mondays_with_the_lamb raze monday the first: she catches you finishing a salad, grape tomato in mouth, squeezing it with your teeth to get the juice out. she plays some songs she wrote and a few she didn't write. getting-to-know-you private concert. these things don't happen much. they should happen more. daniel johnston sounds sadder, truer somehow when she sings him. wonder what you'd sound like if she sang you. realize your breath smells like salad dressing. don't breathe in her direction until it smells like something better. get close enough to see the letters tattooed on her fingers. don't look long enough to work out what they spell. sometimes she sounds like a dustier feist. the dust is a good thing. handshake hello, hug goodbye, write three songs with her in mind. one about buying time at the end of the world from a kiosk in manhattan, one a dialogue for two voices that ends in cacophony, one a drifting thing about mutability arm-wrestling ennui. maybe she'll sing one of them. 140420 ... epitome of incomprehensibility Today I was invited to a friend's house and I had lamb. Synchronicity, eh? Also my stomach is complaining about eating two big meals in a row. "You're overfeeding me," it says, "I don't need much meat or wine or chocolate, and certainly not cheesecake." 140421 ... e_o_i By which I meant two big suppers two days in a row. 140421 ... e_o_i And singing with people is good any day, generally. 140421 ... raze monday the second: the weather's nice enough for porch sitting now. waiting for someone is always more interesting when it's done on a porch. she likes the song that's a dialogue for two voices best, but you get sidetracked. instead of working on that one, you sit together on the piano bench and plant the seed of a song that will be called "projecting a film on your chest" when it's finished. your breath doesn't smell like salad dressing this time. you can breathe more freely. she looks like at least three different people depending on the light and angle. think about how no one else you've seen in person has ever pulled off that trick. it's a neat trick. learn that the letters are a line from a poem. exchange strange personal experiences like good-natured scar comparing. laugh a lot. walk the cow with four hands. 140422 ... raze monday the third: it's rainy but it isn't raining. it's a day of before-and-after rain. rain that lets you know it's there but doesn't follow you around. you make a microphone out of a thrift shop telephone. a telemic. or she makes the microphone, and you watch it get made. you watch her strip wires with her teeth and test them to see which ones want to be partnered up. you sing into the part you'd hold to your ear, not the part you'd speak into. it has a narrowing effect that makes your voice sound gritty like it's being heard as part of an ancient radio broadcast. it's going to be a fun recording tool. you play, and talk, and sing, and laugh, and end with one of those great long hugs where you sway back and forth a little because it feels like the natural thing to do. it's nice to have a friend you can say goodbye to that way. 140428 ... raze monday the fourth: it's hard to look at someone when the sun is stabbing you in the eyes right in the place where their face is, but some people are so pretty when you're being stabbed by the sun, it's worth the effort. learn about the effects of cookies on dreams. find places to walk from two chords that shouldn't work together but do. relive the fury of billy joel singing "sometimes a fantasy" in the soviet union. get a playful finger poke in the chest. 140506 ... raze monday the fifth: this is the third monday in a row it's rained, and the most rain there's been on any of the three. it hammers the windshield and brings out the snails. she wears a hat. you can't remember the last time you wore a hat. she likes to minor her majors, to introduce a little conflict, to create something that needs resolving. it gives the ears something interesting to grapple with. she thinks you have wisdom. you don't feel very wise. she says that's what makes you wise. she says mondays here have become a refuge. the wind blows green things that look like tiny wild berries or seeds or peas into your hair while she looks for her cat. you hope she still feels the same way another five mondays from now. 140513 ... raze monday the sixth: this didn't happen. 140520 ... raze monday the seventh: this did happen. before it happened you had a dream about her. maybe the first one since you've known her. it was a moment of connection in an unexpected place, and it was an outgrowth of a conversation that took place outside of sleep the day of the night of the dream. then it's monday again and order is restored. the warmer weather brings out the flowers on her arms. the words obscene and insane combine to form something obsane, and it's about hair. she sings slayer by way of tori amos and you do your best sloppy glenn gould impression. the ants on the porch are foot fetishists. you give three of them voices. she does one who sounds like a neurotic new yorker, not sure who he is or where he's going, questioning everything, always on edge. you do one who is very passionate about walking and carrying things. the third ant given a voice is a tiny one excited about how big everything is. he calls out to his parents but they're not around. and then there's the giant bee. the giant bee sounds like a serious stoner. he breaks character to mourn the hair loss of dandelions, but only for a moment. "i've never been a pretty young girl," you say. "me neither," she says. you're telling the truth. she's telling a lie. you sing a song about the insects and she reads your mind. on the eighth monday you'll try recording the song for two voices. one monday not too long from now there will be no more mondays, because she'll be living in toronto, and who knows when she'll be back here, and who knows if you'll fit into her plans when she is. but that won't be until the summer puts on more weight. for now there are still more mondays to look forward to. 140526 ... raze monday the eighth: this didn't happen. 140603 ... raze and then there were no more mondays. 140609 ... raze i've since found other things to do with my mondays. most of this feels like it never happened now. 150319 ... raze she apologized a while back. sort of. something vague about "taking advantage of [my] kindness". a way of saying sorry without admitting what you're really sorry for. better than nothing, i guess, though i couldn't help thinking of what jon voight said in "runaway train": "that's worth about two dead flies." 160322 what's it to you? who go blather from