there is a saying that i've had stuck in my head for four days, but i woke up today and i cannot remember how it starts. turning the broken stove on, lighting it with the lighter from the drawer, i can't help but forget. august didn't always feel like this. the kitchen cupboards are emptied completely onto the dining room table. the table we got from our old roommate's mom's middle school classroom. it has names and drawings carved into it, sanded, stained over. easy to miss. the fridge is empty too, except for the three jars of pickled radishes our friend gave us a while back. i eat them when i'm too hungry to function, too busy to make it to the grocery store, too lazy to make anything dignified. despite my persistent decline, i have not made a dent.
today i am motivated enough to make coffee, properly. i put on the kettle that's been broken since i bought it. the plastic piece that whistles is gone. it boils without warning. i once fell asleep with it on the stove. i woke up a few hours later to it empty and nearly red hot. silent. i take stock of the table. plates, bowls, vases, my collection of dried goods in their respective mason jars. why do i buy things so heavy when i must move them eventually? cast iron, dutch oven, large bags of flour, rice.
a friend once told me that when he first moved into his apartment in the city, for two years, he didn't put anything on the walls because he knew he'd have to take it all down eventually. it made me think of all the stories i had told that had given myself away. dried pasta, canned soup, an overpriced box of sugar from the grocery store. coffee. i grab the bag, reading the date, uncurling the top.
my mug is dirty. rinsing it out i realize we've packed the soap already. i fill the cup anyway. i've been wanting to write a short story, maybe fiction. i've been wanting to write it for a while. i always thought i'd write it here. in an apartment with the nice big kitchen windows. i drink my coffee looking out. my neighbors car won't start again. i can't believe it made it through this past winter, with how cold it got. after a while he get's it going, with the usual effort, and pulling away leaves a giant wet spot on the concrete. coolant or oil.
when i was younger i was at my grandma's house, and she had this big basket of apples on her kitchen table. they were there all year long, shiny, never changing. i knew they must be fake. i took a bite out of one. it was plastic and styrofoam and wooden. she laughs still when she tells the story. it sat there for years, i'm sure it still does somewhere. the wooden among the true. bitten and revealed.
i finish my coffee, strike a match and light what's left of the candlesticks on the table. we haven't burned these in ages. when we used to all sit around the table and work on our homework. or watch a movie. or tell stories. i burned through so many when i was alone in the house for a week over the winter and it snowed so much i could barely leave. i took a film photo somewhere, point and shoot. it's so overexposed that 3pm looks like midnight. thats when i liked the kitchen the most. despite how cold the tile floors get, even through thick socks. thick socks that are in a box somewhere in the next room.
the answer is almost certainly yes. i stare straight down the scope and nothing stirs. forbidden comma, borrowed fur. i'm counting down through the mask, knowing i'll never get there. 'all my fear, that you might hurt me is replaced with knowing just how bad you will. i'm looking forward to the kill.'
it feels like i'll never learn. i live everyday like it's my first. i just throw things at the wall until they stick or come bouncing back. usually im lucky. i write whatever comes out. i play guitar in the only way i know how. the way i learned off of youtube in the ninth-grade. its cowboy chords all the way down. 'we both know that i wouldn't be here, if i believed that i could have you.' sometimes i think i must have brain damage. i haven't learned my rights and lefts since slamming my head into a cabinet sophmore year. my memory goes hazy from future and past until it meets in the middle. i look down at my hands and swear they aren't mine; go to a friends house and lose my way (i'm listening to the directions). i watch true crime. then suddenly im smoking off the balcony in my underwear wondering if i should try a little harder to do something productive. maybe i should buy a self-help book.
im looking up youtube tutorials of how to take the brakes off of a bike. how to unscrew something when its stripped and rusted. what's the david foster wallace quote about claw marks? how to replace everything piece by piece. plank by plank. bike of theseus, blood of heraclitus. im too young for this, that's what everyone keeps telling me. i think i'm thinking too much about too many things that are not real. my neighbor's baby's cries bleed from the first floor to the third through the alleyway windows. i listen to 'looking forward to the kill' on repeat. 'i can only see him clearly when im keeping one eye closed.'
this blog post is inspired by johns music blog's public listening series, where he goes to a place/event, describes what is happening, and what music they are playing.
once again i have underestimated the amount of time i can stand to be with my own thoughts without writing them out. i bought a small hand bound notebook with animal teeth printed on it. i think its my fourth or fifth of the year. chicago is nice. it’s hot and dresses like a european, except you can buy a hotdog and the art museum is really loud. logan square reminds me of london, a city im not sure if i like. i took the blue line there holding a loaned iphone, i feel like a kid on a field trip let out on a long leash. once in logan square, i find the usual suspects of a hipster neighborhood: the co-op is having a free feminist-punk-zine event. vintage store. overpriced dog groomer. cats in backpacks. record store. cafe mustache. an out of place mcdonalds (?). across the street, i keep walking.
with my new journal i take a seat in ‘the brewed’ coffee shop, which is connected to a record store, because of course it is.
gluten free brownie, $8 coffee. i feel like a tourist. i sit like a tourist. my ankles wrapped around the legs of the chair like i'm afraid of it being pulled out from under me. crossing my purse strap under my arm, gripping my camera for dear life. i understand the pull of chicago on those from neighboring cities, on people from madison. the black and white checkered tile is nauseating. my back hurts. i've been walking so slow. i’m staying in town with a friend, her parents' house is really nice. earlier today, i ditched my friends for the late day adult general admission ticket at the art institute. i got lost in the contemporary wing looking for the exit. i’ve got the picture of dorian grey in my purse and an empty bottle of advil. And now, a gluten free brownie and $8 coffee. i finally start writing.
upwards and onwards - orange juice we start off strong with a little known scottish punk song from '82. nothing about this place says '82. everything about it is mod-revival, vinyl-gripping, retro-addicted, in a new millenium way. bobble-heads and all. the cafe closes in an hour and a half, the baristas have already begun to pack up- they are wiping all the tables down, stacking some chairs in the corner. its really nice outside, so i can't blame them for being eager
numb - lost balloons theres a corgi in a red vest pawing at the door, a no dogs sign hangs above its head. i brainstorm a jerry seinfeld bit, this city has opened my third eye to a tight-five. everything i see and hear feels new and notable. lost ballons are signed to a milwaukee record label, dirt nap records. this song is really good.
the thing about madison, wisconsin is that the culture itself mimics the isthmus shape. madison often feels so small, that if i were to lay down, my head pointing towards the capital, my feet towards campus, i could reach my hands out and my fingers could trace the outlines of the lakes lining the city. maybe you try and get up, get outta dodge, and you find yourself with no where to go. one lake leads to another, one road back to the same bike lane snaking the main part of town, and every conversation leads to the same conclusion sung with raised eyebrows- small world! maybe i'm sick of a small world. of my hands doing laps in the shallow end. my backs getting sore with state street underneath me, and im starting to get claustrophobic. lying on a 2x4 waiting for the wind to blow some sense out of me.
ouija board ouija board - morrisey was not expecting morrisey to follow such a feel-good hit. this song sucks.
suedehead - morrisey someone please take the aux chord away from the morrisey obsessed barista.
hairdresser on fire - morrisey well this is one way to clear the store a few minutes before you close up shop. i pack up my purse with every i've bought, and a long list of to-dos and what-ifs and where-tos. if i keep writing i fear this will become a love letter to anyone but home, so i'll stop before i get enough energy to run.
ive been listening to imy3 alot. i tried to burn a CD, but forgot how many hoops you have to jump through. i never went to the library. i never finished the book. i dont know if i will; oscar wilde isn't doing it for me like i thought he would. i left my laundry in the broken dryer for 4 hours today and it was so hot by the time i took it out, it burnt my palms. im watching house. im doing my school project way too late. reading an internet uploaded jd salinger novel off my computer to try and fall asleep. its hot in wisconsin again. i turn down plans. i read the short story again. im lonely. i eat buttered bread and push off the feeling. cold shower, new words. my eyebrow piercing will have to come out soon.
goddamn it. im talking to myself again. maybe it's excusable, considering my state. an empty bottle hitting the rim of the bathroom garbage can, laying on the tile floor. bent over and spilled out. whatevers left is unusable, inexcessible. im banging it against the side of the shower wall to get the last of the shampoo out. smells like lavendar with nothing to show for it. there are like three restaurants open late in the city. this one plays nothing out of its speaker system. im contemplaiting the reality of the security camera. i should be thinking about things more; but i can't look him in the face without my mind going blank. when im alone, i don't think of him, i think of nothing. i get a soy iced latte and read the new yorker. leaning over the magazine i really soak up the fiction section, its the only thing i can stomach. i finally found the disc to the movie i checked out of the library six months ago, i think today i'll finally return it. if it's not one thing it's another. i take the garbage out. im getting sick of the three flights of stairs up and down to the dumpster, to the apartment. the can still smells rotted even with nothing in it, i push it out onto the balcony. i've got tv on in the background, i know its bad for me. i can't write anything interesting today, but that won't stop me.
"i think the problem with your generation is you think about yourselves too much. it's bound to drive you crazy." i order take out again, pushing off the grocery list, the laundry day, the parents visit. i'm reading oscar wilde and convincing myself i understand what love is and that i am able to discern a faithful adaptation. i hate every character.
"the two greatest causes of suffering in a persons life are love and death." is there (apart of) life without suffering, even if it's instantaneous? an experience loses its momentum, its purpose, if it is simply split up into little tiny segments. if the present is an instantaneous moment, one is bound to speak only of the past, or to lie about the future. i eat egg fried rice and remember that all of freshman year of college i ate the dining hall eggs without salt because i didn't know they stored it by the silverware.
this one might be a long one, but only if i'm lucky. last year on the fourth of july, i was dating a guy who hosted a barbeque at his house. i ate potato salad and drank a matcha lemonade that i brought over from work. i had worked a full shift before. i remember living my life like that. bringing only my favorite small purse out and about, then to his house, after what ever i was doing. I remember being ready to be unprepared and yet completely willing to spend the night. to fall asleep on the couch watching tv. to wake up unwashed and unbrushed and confused, to put on the clothes wrinkeled on the floor, the same socks i'd worn to work the day before. i just remember that feeling, being completely willing.
while no longer completely willing, i do still miss the summer before this one. playing cup-pong with people i'll never see again, holding hands in an over-airconditioned room, and eating gluten free pizza. being called the wrong name, and still being completely willing. jello-shots and hot-dogs and secret fireworks and skinny dipping and those busch lite cans with the corn kernels on them. learning guitar, cowboy chords, jazz vinyls flipping to the right side, to rhythm-a-ning, and awkward conversations over french dinners.
despite how much i do it, i don't love reminiscing. nastolgia is a sharp pain in my lower back that's kept me in bed all week. i wonder if i'll ever escape my deep hunger for the summer before. it's not special. i felt it last summer too– something unmoveable. memories like mountains, looming purple in the background. feeling so small, and calling an hour-drive short, turning 19 in a cowboy hat. i'll never play a worse game of pool in my life. i've never known so few people in a place i was so willing to call home.
a few more fourth of july's before this one, i'd like to think i had my first kiss. i'm not sure if that's true, but it doesn't really need to be. ontop of the ferris wheel as i remember. or maybe a friend had told me. or maybe i'd read it in a magazine, or a novel, or a song. either way i miss that summer before too. sparklers and big buckets of water on either end of the sidewalk to dunk them in when they burned close to our thumbs. my dog trying to eat a firework and burning his whiskers off. angel-food cake, whipped cream, and strawberries. blue icees and movie theater popcorn. skinned knees and sunburnt shoulders. sitting close together, far from our parents, at the park. thinking i was grown up in bermuda denim shorts and a tight tank top with the bra built in. i'm sure i had lost something that day, as i often do. i'm sure i wasn't worried about it.
on this fourth of july, i'm in bed with pain shooting down my back. my friends are playing pool down the street. some people light off fireworks in the parking lot across from my building, but only last a few minutes before the cops start yelling. i'm getting tired and i watch a movie in the dark. i'm thinking about the summer before and being completely willing. my back hurts. i'm happy with where i am.
