A Clean Pair of Eyes

The sweet release I hardly believed would occur before Thanksgiving nudges me into a pair of shoes Sunday, having finally finished the project that has kept me inside for over a month, weeks of which I lost track but that were measured dimly by depleting packs of instant oatmeal and the oft-improbable hope that maybe, maybe, the tunnel I’d lost myself in would have an exit. I find myself stumbling outside of my apartment for the first time in days, wincing at the sunlight — it streams through the iron gates that protect the nearby Catholic school courtyard in dizzying fingertips, and for a moment I lose my balance. It’s at once as if I have never been outside before.




"There are no commitments," I say aloud. "Only bargains." A neutered line from Stoppard’s The Real Thing. I stop and stare at a squirrel perched at the merging of two sidewalks; it cocks its head in tune with mine; I've never before glimpsed such a creature. And while making my way to Clark Street, I pass strangers headed to food or people or objects and meet their eyes unselfconsciously — they are the very first human beings on Earth and I —I!— am granted permission to exist in their reality. 

That evening, I find myself at a friend’s Thanksgiving dinner, where it takes me over an hour to remember how to properly socialize with people I don’t know. I have forgotten how to converse as if it's as complicated as identifying planetary dust. By the time I get warmed up, I realize I'm exhausted. I go to bed without setting an alarm and when I wake I go for a wonderfully long run and then return to pack my bag for an afternoon at the café; while exiting through the back door I run into my next-door neighbor Ron and we have a convivial chat about nothing. I decide this is all I want: A neighbor whose name I know and a hot mug of coffee at a bakery with pretty lights, and once I get the name of the guy across the street from whom I buy the Sunday Times I will be completely set for a completely contented life. I consider this again as I refill my mug and a warm shudder pulses through me. What is the point beyond all these small things that add up in successive thrusts to equal seeing the world with the uncomplicated eyes of a child, a far-flung visitor, a patient emerging from distress. Hurrah, nuncles — happy feasting.

I Thought I Told You to Never Call Me Here!

I'm going to give up everything I'm doing right now in order to find these men:

Video Dating from the Found Footage Festival

This will be for a documentary film. If all goes well some of these men will be infirm and throw potatoes at me.

Bonuses would include meeting really old mothers (100 years +) who say things like, "Oh, well, you know Toooom. Such a goood boy buuut always misunderstooood," while Tom shouts in the background:

"Mom! DO YOU WANT TO EAT NOW? DO YOU NEED TO EAT, MOM?  SOUP? SOUP?!?!!"

Young Unemployed Person Painfully Indexing Everything

While contemplating current desires, I decided that my thwarted access to them due this unreasonable freelance project schedule falls under the umbrella of "yuppie problems." Of course, I mean this to be true only if "yuppie" stands for Your Unfortunate Pallor Presupposes Impossible Escape, or Your Unemployment Paycheck: Pretty Insufficient — Enjoy! 

I'd also give you more acronyms, but unlike most contemporary yuppies I am self-deprecating and like to give up on things right away.

On Sound and Sleep

You might think all melodies sound the same when you're on hour sixteen of your workday, but pitch — the intensity, the modulation, the rise and fall of a violin — it really makes a difference. I've been in a quiet spot today, and venture that Radiohead could have been a mistake. The last four albums I've listened to are Amnesiac, B-Sides, Hail to the Thief, and Kid A, in that order. By the time the Kid A cut of "Morning Bell" shimmied into my aural space, I thought I was going to die of heartache.

Thank you, voters, I will be smoking this medical marijuana overseas, as I nurse this aching bac—hip. Hip! I said, "hip," right? Oh, fuck it. I have cancer.

Because we live in a world that does not yet make sense (note: See Maine), I've decided it just as logical to marry myself and then fake my fake spouse's death (note: me), so my fake self and I can enjoy a delightful life together free from the confining structures of "society."

Do you know where people go when they fake their deaths? Barbados. That's right. The land of palm trees, delightful colorful buildings, and hurricanes named after terribly insecure but nice enough when you get to know them I guess secretaries. I know nothing at all about Barbados, except that it is a former British colony, which means that people in Barbados play cricket. They also clearly call each other "Sir" this-or-that and ride bicycles. So while you're off at your silly accounting job or painting your garage turquoise or wearing that stupid bow tie, I'll be swigging whiskey out of a jar with local cricket sensation Sir Jasper Kenneth Louisville Reginald Johnson IV. Unsurprisingly, he is quite the dandy.