dispatches kerry a whole day at the shore and no pictures to show for it. i woke up to a text from my mom that said our dog was not doing well. then another text before i had the chance to call her that morning saying they had called the vet and this was the end, essentially. texts from my brother arrived echoing, she's not well, she can't walk, she hurts. dad is on the way home from blue ridge, they both said. the vet wasn't around over the weekend so she, rosie, was essentially in hospice for the rest of the weekend. in the car on the way to jersey i was on the phone with my mom and she was telling me the details and it was clear from her voice that she'd already cried plenty. this dog is my mom's entire world. i felt like the phone was burning my face. my eyes were stinging. i said suddenly "i have to go" and she understood. we went to whale beach where they don't require beach tickets which also means there are no amenities like a bathroom, just an overflowing porta-potty. it's early in the season so still too cold to swim--i saw maybe four people in the water. alex went in for a dip and came back sputtering. there were so many bodies, so much tan and leathery skin. i was pale and vampire-like in my black suit. we split a hoagie from wawa and i licked the mustard off my fingers. ate strawberries ripe enough to melt in your mouth. i read a japanese novel and felt myself baking, burning, hair becoming crunchy in the damp salty breeze. it was so windy i began to get chilly. at the boardwalk were kids serving ice cream and hot dogs with tip jars labeled "tips for college," teenagers in miniscule bikinis and sunglasses, families, old folks. the bathroom smelled like seawater and piss and a trio of girls clustered together giggling to take a selfie in the bathroom mirror. "what is the difference between ice cream and custard?" i asked and he didn't hear me. this is his childhood. it’s all brand new to me, a novelty. the beaches i went to as a kid were empty. we didn't eat taffy and pretzels, we ate shrimp. i fell asleep in the car on the way back. peter spent the entire night with rosie in the living room where they moved her bed. he created some kind of sling to hold her up when they took her out to pee. he said you couldn't leave her alone even for a moment, she'd try to get up and fall flat on her face, she was either sleeping or restless. that night i talked to my dad and then my mom and they were telling me how pitiful she was and to please believe them, it was time, with belle sometimes he wondered if they'd done it too early but with rosie there was no question, and i could hear peter blabbering on about whatever just obviously trying to be so strong, and everyone has their own way of coping but i had to just get off the phone again because his "strength" was so irritating. and i didn't see why any of us needed to pretend to be strong right then. 220627 ... kerry it was so goddamn hot. i could feel sweat dripping down my back and chest as i was walking to this bar called fountain porter, some place where the bagel kids go after their shift, i suppose they used to go to decompress and commiserate but now they're unionized and they go to toast and be merry. so i was walking and sweating and not wanting to think about rosie or my family, i just kept thinking over and over how hot is it? and then was tempted to pull out my phone and check the temperature but what's the point, knowing the degrees won't make it any cooler, and what the hell does fountain porter mean, and i sure would like to get blasted and pretend my entire life is here instead of splintered between pennsylvania and georgia and whatever other dimensions and universes where i reside. shove open the heavy door, a blast of air conditioning and grunge music. in the dim i see alex's bright turquoise shirt. it is a sweater shirt, and i pluck at the sleeve to get his attention. "how on earth did you walk around in this heat wearing this?" i said. eli with the round john lennon glasses and damp curly hair said "i said exactly the same thing." the three of us sat at a tiny table and eli told us about living in berlin and having to come home, about buffalo new york, and i wanted to ask questions about bagels but i didn't because they spend the whole day thinking and talking and making the best bagels in the city. thinking about the things we want to say but can't or don't, things we should say but don't want to, should've said but couldn't, things people want us to say. i call my parents and i don't know what to say, but maybe they aren't waiting for anything in particular, maybe it's just the closeness. mom told me dad was sobbing. she said what she's said before, which is that (until now) she's only seen him cry like cry cry once, when peter hudson died. that is why my brother is named peter, because he was someone whose death could make someone as stoic as my dad cry like a little boy. i sat on my bed and i was so tired of holding it in and i told my mom how guilty i felt for not being there, with them, how much it hurt not to be with her when she passed, and how for the past few years every time i've left atlanta i've said goodbye to rosie and told her "i'll see you soon, mama," and silently i also told her goodbye--i thought, please wait for me, but if you can't, i understand. i always did that. and the last time i saw and left her, i didn't do that. i didn't say Goodbye, even with my face pressed to hers, i just said i'd see her soon, i guess because she was so old at that point it started to seem like she would never die. and i took it for granted that she'd wait for me again. and that was what i felt so torn up about, that i didn't say goodbye, that i could be so careless even in my heart. i cried so hard and it was like a curtain falling down, though a good cry is cathartic, it's like finishing a meal, like tying a bow. i wished i could be with my dad when he cried, because i know he's afraid to cry like that, and i would've liked to sit beside him and be sad together and maybe make him feel less ashamed about being so torn up. when i talked to him i could hear it in his voice and he said "i didn't know i had it in me." and i said "of course you do, of course you do." 220627 ... kerry today joy flew back from portugal. it's good timing--a distraction from rosie, from wondering how my family is doing, how they slept, how silent the house was this morning, how suddenly unstructured their days are now. i decided to structure my day carefully, which i only do out of necessity, when it feels like otherwise things may fall apart. put everything in order. eat a light snack high in protein. work out. eat breakfast high in protein and complex carbs. shower. do laundry. make up joy's bed, tidy what i call her "cave." finish notes for work. dishes. houseplants. dog. she texted me at 1:40pm: "i'm in a taxi! i'm covered in sweat and my bags r full of crockery" when she got here louie went absolutely bonkers, barking at her, flying all over the place, flinging toys around. i thought his tiny little peanut heart might explode. she sat on the floor and i got her a fizzy water and she showed me what nine days of hiking along the portuguese coast will do to your feet, and showed me the tiles she bought, and gave me some crockery: a sugar-bowl with a lid, saucer, and spoon, all shaped like a little eggplant sitting on a bed of leaves. louie tried to climb into her bags. she told me about the sardine festival, about her friend's homestead and the compost toilet. things i've bought off the internet in the past few days: -a used hardback copy of alice in wonderland with the original illustrations -a necklace (one i've put off buying for years) with a tiny pendant that says i have seizures and this is the emergency number and my name, because i now have them all the time and totally unexpectedly -a big stone with leaves and ROSIE: 2006-2022 engraved on it, shipped to my parents' house where are the lightning bugs? why does it feel like i'm the only one who misses them? 220628 ... kerry we got ramen bowls from aki nom nom and ate them in the kitchen around the island. i stood and they sat. conversation ebbed and flowed. "i wonder what happened to nicole kidman," she said, which led to a conversation about scientology, and a high school paper alex wrote about l.ron hubbard, and did you know he got a ship of fleets-- we chuckle. "that could be a band name." "a fleet of ships to go out in the open sea where there's no laws and he could just do whatever the fuck he wanted" "and he claimed to have mental control over his body to the point that he could ejaculate without even getting hard, of course this is hearsay--" and she almost choked on her ramen, and i laughed and dribbled oily spiced broth on my chin, and louie growled, which is how he begs. an unattractive habit in my opinion. we watch clips of james acaster's last special and we laugh so hard we cry. joy is six hours ahead of us--she has to travel back in time so we can be together, or linger in time until we reach her--and she creeps up the steep staircase to sleep in her cave. alex and i go for a walk. it was so hot today that i felt like i was choking just trying to inhale but by night, it had cooled considerably. it was like oregon. there are not many times i miss oregon but i did love how the temperature dropped at night, and it could be 100 during the day but after dark you could emerge from your hiding places and stretch your arms and legs and breathe the cool clean air, and there were firs and pines and bats and thick green grass. so maybe there are a few things i miss. but you can find bats and grass elsewhere, right? 220628 ... kerry when i learned she was painting a mural on a wall in her house i said hey, i want you to paint a mural in my house too, and she said well then i will. so i saved a wall in the living room for her, a triangle under the stairs, by the doorway into the kitchen. what was a not-color wall became a pale, burned shade of lavender then was streaked with pale blue and before long i quit helping, just sat at the table by all the brushes and pots of paint and watched her play and experiment and ponder and have what bob ross would call happy accidents. i listened to her happy whistling and the sticky sound of the paint roller and the whisper of the wide flat brush that she whipped back and forth like breeze through grass. it's suggestive of a grotto, she said, and then snorted. suggestive. grotto. what am i talking about. she said do you like it? i hope you aren't just sitting there thinking god i hate this. i said i like it, and do whatever you want, the wall is yours, i trust you. uh oh, she said to the wall. she trusts me, we're in trouble now. at one point she turned to me and said you look like a tortoise, eating that apple so slowly, contemplatively. i said, no one's ever told me i looked like a tortoise before. and it was funny to me because i was eating that apple really slowly, and i was feeling contemplative. i was thinking about bob ross and happy accidents and then i was wondering if i did a mural on another wall what would it be, and mainly i was watching as she stood back to look at her work and consider her options and i was thinking of where i would go next if it were me, and trying to anticipate where she would put the brush, and i was always wrong, always surprised. 220629 ... kerry joy is still so jetlagged that she falls asleep randomly through the day. she went to take a nap and at 6 i texted her from downstairs: "want tacos for dinner?" she wrote back "yahhh" and i sent her a screenshot of the menu for el molino, a little family-owned tortilleria around the corner, and she didn't respond. i tapped on her door about twenty minutes later, silence. i texted her "ordering you veggie tacos, if you don't want em someone else will eat them tomorrow." the carne asada was delicious. put too much green salsa on them, mouth was scalding, took some of the crema that came with alex's quesadillas. we were watching the witches--jim henson, 1990, anjelica huston, brilliant--and drinking lime-water when she finally emerged. she seemed disappointed in the veggie tacos--they didn't have cheese on them. later alex and i were standing in the kitchen and he was ranting about work and the ineptitude of his bosses and the workers who were being fired and the strikes they needed to arrange and i was peeling a blood orange and handing him every other segment. mmm hmm. eat this. i hear you. hmm. finally he announced he needed to take a walk to clear his head, and while he was gone joy and i watched a hulu show called "the bear" that makes me romanticize aspects of working in a restaurant and makes me want to visit chicago, and i was thinking of how alex has basically forbade me to take night walks for the time being, because in the past couples weeks i have had a small seizure on literally every night walk. i don't know why it happens then and not during the day; there is something about my brain that is looser, maybe, less vigilant. more stimuli gets in. i'm more relaxed. i don't know, these are just theories. but it makes me sad, because i love night walks. and now i have this little necklace with a dime-sized pendant with the caduceus faintly inscribed on it and my basic info on the back, and it is not intended as prevention of seizures only as protection against police who will think i am a junkie and arrest me if i have a seizure in public (this happens, i've heard many stories) or people who call an ambulance that will send me a bill for $1400 not even including what i have to pay for the ER visit itself (this has happened to me), but still it feels like it should be a talisman, prevention, and sadly it is not. but i am wearing it anyway. alex comes home and goes to sit on the patio while we're watching tv and when the episode is over i go outside to water the plants and see what he's up to. he's sitting in one of the chairs i put together listening to a podcast and smoking a cigar. "whatcha got there," i say. a plume of thick smoke covers his face, turquoise glasses, ball cap. "it's almost done." "let me have some." i've forgotten how to smoke a cigar. don't inhale, just hold it in your mouth. it burns my chest. it makes my head feel all swimmy. for a brief time in oregon we smoked the occasional cigar. it was a phase. one afternoon, first year in corvallis, we got cigars and puffed on them next to the willamette river and he was wearing a denim vest i've since stolen and i was wearing a knit cap i've since given away, and i was wearing contacts, and we both felt very lost at the time. we went up to portland and stayed at a hotel called the kennedy school, that's it's name because it is an elementary school repurposed into a hotel, and they had a cigar bar. we bought cigars and cut them and there was a flame that was always burning at the corner of the bar and i ordered bulleit bourbon, neat, and learned how to light a cigar, which is not like lighting a cigarette. it is a slow turning kind of process. we moved outside to sit near the pool which was long and narrow and dark blue because there was no one there to complain about the smoke, and we still felt lost, but a little less so. i tried again, to puff and not inhale, and could not do it. i gagged a little and wiped my mouth and felt wobbly while i dumped water all over the poppies and cornflowers and the fig tree, and i thought this is is probably for the best. 220701 ... kerry i'd guess half of the people on my instagram feed are posting memes and whatnot about gun violence--maps of where mass shootings have taken place, links to news articles and videos, quotes, memes about the history of violence in the us, comparisons of gun violence in the states versus everywhere else that white people live. this has replaced all the exact same content regarding roe v wade and women's bodies and who is going to adopt these would-be-aborted children and more history and abortion will not go away it will just be illegal, and here is where to donate money, and planned parenthood isn't all it's cracked up to be. and some affirmations and self-care tips sprinkled throughout. selfies taken at rallies and protests, pictures of children holding signs with salty statements. i leave work and squint in the direction of the capitol building, where i can hear but can't see that people have gathered to protest. i think it must be about mutual support and just knowing there are people in the world who care like you do, even if you can't really do anything about what's happening besides scream and make signs and wear t-shirts with slogan. a teeny part of me considers wandering over to check out the scene, but the rest of me is tired from an hour and a half of sitting with two disgustingly wealthy and privileged people, trying to find ways to empathize and validate their problems, because it's true we do all have problems and it's really not a competition. but i feel sour and tired. on the subway platform everyone looks weary and no one speaks. some girls hold shopping bags from clothing stores. a kid nonchalantly tosses a blunt onto the tracks. a haggard looking woman asks me if this train will take her to oregon avenue where she has to catch a bus and i say yes, and i suppose she's not quite convinced by my answer so she goes and asks someone else the same question. already knowing his answer i ask alex what all of this protesting and posting really does and he says in a deadpan voice "nothing." it changes nothing, it is just comfort. he says if you really want to make change get the fuck involved, on a local level. i know i should do this. i felt like i was making change when i was working with homeless people, pointless as it sometimes seemed, though i was getting paid to do it. i got my hands on some trazodone for louie since he's so upset by fireworks. the sedative hits relatively quickly. joy and alex and i are sitting in the living room with beers and seltzer and hemp cigarettes, laughing as he struggles to maintain control. he wears an expression i've never seen before; he's trying so hard to maintain control. joy says he looks like he's hallucinating memories of vietnam. the fireworks go all night, and they're so close they make my head feel funny. eventually i look at my phone and see there's been a shooting at a 4th of july parade in a chicago suburb and another only an hour ago where people gathered to watch fireworks behind the art museum, on the ben franklin parkway here in philly, and two cops are dead and there are cellphone videos taken from high rise condos of crowds of people running. i want to be surprised or shocked or sad but at this point i know until it happens close to or to me i will become more and more apathetic and cynical. who has the energy to emote every time they read shit like this? and i wonder if there actually is any solution at this point. fewer guns obviously but how? mental health examinations? my grandfather was an upstanding citizen whatever that looks like, a retired CEO, a good southern man, and he bought a gun and did something unforgivable. it wasn't a mass shooting but it was another gun in the hands of someone who shouldn't have had it. and that is why i am afraid of guns, because of him, not because of some loner in the suburbs. 220705 ... kerry this afternoon: coffee and fries at melrose diner, the first time in a good while. a few days ago paloma told me "they" might be demolishing the diner--something about the property being sold, developed, i don't know. some people were saying it wasn't the diner itself, it was the parking lot next to it. melrose diner being demolished after 82 years?? what a preposterous idea, i thought. what nonsense. and i was really annoyed with paloma for even entertaining the thought, for telling me at all. a classic case of killing the messenger. i was in ikea. my feet were very sore and the small of my back was sweaty and i was wearing a white and red ballcap. i felt generally tired and disgusting and desperate for a shower and needed this to not be true. i called the diner and asked about it. "that's a rumor," the woman on the phone said. a rumor may or may not be true. but i am choosing to be optimistic. the diner has been open since 1940; therefore, it will last forever. this is the same logic i had when it concerned rosie, our family dog. she's made it to 16, so that proves she is immortal. so we were sitting at the counter eating our fries and drinking our coffee, and the lights around the ceiling were turning from orange to red to pink to purple to green and so on, and there were new signs printed on computer paper advertising strawberry shortcake and cannolis and coconut cream pie. surely if they are introducing coconut cream pie to the menu, they have no intention of going anywhere, i told myself. alex suggested we ask our waitress. i vetoed the idea. no way. why? she's so young, i said. what are you talking about? she'll cry. or not be able to answer. she'll stutter. you're not making any sense. we could ask one of the old ones, the ones who have 'seen it all.' but we can't ask her that kind of question. hootie & the blowfish was playing on the speakers, and we both wondered aloud, whatever happened to hootie? i said that song as much as i hate it reminds me of being a little kid, and he said that made sense because it was released when i was a kid. it's the same nostalgic feeling i get when i hear anything by the gin blossoms and dave matthews band. i don't really like any of these bands, but i had a very happy childhood, and hearing this music makes me think of: my soccer team, the blue wave stained glass windows and crystal sun catchers purple tie-dye, and the color purple in general ferns our trampoline lawless summer days when we went out to play early and only came back when we were hungry 220707 ... kerry i woke up with streaks of coffee ice cream dried on my shins and one forearm, and i thought, today will be a good day. i stood in the kitchen in my noam chomsky shirt and cooked oatmeal on the stove. outside it was almost drizzling, more like spitting. when the oatmeal was done i tossed in a palmful of pecans and a cut up peach, a teeny bit of pink salt on top. movin to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches movin to the country, gonna eat me a lot of peaches sitting on the green velvet couch with a glowing bowl of oatmeal i noticed another streak of ice cream on my right thigh and i thought about how glad i was that i went out and was social last night even though i knew hardly anyone, what a rejuvenating feeling to laugh and wander with people and enjoy music and ice cream. there were six of us and i only knew one person but it was a good group, we sat in the piazza in the italian market and talked and ate rosemary potato chips and one person had a juice-box filled with sake and someone else had brought a ukulele, because there was an open mic and she was going to get up on the stage and strum and sing. we'd thought the open mic was in the piazza but it was actually in an alleyway on a stage bordered by different plants--ferns, a fig tree, some flowers--and above the stage and seats, which were plastic school chairs, hung countless paper lanterns in shades of purple, blue, pink, and orange, so it had this cozy, celestial quality, and after she finished her ukulele set a guy got on stage and sang david bowie songs and he was covered in sweat. we walked to john's water ice where they were handing out free pretzels and i got ice cream, which got all over my face and dripped down my arm and as i discovered today also onto my legs, and we all walked with our ice cream and our water ice back to the piazza laughing and chatting and i felt like a kid. lily told me about running a marathon and her enormous cat and i said i liked her glasses, and rachel dug through her purse which she called her mary poppins bag and gave me napkins and hand sanitizer so i could try to clean myself off. at the end of the night i barely caught the 45 bus, and i spent the ride in a happy daze. i skipped down ritner towards home and didn't notice the ice cream drying on my skin. i was in a daze again today, a gentle quiet calm, when we were walking in the again-not-quite-drizzle, more just droplets, like tears. when we passed by korshak's a girl ran out the door and hollered, alex! do you want some bagels? we're going to throw them out. i was already eating a bagel but you can never have too many (good) bagels, so alex took the big paper sack full, and we went to twin smoke shoppe because he had a wild hair and wanted to buy a cigar. stepping in the cigar shop i wished i liked cigars. i have tried several times and just can't. but i enjoyed the darkness of the shop, piles of old cigar boxes for $1 a piece, some old men puffing away and watching baseball on tv and grumbling and elbowing and joking. alex got a three-pack and a cutter and the guy threw in some matches for free. millions of peaches, peaches for me millions of peaches, peaches for free there is one peach left. i will eat it on the patio tonight looking at the fig tree and how quickly it's grown and alex will fill the place with velvet blue smoke and the peach juice will drip down my wrist to my elbow and i'll wash it off and go to sleep dreaming of marathons and rain and peaches. 220709 ... kerry maybe not an original idea but don't dreams set the tone for your day? last night in my sleep i found myself in a crowd of people i haven't seen in a very long time, and he was there, and he saw me right when i saw him. he smiled the way he always did and walked right up to me, wrapped his arms around me, lifted me off my feet and swung me around, and set me down so our faces were close together. i commented on his jacket and striped tie, something i'd never see him wear in real life, and he commented on my vest i would also never wear, and i thought maybe people were watching but i didn’t care because i was dizzy with desire. and i woke up kind of embarrassed to be dreaming about this person this way, but i also felt like somehow anything could happen. and it did happen to be that jackie was arriving that day. she was standing on the curb outside baggage claim C looking impossibly cool in a denim vest and denim shorts, streaks of brown in her black hair where she'd bleached it months ago, legs long and tan. we hugged and then looked at each other and then hugged again, and then looked at each other again, smiling in disbelief, like finally, finally! there are people i think who make you feel settled, in a way, and you realize there has been something very important missing. and you change a little bit when you're with them, not reverting exactly but returning, resting in a comfortable part of yourself where things make sense and you know more clearly who you are and where you've come from. that's pretty abstract, but i don't know how else to put it. she is loud, she walks in the house and looks around and says, "oh, you WOULD!" which is a compliment, and she crouches down and babbles happy nonsense to louie, calling him louis. happy sitting on the new couch, happy touring the house, happy tomato pie from cacia's, happy pot of coffee after a plane trip. i've had a lot of guests recently and it's amusing to note how different they are in an unfamiliar space and what their different needs are. she needs almost nothing, except to move, move, move. when i called her a few days ago to ask what she's been eating for breakfast lately because i'm going to the store, and does she have any requests, she says, "i'll eat anything, basically anything. except maybe a honeybaked ham. not crazy about that. or velveeta. but otherwise i'm good." "no honeybaked ham, gotcha. no problem." we walk down passyunk and i take her to the reptile store where we look into the aquariums at the turtles and dart frogs and snakes and iguanas and we spend a long time ooing and ahhing at a large turquoise chameleon that shoots its tongue out to catch an insect--"we were lucky, so lucky!" she says--and we fall into mesmerized silence as it climbs down the branches and leaves in its habitat and clings to the mesh, and she comments on its little hands, how they are like mittens. it's hard to tear ourselves away. i buy some plant food and we continue on. she would like some juice so we go to a place at the corner of dickinson and passyunk that has overpriced juice--"but isn't all juice overpriced?"--and she gets something with carrot and i get something with pineapple. sitting under an awning at a table outside she says how she LOVES carrot juice, oh there is nothing like a good carrot, especially the purple ones--you know. i make a note to get some carrots next time we're at the store. walk around the neighborhood, stop for a picture in front of a giant mural of cats and pagodas, pause periodically to gawk at unfamiliar trees and plants and ID them with an app she downloaded. we identify hawthorne, juniper, and some kind of unusual hibiscus. we find ourselves at the bottom of some stairs leading to an elaborate catholic church and we try to go inside but sadly the door is locked. "but it's sunday! what the hell?" just-washed red grapes at the kitchen island, more time with louis. we both change and hop on the train to go to center city where we meet alex at dandelion. he's sitting at a table outside with a sour beer that in a certain light is deep purple. he already ate, was at a picnic earlier and had a bahn mi that was so spicy he started hiccuping and couldn't speak. she and i share mussels in a cider broth and lamb shepherd's pie, and we gush over the food, and she says how she can't get any good food in atlanta (which i know is unfortunately true) and the tables fill around us and the sky fades and by the time we're walking through rittenhouse square there are fireflies, and globes made of twinkle lights high up in the trees, and people scattered in the soft dark grass and on benches. on the train platform we discuss the difference between william penn and william tell. i am pretty sure william tell shot an arrow through an apple on someone's head, but i don't know why. "how did you know that?" she demands incredulously. "you probably learned it on wishbone." there is a 40-something foot statue of william penn on top of the capitol building and none of us can really say much about william penn, and none of us really care. at home on the patio, full and satisfied, alex is smoking a stress-cigar. he tries to teach us how and i finally get it. "it helps if you bite the end," he says, and so that's how they get all soggy and gross, i realize. a bit of a head high is enough for me--i just wanted to learn how to do it. we sit for an hour or so in the night, lounging, talking about work and mediocre men who "fall up," and will ferrell movies we used to think were funny, and what we dislike about marvel movies, and the politics of batman. i can hear crickets but i have no idea where they could possibly live in all this concrete. 220711 ... kerry at ralph's she ordered spaghetti with anchovies and i ordered chicken florentine. i'd never had chicken florentine, and i'd never had anchovies either, aside from caesar dressing. she took a bite off my plate. "oh my godddddd. yours is the best on the table." when she was nearly done with her meal there were some garlic bits and one anchovy still lingering in the broth. "how do you eat those things?" i asked, eying the little fish. "with the bones? how do you eat the bones?" "they just kind of dissolve and you don't even realize they're there. try it. don't be scared." she laughed. she was right. it melted away, soft and dark and salty. she tore a piece off what was left of the loaf of bread and handed it to me. "here, i want you to soak up as much of this broth as you can. get it drenched! you'll love it." i did what she told me, ate the bread soaked in wine and garlic and salt and the starch of the noodles and it was like-- it was like... "it's like the ocean, like eating the ocean." she nodded and laughed. "when i order a martini, i tell the bartender to make it like the sea, make it salty and brackish." she was gaining momentum. "like i'm drinking a sunken ship that's been sitting at the bottom of the ocean for a hundred years, make it dirty, filthy, dark, like seaweed and brine." we've both changed a lot over the past twenty-nine years, how could we not, but we still return faithfully to shared girlhood, whether it's heads together over a bowl of seawater, lingering exploring the collection of jewelry strewn across a scratched wooden bureau, standing beneath the octopus arms and heart-shaped leaves of an ancient katsura tree, smearing mud masks on our faces in the tiny pink and white bathroom, or laughing at a joke that "hits ya just right," laughing to the point of crying, can't-look-at-you-without-laughing, head between knees laughing, gasping-laughing, "oh god," wiping the tears from our faces. 220715 ... kerry she left to go to a quaker wedding in the suburbs where she played the piano in a velvet dress as the bride and groom walked down the aisle. he flew up to join her, and they came back for one more night before going back to georgia. they did touristy things, saw the liberty bell from a distance, "some old documents," cobblestone streets, and arrived bearing macaroons, chocolates, and hangovers. after some sitting and chatting, a pot of coffee, we all mustered our energy and walked to bok bar. the bar is on the roof of an old school. you can see another very old school, still in use, and the whole skyline. the ben franklin bridge, all of south philly. both rivers, the schuylkill and the delaware, and trenton new jersey beyond it. over greasy cheese and chicken empanadas we talked about the jacques cousteau documentary that i haven't seen and people from high school and new slang we didn't understand, including the word "cheugy," and wondered if we ourselves were/are cheugy. referring to the restaurant where she worked during the pandemic, she said she knew her coworkers thought she was old when she'd leave the bar and they'd immediately order shots. "i like the philadelphia skyline," he said. "you can take it all in at once. it's manageable. it's not like new york, which just goes on into infinity, and is terrifying." as it got darker and the sky faded from pink to pale purple to cornflower blue, more people came to bok bar, people who we joked are clearly cooler than us. women in heels and dresses and men with side-cuts and pointy shoes. people taking selfies with the skyline in the background. she and i talked again (and again and again) about art and creativity. "at first he didn't know if he could still call himself an artist because instead of oil painting he was digital. but then he realized it's still art, and he's still an artist. i could call myself a musician even if i didn't play the piano for years. you're a writer even if you're not writing--if you wanted to, you could sit down and churn out a novel right now. you think like a writer, you talk like a writer, you hang out with writers. therefore even if you aren't writing, you are still a writer." 220718 ... kerry it had been a while since i spent time with p. i am very ambivalent about her. i think sometimes our friendship was rooted in mutual loneliness and boredom, and now i'm moving out of that space and she seems to enjoy sitting in the muck. usually we get coffee so i suggested elixr, which neither of us had tried. i'd already had breakfast, a fried egg with a fat slice of tomato on toast, but by the register was this magnificent display of pastries: croissants, cinnamon rolls, muffins, and donuts in a rainbow of colors. i asked the insufferably hip barista what the green one was. "it's matcha with lemon," he said dully, and i said yes please that is absolutely what i need, plus an iced coffee. and i sat and read and sipped my coffee and ate my donut and waited for her to arrive, and when she showed up she told me she wasn't ordering anything. she said she wasn't doing caffeine anymore, only decaf, and they probably didn't have decaf. but she didn't check, just sat down and made a comment about the brutal heat. and for some reason i found this annoying, incredibly annoying, nearly infuriating, and i wanted to ask why did we bother coming here, why not do something else, anything else. it was silly, probably, how pissed off i was. the matcha donut was so delicious, the iced coffee so refreshing, and i love writing about food because it adds color and texture and even sound, somehow, and she seemed so colorless and wilted, not even getting a glass of water, just talking endlessly through her mask, and i felt like i was at work, nodding politely and listening, except i wasn't getting paid. i kept thinking "get me out of here get me out of here how can i get out of here," and when i finally did escape i didn't have the energy to do the errands i'd planned, i just trudged home grouchy and confused and flung myself down onto the couch and said to myself that's it, never again. 220718 ... kerry it only got to 78 degrees today. felt downright chilly. i took a lyft to the dentist because i was running late and it's in bellavista, not convenient at all, and the driver's name was vincent and he turned out to be one of my neighbors, practically. we talked about the best places to buy produce and how you need to core strawberries to keep them from rotting and he told me this trick his daughter taught him, where you put the strawberries in a bowl with some water and a little salt and all the bugs and grit float to the top. he was telling me this as we crept past a big crane? truck? sawing some branches off this giant dead tree, and one of the branches fell onto the car and this little brown bird flew in through vincent's window, and it flapped its wings and hopped around on the dash while we both gawked and wondered what to do? what to do? what the hell's going on? vincent rolled all the windows down and we just waited for the bird to sort itself out, and finally it flew out and we both laughed in disbelief and he said "i hope that's the weirdest thing that happens to me today." 220726 ... kerry i thought i knew my way around queen village but everything looks familiar in a way that is disorienting. i could go any which way and wander blocks thinking i'm heading southwest and it turns out i'm going east or north. there are mirrored murals on all the buildings and all the signs are quaint and everyone knows where they are going except me. there is the historic 4th street deli, where i once left my purse and the sandwiches are as big as your head, and i ate there with my dad at a table where (according to a little placard on the tile wall) barack obama supposedly ate lunch, and they have both smoked salmon and lox and i realized i didn't know the difference until the waitress with the faint eastern european accent explained lox is saltier and i probably don't want it. they have an excellent black and white cookie and knishes and mushroom soup. but i digress. i find myself in brickbat books which is every bit as delectable as the deli. decades old paperbacks with pages softened and slightly browned like toast, books i've never seen on a shelf like kathy acker novels and a collection of Bomb Magazine interviews with authors, which i cannot unfortunately afford. the store is dizzying. everywhere i look i see something i want to open, or something i owned and foolishly gave away, or on my list or the list i didn't realize i had. i devour the fiction shelves, all of them, twice. yesterday a package finally arrived, one i'd eagerly awaited--a pair of shorts i'd ordered that could not be considered schlubby like most of what i own. but when i opened the package i found instead a pair of "perfect curvy vintage jeans," not at all what i ordered or would ever order, and i wanted to tear my hair out because i loathe shopping for clothes and when i find something i'll spent any money on, it is a real victory. but browsing these shelves, practically drooling all over myself, i thought maybe it's fine to just stop caring about what i wear. and this seemed like such a juvenile epiphany to have, to "be yourself," but better late than never, right? i wander the streets with a copy of vincent van gogh's letters and a rachel cusk novel in my tote bag. i buy a mediocre cup of coffee from a shop called the bagel place, and right as i step outside it starts to rain, just a faint not-quite-rain, and the sky is pewter and suddenly i am on washington street which is busy and ugly and there are pawn shops and vietnamese bakeries and car mechanics and the scent of gasoline and cigarettes. i think, so be it, the rain and the wandering. i learned how to wander in the rain in oregon. it's not so bad if you've got good books in your bag. 220726 ... kerry for years until last february if you asked me to put together a meal simpler than a tuna sandwich i would have laughed in your face (and then gone into my room and cried) but last night i happily cooked for three. while on the stove brown rice is simmering in a pot i’ve meant to replace, slice the last of a potato into very thin half moons, dice half an onion without shedding a tear, wash and tear some ruffly kale into shreds halve two peppers, one yellow and one orange, and smoothly but carefully slowly slice into short ribbons rinse the black beans to minimize post-dinner farting (who told me to do this? i forget. does it work? seems to.) put the potatoes and onions in a pan with olive oil then remember the little jar of bacon grease in the fridge and add some of that, maybe half a pinkie’s worth, and the kitchen comes alive am i sautéing? i don’t know. i’m cooking it all in a wide shallow pan with a lid dousing it with pepper and garlic salt and when it’s done i set out on the island bowls forks fabric napkins nutritional yeast and salsa maybe it’s a strange combination i don’t know but we eat in the living room huddled around the red coffee table like it’s a campfire 220731 ... kerry in my dream jackie and corey came to visit and they brought a friend, this guy i met at new years (i was 24 and jack and i threw a party and then we all walked to a strip club where a woman named peaches had worked for decades, no joke, and could supposedly crush an empty soda can between her breasts) i lived in a one story house in the forest, a forest like the one in snow white, quiet and dense, and we partied like we did all those years ago minus the club and tequila and parliaments and pbr tallboys—we were drunk on our own happiness and festivity corey and his friend did tricks on their bikes in a clearing and jackie filmed it, people were coming into the house and going out, making themselves comfortable and at home leaving the doors and windows and fridge open finally when it was late and dark and cool we went to bed. people slept on couches, in beds that materialized from nothing, and i went to the big brass bed i slept in when i was in high school and i was too tired to move the folded laundry or even crawl under the covers so i just laid down on top and louie came and stood over me for a moment, like is it really bedtime? and then curled up into a little ball. it was 3am and i knew i’d be exhausted in the morning, no beach day after all. i miss my dream city. maybe this is a new spot where i can stay overnight, a cozy house tucked away in some deep forest where only my favorite people can find me. how do you make that happen, put a bookmark in your dream so you can find it again? 220731 ... kerry yesterday i lazed underneath the blue umbrella half-reading and half-people watching. lots of parents with young kids, one woman seeming like she was teaching a toddler in a white sunhat how and why to dig up sand and put it in a bucket. wedgies and tan lines everywhere. the lifeguards blew their whistles seemingly at random. behind our umbrella was another umbrella shading a couple similar to us, youngish but not young, tattooed, also with a cooler and beach chairs that sit inches above the sand. i spied a man in a black hat sitting on the wet sand in the tide, just planted there on his butt in his trunks with his legs stretched out in front of him, letting the water wash up around his waist. his spine was slumped a bit but he didn’t move, he seemed content. it was shocking for some reason, maybe it was the simplicity of what he was doing, or the idea that maybe more of us would do it except for all the sand we’d have in our suits. i was tempted to join him. later when we took a long walk, three lifeguard chairs’ worth, i saw so many jellyfish stamped in the sand. they were small, palm sized, iridescent and shiny like bubbles. if they still had threads then the threads were too fine to be visible. i went in, finally, briefly, reluctantly. i am not used to this ocean. i’m used to a gentler one, warmer and with emptier beaches, or one that is rocky and rough and surrounded by cliffs, where you can’t swim without a wetsuit so you mainly walk, collecting stones and shells and admiring the sounds. it was the first day it wasn’t too cold to put in more than my feet. we went out a bit further than where the waves begin to curl and crash, but not so far that i couldn’t touch the tips of my toes to the bottom to bob back up. the ocean makes me nervous; i’ve spent only a little time trapped in the undertow but it was more than enough to make me skittish, and i’ve had seizures in bodies of water and they were small and i was fine but what if one day i wasn’t? but the water was a deep turquoise color, like rippling glass, and how nice was that feeling of weightlessness, like a jellyfish. and the way it tugs at your ankles as you try to walk out, like no you belong here, feet sinking into the carpet of crushed shells, lick your salty lips, feel the breeze on your wet skin. and then you are somewhat salty and sticky all over, it’s in the air, it’s in your hair, there’s sand everywhere, give in to the grit. 220801 ... kerry it is so humid out, so hot. ths succulents and the fig tree are flourishing but the mint and salvia are shriveled and crispy. when i take louie out in the morning i immediately start sweating. it begins on the back of my neck and spreads, covering me like a blanket. i return in a foul mood that lasts about half an hour, until breakfast is finished. i keep the curtains drawn and the fans going all day. the house is quiet, cave-like. i read van gogh's letters, feeling pretentious but not caring because they're actually interesting. i eat peaches and almonds and guzzle can after can of seltzer water. am i hiding, or resting? am i recuperating, or meditating? is this a house or a convent? i feel like i've run out of words. i draw countless identical flowers in my sketchbook, hoping the curls and circles will eventually turn into sentences. i listen to podcasts about cults and do yoga on the floor and think "i should enjoy all this free time" but still wish the day would pass more quickly, or that something would light up and seem exciting and enticing, that i could be struck by a lightning bolt of inspiration. at night, we finally venture out of the house, as if coming out of hiding. the scent of bread baking at cacia's is heavy as the morning's humidity. 220809 ... kerry keep running into one particular neighbor. he's in my phone now as "jeff neighbor." i know a couple of jeffs. he and his girlfriend amy who i still haven't met live a couple of doors down and they have two dogs that are almost-doppelgangers of louie. black and tan variations of louie. the little one, bruno, is incredibly teeny, about half louie's size, and at night they walk him without a leash. apollo is the biggest of the three, a min-pin with a docked tail. the first time the dogs met, late at night on our corner, apollo really wanted to be friends with louie. he did a little play-bow, his little nub tail wiggled all around, and louie just grumbled at him. i crouched on the ground and bruno came up and did the same thing louie does, tipped his head back so i could scritch his neck. i call it the "seal neck." tonight alex and i were walking to the co-op with louie and right when we rounded the corner of snyder and juniper we practically collided into "jeff neighbor." he was wearing a sweaty tank top and carrying a water bottle. "whoa, whoa, hey guys!" he got down on the ground to give louie some scritches. he said he's started going to the muay thai gym next to the co-op. that's how he broke his nose, he told us, and then the purple-ish half moon under his left eye was obvious to me, and i could see how swollen and crooked it was. i'd never gotten a good look at his face before; either we were passing quickly by, or it was dark and i had to fill in the blanks with my own imagination. he has a kind of fluttery energy. i can't tell if it's nervousness or an inability to be still or just so mellow that he could fly away in the breeze. he said it didn't even bleed when he broke his nose, and the doctor didn't want to set it for whatever reason, so the cartilage was just growing back in kind of crooked. he said not to take this story as evidence that he has any skill at muay thai whatsoever, he usually spars with the nine-year-olds. "i've always been a small guy but during the pandemic, you know, i packed on the pounds. lots of grub hub, lots of ben & jerry's." "ben & jerry's, yes," i said, as if validating a client. some comments were exchanged about being in your mid-to-late 30s and realizing you need to exercise and realizing even if you're skinny your arteries might be crying out for mercy. he said he couldn't work out at home, he'd just wind up drinking whiskey on the couch. alex said how he was meaning to get active again, and jeff said how he should check out the gym, he'd even go with him and show him around it's really not a big deal. "so do you two like whiskey?" "oh yeah." "good, good." "do you like cigars?" alex asked. he hasn't been smoking lately--he decided to take a break. but i could hear in his voice that he was hoping the answer would be yes. "i haven't had one in a while but i enjoy the occasional cigar." nods all around. we'll get the pack together, yeah. sometime soon. amy's out of town but when she gets back, next weekend maybe. we went in opposite directions. "muay thai, that's something new. could be cool," i said, knowing nothing about muay thai, though i've walked by that gym countless times. "yeah fuck that. i want to play basketball, on an indoor court." "there isn't one." "there is, at the rec center." "but it's closed. so for all intensive purposes there's no indoor court." he frowned. "i'll write a letter to someone important. sort this out." then he laughed. "or just get some weights, lift at home. but no, fuck muay thai. i'm not fighting anyone." 220815 ... kerry last night i fell asleep listening to a youtube video about the history of the english language. i dreamed about dogs and pancakes, so this morning i made myself pancakes. i sprinkled crushed walnuts on top and smeared them with marionberry jam. my pancakes always manage to come out doughy and flat, disappointing but i eat them anyway. i bought the marionberry jam in a rare moment of nostalgia for life in oregon. marionberries were bred in corvallis, at oregon state university, where i felt incredibly lost but also made a dear friend and got into a lot of trouble and wrote a couple of decent stories but also lost hope in myself as a writer. i thought i'd be there two years but two turned into seven, and i left during the beginning of the pandemic, when much of the state was on fire and people were driving to other towns to buy toilet paper, and my little house was both a sanctuary and a prison. i suspect i might not get my hours in time for licensure, which would mean i'd have to stop working as a therapist, which would leave me searching yet again for a way to spend my time. this used to scare me--on some level it still does--but i'm also starting to care less and less about the future. so i don't get my license. so what? i'll worry about it then, not now. and anyway, the idea of a lifelong career seems outdated and suffocating. better to take things day by day. on my to-do list are things like call someone clean something write something and sometimes this gets done and sometimes not. and there will always be tomorrow, and if not, then clearly there'll be something more important to worry about. and also maybe there will never be a place i can really call home, and maybe that's fine. i used to say i was "going home" if i was flying to atlanta. now i'm going to atlanta. oregon was never home; i was always itching to leave. i had this constant thought: "i just don't want to die here." i want to die in a place i love being. i wash the dishes and half-listen to a podcast about the cultishness of the kardashian family and i fantasize about moving to a little cottage in a little town when i'm old, if i ever become old, and the house will be surrounded by trees, and there will be a little dog and a cozy kitchen. and i'll be able to walk to the library and fill my arms with books, and i'll read them on a porch surrounded by flowers with my dog asleep beside me. 220817 ... kerry she picked me up at the corner of ritner and 15th, wearing cat-eye sunglasses and a jade-colored t-shirt. her hair always looks so soft and i want to ask her how she does it but we don't know each other quite well enough yet. i like her but i still haven't gotten used to the particular smell of her car. she drove us just outside the city limits, to the john heinz wildlife refuge. we bug-sprayed and then strolled along a boardwalk over the green marsh that's several inches too low. there were swallows diving overhead, and fleshy marsh plants piled like discarded laundry under the boardwalk. right as we entered the forest a bright orange butterfly about the size of a silver dollar landed on a little branch by the path and we lingered, and i said i hope she didn't mind but i'm the kind of person who likes to dawdle and just take things in, and she said she understood and that's why she prefers to go to museums alone. we walked along the frog pond trail, chatting and twice stopping and falling silent at the sight of a bunny. we gazed at the pink and yellow sky and saw egrets standing regally in the wetland and dragonflies buzzing on its fringes. she is a pediatrician at the hospital and she has all kinds of stories, and we talked about chosen family and attraction and books we liked as kids. there were moments when i thought i might have a seizure but those moments passed. they've been happening on walks lately, and i think it's because my attention is in too many places--wanting to talk and be present in the conversation while also wanting to absorb what's around me, and then the actual business of walking, which is not difficult but i am often wobbly. i tried, in those moments, to let go of one thing or the other, to somehow quiet one of these variables: stop trying not to wobble, forget about the scenery for a moment. it helped, i think. at one point we paused, admiring the view, and i said "where is the city from here?" we could hear the highway but other than that, no sign of any bustling urban life. she took out her phone to pull up a map. "i think it's that way," she said, pointing past my shoulder. "south east. i think." no skyline, no car exhaust, no sirens. just the hum of the highway and the cicadas. 220820 ... kerry i was walking louie and decided to give my dad a call. he answered hello the way he has my whole life. "hayyy-low! what's up?" i said i was just walkin' and sweatin', and what's up with him, and he told me that he and peter had taken the motorcycles out for a ride. they'd ridden all over the place and he was tired. i asked him why in-town, i thought he didn't really like riding in town. too much traffic, stopping and starting. well, we went way out, way out. then he said, "have you seen the movie 50 first dates? the adam sandler movie?" "i know of it. i'm not sure if i've seen it though." "well, it came on tv after something peter was watching. i couldn't finish it, because, you know, it's adam sandler." he then said with disdain, "a little too stupid and slapstick for me." i said of course, not surprised. he told me the plot, and it kind of came back to me and i said it might be one of those things i've seen and totally forgotten, and how that happens a lot--i just finished re-watching all of "succession" and enjoyed it just as much the second time because i didn't remember most of it. he started laughing this giddy little laugh he has when he's really tickled by something, a funny coincidence, something ironic, something bizarre and unexpected. "well that's why i'm telling you! it made me think of you--not adam sandler of course, but forgetting things and being able to see them again like they're new!" "it's almost like a superpower." this made him giggle even more. "a superpower! well, okay then!" 220824 ... kerry we are going to the coast, one last escape. coasting through corn and wheat fields in delaware, listening to buddy holly and ike turner. i've seen plenty of fields but something about this landscape, all these little white farmhouses, a single tree in the middle of a vast field--it's eerie, ugly, and i find myself asking, "where the hell are we??" but overhead hang rococo clouds, puffy and pinkish, like cotton candy. i feel like i'm looking up at an enormous john constable painting and the obsession makes sense all of a sudden. he croons along with ike and interrupts himself to say "they got all kinds of shit out here! they got mcdonalds, ruby tuesday, planet fitness, it's the pinnacle of human civilization!" and then he returns to "it's gonna work out fine." i'm laughing, eating grapes, bare feet on the dash. if we were in a wreck right now, i sometimes think, my knees would go right through my face. but i don't care. we're staying at a kitschy beachfront hotel called castle in the sand. there's turrets on top, statues of a medieval king and queen in the lobby, and jarringly, a tiki bar outside called coconuts. we pull into the hotel parking lot during happy hour and the place is hoppin.' it's the end of the season and all the beach bums are toasted. they're going around barefoot, they're sun-drunk and rum-drunk, sucking down daiquiris and pina coladas and noshing on popcorn shrimp. our plan: hang out on the beach eat crabs, in whatever form devour fries with malted vinegar from thrasher's on the boardwalk the water here is darker than in jersey, deep blue instead of blue-green, the waves more robust, the undertow stronger. standing in the surf, i feel it wrap itself around my calves and pull. it is like a living thing. 220901 ... kerry [the obsession being john constable's with clouds, that is] 220901 ... kerry alex and i watched the 1978 remake of “invasion of the body snatchers,” young donald sutherland and jeff goldblum (sigh) and it was surprisingly absorbing. and afterward i found myself thinking about last wednesday night: there were four of us at a high top table in the south philly tap room. they ordered cocktails and i ordered beer and felt clunky in my hoodie and no one could see my levi’s and faded sneakers because my legs were dangling under the table in the dark. the whole place was dark, with red lights and red painted walls, and the side door was open so i could see people sitting at tables outside laughing and eating and drinking together. she is moving out of the house where she and her ex-husband lived with their tabby cats and tonight she will take a bath in their tub for the last time all alone, and she has just broken up with her boyfriend who i only met once and for years they went out to eat multiple times a week and played board games and quizzo, and i can’t bring myself to like her much though i do feel bad for her because she’s clearly so sad, and she has horn rimmed glasses and delicate flowers tattooed on her arms and everything about her including her laugh is tasteful. they all have cats. they all wear dresses and makeup. i feel startled when anyone looks at me and when i open my mouth to speak i hesitate wondering if they understand me, if i’m speaking a language they recognize. i wonder why i am here; probably only for the sake of being someplace with other people, but is it worth it if i feel like– it has always been like this. i’ve always found refuge and comfort in the company of the other strange ones, though when i was younger i didn’t think of them or us as strange, but as magically separate. we may walk around with blank faces blending in with the pod people but we know when we look into each other's eyes that we are real. 221016 ... kerry people were starting to appear on their stoops with bowls of candy. the kids renting across the street are more festive than the ones who were there last year--both in hoodies, one with pink hair and the other with a beanie, two pumpkins carved into jack-o-lanterns with candles flickering inside. i don't remember the last time i carved a pumpkin. they live next door to a thin young woman and her little girl, who is maybe four, and chattering away about how besides valentine's day halloween is the best holiday, but it's too bad this is going to be a rainy halloween, and where are the kids who are going to come get the candy? i've got my own orange plastic bucket filled with m&ms and snickers and reese's, and only the littlest ones have begun to come down the treat, too young to even say "trick or treat." wednesday addams comes along and then some of the ghost busters, and i tell them all their costumes are the best. jeff who lives a few doors down comes home from work and waves at me from his front stoop. "you got candy?" he calls. "yep, want some?" he laughs. "i'm pre-diabetic!" and goes inside. but a few minutes later he comes over with a metal chair and an empty glass bowl, saying maybe he'll sit and chat. i throw some candy into his bowl so he can pass it out too. it's starting to drip, not quite drizzle yet. jeff goes back to his house and returns with two cans of tecate, a little wedge of lime in the openings. we talk about how he's quitting his job, about his girlfriend's job teaching algebra at a school in the philly school district, it's her first year and the kids are trying to break her and she's going to walmart after work to buy supplies and she doesn't eat all day, and she was in the navy but this is maybe harder. we gossip about the neighbors and talk about the famous passion of philly sports fans, therapy, he says he's "bad at relationships." he keeps pulling his hood over his head and then pulling it back and running his hands through his thick hair. we're about the same age but i think he's lived more life than i have. his body is wiry, he's divorced. his face is hard and then soft, back and forth, and when he looks out onto the block his gaze is bleak, and when he looks at me his eyes are maybe warm. maybe. but i don't know him that well yet. he talks about how the new generation doesn't have so much pressure to be in such tight quarters, something vague about the fluidity of relationships that seems so natural and this comment kind of snags on a little nail in my mind and i find myself mulling over it and why would he say that to me, how his friend and his wife have a three story house and live both together and separately. he doesn't know when to fight and when to let it go. when alex arrives he bursts out, "and what's your costume, little boy?" and alex chuckles and i can tell he's tired but i think to other people he just looks nonchalant. he's got tickets to a sixers game on wednesday and i can't go, and suddenly he offers them to jeff, who says yes. and this makes me happy, because he's said how he doesn't want to get to know the neighbors too well--i disagree, within reason of course--and alex goes inside, and a few minutes later this friend with the three story house appears and we are introduced and the sky is dark blue, and we're damp. it's time to go inside. in the kitchen while i'm heating up leftover chili in the microwave i gulp the rest of my tecate and realize i still have his coozie. i think about him and his girlfriend packed into that house, fighting, because while he describes her as indestructible he doesn't say they're happy. 221031 ... kerry so much of my life takes place online, on the phone, or in my head. my online-life makes my eyes burn and my hips and knees ache. my phone-life feels distant and flimsy, barely reachable. the life i live in my head is unsteady and makes me nauseous. it is like seasickness. we were at the tattooed mom, me and paloma, sitting at the bar under colorful christmas lights. her bags were heavy with things she'd bought--a fleetwood mac lp, a colorful patterned t-shirt--and as usual i was mostly listening. i'd ordered a beer and was sipping it listlessly, thinking about how i've been drinking too much lately. i don't really care. it feels like i have no reason to, lately. to care, that is. she was talking about the guy she's been casually seeing, how we both watch as if from a distance as they slowly fall apart. "it's like there are no thoughts, like he has no..." she pauses, mouth still slightly open. "no inner life?" "yes! no inner life. that's exactly what my friend said." last week you were waiting for me at charlie's. i told you it would take me a little while to get there and when i was a block away you texted me a gif of a guy checking his watch. i texted back "i'm almost there, goddamn". inside charlie's your eyes searched my face. you were wearing all black as usual. after a pour of rittenhouse rye, neat, you tried to tell me you were happy but it felt like you were the one who said things first. you talked around it, your sentences like knots, but i knew what you meant. i said it was just how i am, it doesn't always occur to me, it doesn't mean i don't love you. while i was thinking i don't want to or think i can change, i told you i heard you, i get it. implying i'll try to change (to accommodate your insecurity). early yesterday morning you texted me that you'd had a weird/bad dream, you were at a sex party and your ex was there and everyone was screaming at you. later that night you called me and told me the strangest thing had happened--she'd called you, asking for help naming cocktails. she's gotten a job as a bartender, luckily some place across town. you said it made you feel weird and i said yeah that certainly sounds awkward and that it seems like she's just making up a reason to call you. you were saying how strange it was, you didn't want to deal with her, and there were silences. i repeated it sounds awkward. you got off the phone saying you had a long day tomorrow and you'd call me at 4. i couldn't sleep for a long time. i have this feeling like you wanted me to say something else, something different, and i didn't know what. i feel like maybe i'm failing some test. i'll have to bring it up with you, because i don't like this heavy feeling. i don't have the time or patience for tests. 230406 ... kerry i stayed up late lying on the couch deep in an internet rabbit hole reading about niagara falls, specifically people who have intentionally gone over the falls, in rubber balls and barrels and kayaks and bizarrely without any barrier at all between their bodies and the water. i want to go back there. i have been three times (i think). the last time there was a rainbow and i was excited but thinking about it now there are probably rainbows there all the time so maybe it's not so unusual. what draws people to the falls? one man went with his pet turtle over the horseshoe falls in an iron barrel which got lodged in some rocks for 18 hours. he ran out of oxygen in the barrel after 8 hours. the turtle (supposedly over a hundred years old, but who knows if that's true) survived. i asked the_guy_from_the_train if he had that feeling when he looked out of a skyscraper window or over a bridge or off a roof (where were we? somewhere tall, or was this a memory i was relating to him?) --i run out of breath in my own blathes-- i asked the_guy_from_the_train if he had that feeling that he could just jump. like not so much a fear but a temptation to step off the edge. it's not about dying. i don't know what it's about, but it seems like a natural feeling to me. he said he didn't know what i meant. one day when jackie lived briefly in buenos aires, this was geez fifteen years ago, she was walking down the sidewalk downtown and there was a big crowd and naturally she was curious and when she got through the crowd she could see what it was, all the commotion, everyone was gathered around a woman who had jumped off of this tall building. her body was mangled. jackie described her as looking kind of like a doll, or a puppet, under a blanket. like a hump under fabric with feet sticking out on either side. it's a grotesque image that she must have needed to put somewhere else, unburden herself, and this was before people handed me their sinister memories and anxieties and "i've never told anyone this before but"s. my head is full of perverse and disturbing phrases and images and plots but most eventually lose their buoyancy and sink down to the murky swamp that is my consciousness. this one drifts quietly hiding in the shadows of spanish moss and duckweed, occasionally peeking out from behind a cypress tree to remind me that it's there. 230621 what's it to you? who go blather from