Category: Uncategorized

Her mother is dying. She’s made it very clear, through photographs and a description—that description, of fluids and fallacies.

He wants more coffee. He’s made it very clear, waving his thick, ragged index my way, under that crisp foam hat, amidst wrinkles and a livid complexion.

She’s a single mom. She’s making it clear, that her food stamps make it alright to go out on Saturday night, to leave her son with the Dad she mistook for forever, or just mistook.

He’s balding. It’s so clear, it’s painful and alarming. His mustaches conceals hours of sports statistics, and he’s a phony.

She thinks I’m a little demon. In jest she’s made it clear, and she’s willing to borrow me her cat any given day, for the sake of not being alone.

Of course I remember this night. I was lushly drunk off wine and having a darling time, running around in high heels, dancing with dads. I made the floors crush and the doors rush with ready—whoa, whoa steady now! Stand up straight, I couldn’t wait to take another sip and trip over those nasty sidewalks ripped, from years of hot and cold they shift, I drifted clumsy into the night.

Then I fight, a blank memory and scrambled mind of matter and debris, see the couch and long to slink to my knees, to succumb, to breath deep and heave, ho, heave, ho, to release the dance and the heels, the pool, the drunken chatter, my longing to feel, and suddenly…

Breath deep, heave, sleep, and leave. And on to a morning to pull myself together, so secret an abandoned eve.

It’s tomorrow already. I’m still awake, going to bed is and has been overrated since the 17th century. I’ve drank, twice my weight in tea, in thinking of better days. I’m still awake, my hairs are flayed in all sorts of greasy, mystical, maniacal directions of stress and late. I’m past care and before sleep. I’m still awake.

It’s today now and I’m still awake, and I’m going to thank everyone for each day. Thanks, thanks for calling and thanks for smiling and thank you for carrying my groceries to my car. Thanks for writing back, thanks for turning down the radio, thank you. Thank you for doing my laundry, for retaining my sanity, for the gift card and the get-well. Thanks for turning the heat on. Thanks for liking my eyes, thanks for running up the bill, and thank you, thank you for changing the toilet paper roll.

I thank you for each day, for this day we didn’t talk, and that day that I took the time to walk around the block and see, the folks I don’t usually see. Thanks for the .41 between my car seat, thanks for the extra cup with my tea, thanks for staying put. Thanks for the trash, and taking out the trash, and making me feel like trash. Thank you, and you, and you. Thanks for wiping your feet. Thank you for taking the time, and the space to realize that I’m waiting…still.

Everyone, thanks. I’m still awake.

P.S.

More thank you’s available here.

I excessively dwell on the past.

Richard Avedon, Bob Dylan, musician, Central Park, New York, February 10, 1965, Gelatin silver print, 19-1/2 x 15-5/8″,
© 2008 The Richard Avedon Foundation.

I saw this photograph at the Foam Museum in Amsterdam. It was by chance that I found the museum, and on the last day of the exhibit’s showing. Ambling through room after room of Avedon photographs—authentic prints that’d been worked by his very hands. It was by and far one of the most glorious events of my life.

Oh, so beautiful.

It was my last visit to London. I remember taking the Underground to St. John’s Wood, then talking to a handsome fellow working at the station. He gave me a map to Abbey Road and I walked the several blocks through a quiet neighborhood, absorbing the tranquil houses and beautiful gray skies. I remember making the cross, in the same footsteps as John, Paul, Ringo, George and tourists. I remember that afternoon, walking Abbey Road by myself on a rainy Sunday. I had strangers take my photograph. I ran my hands across the worn graffiti on the walls of Abbey Road Studios, thinking of the Beatles, and the 60’s, fortune and luck. How lucky I was to be in London…

It aches. I miss every step of the journey, every day, every single day, all the time.

I bought a BIG, shiny new book today (that cost an arm and a leg).

I’m hoping this is the onset of something fantastic.

And,

I’m sinking.