i bit off the tiniest piece, chewed and swallowed. savory, to say the least.

"too early for this," i said. "more for lunch. maybe on a sandwich?"

she agreed. "i don't eat pork," she said. "salami at the store, the italian kind, it's all made with pork. and it's like ten dollars a pound."

i nodded politely. i had never really thought about how much a pound of salami costs.

she pointed to the tube of meat. "and this is good!" she said, like she wouldn't eat the other stuff even if it were free.

i took another nibble, even tinier than the first one. chew, swallow, smile.

she smiled back. i passed the test. she put the salami back in her plastic grocery bag, grabbed her daily wild cherry pepsi and left.

blush

2007-01-24T01:02:00.000-05:00

[redacted] 10:03: ok fine
[redacted] 10:03: you are a disaster... the writing is solid as a rock

huge

2007-01-23T18:37:00.000-05:00

Making Sense of Time, Earthbound and Otherwise

this made me smile. just like that. i'd like to meet her.