$1.50 Costco Hot Dog, 1/3/25

 

Day 3 of Borscht. Elizabeth is still amazed by it. I’m amazed at her capacity for awe, and her ability to make soup as good as she knits, as good as she throws and paints pottery, as good as she backpacks and gardens and bums cigarettes. Meanwhile, I don’t have the energy to sleep. I’ve got acne to match my angst. All I can muster is worry and a second too-long shower, a half-hearted game of Mahjong Soul, fragments of confessions, crossing out more than I keep. How’s she the one telling me I’ve got my life so put together when I’m not even brave enough to lie to the Costco gatekeepers so we can score some cheap dinner? I talk myself out of texting my friends, get so nervous for coffee dates that I almost yak. Juliette says my tics are cute, which tells you plenty about the luster she has and sees, but I still feel looney, unable to control my body and brain and this damn OCD. Lately, life’s momentum is the bouncing of a restless leg, but I’m moving, I’m moving.

Leftovers, 1/2/2025

 

If you were wondering, the borscht is just as good on day 2, if not better, and Elizabeth is mesmerized by the color, you know, the beads of orange oil, the way it turns pink when you add sour cream, the little bastion of white inside a bitten potato. She’s right, it really is very glorious in a silly, simple way, like Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder or teenagers laughing loudly in a public place. I have some excellent news which is that I finally get Ethel Cain, and she is just as good as all the trans femmes promised. So the lesson is that I should really quit being so stubborn for no reason and give the music and books my friends recommend at least two honest shots, and not just the recommendations from the friends I might be a little in love with. It’s one of the kindest things you can do, I think, and one of the best ways to really, really see people, except maybe asking questions the way Jesus would, like How’d You Make This Beautiful Soup and Would You Add Cabbage Next Time? I’m not so good at ambling slowly, the world is too frenetic and strange for me to sip my coffee like a philosopher. Sometimes when I try for poetic observation I just end up rubbernecking, which feels no-good, plus I like being over-caffeinated, at least for a little while, and maybe I don’t want to go down easy or smooth, I’d rather make throats burn/cough/ache, but I doubt that’ll be true in a week’s time or even a couple days or maybe right now if I’m honest. I think I ought to be a disciple of something, make some vows, shave my head, but I couldn’t tell you more about it. Khushal would tell me to be more specific, but it’s the haziness that is evocative for me, like Silent Hill’s fog or blurry morning vision. Likewise, I keep having the same conversations over and over with my Dad, like how cold it probably is in South Dakota, how British television really is better, and how to tie a bowline knot. I couldn’t tell you what it means, or how all these things connect, but they do mean something, and move in and out each other with ease and without the usual nausea of free-association. Anyway, I’m getting sick of my own spit, and the feeling of the shoes on my feet, so I need to quit. Maybe tomorrow this stupid neck pain will fade, I won’t try to diagnose myself with anything anymore, and I’ll be gentle and slow and still.

Stamina Drum & Bass, 1/1/25

Stamina Drum & Bass, 1/1/25

Whenever I wake up in San Francisco I get to thinking about all the places I ought to be, or where promised to be by now, how everywhere I’ve ever lived fits only loosely, or too tight. I like to pretend that all of these open days and cities would be better and easier with Jack still around, and his kimchi and humor too, if only because melancholy is easy for me, a well-tread path. Maybe enough psychedelics will unwind the knot in my body that makes me limerent, makes me keep writing trite final couplets and bringing up the divine comedy at parties. Maybe a strong cup of coffee will make me a “real” fag, make me fear god, make me into one of my wiser friends, or maybe Frank O’Hara, if I’ve been good. I bet field mice feel bigger than me. I bet street pigeons are better-fed. I bet there’s no right way to dance to drum and bass, you just have to look stupid, make fun, and that’s the point. How strange and awesome it is to be alive, to move through all our inelegant and arhythmic habits and desires, or the errant, animal wanderings of our greedy hands and lame feet. I think it’s all more wonderful and constant than the sun rising, and at least half as good as Aubrey standing inches from me to point out the constellations. Or maybe it’s just that Elizabeth is making Borscht now, so all my wimpish self-pities have been supplanted by the smell of soup cooking. All I need to put some space between me and the little magics of green grasses, wishy-washy regrets, and/or sorry fantasies is a profound spoonful of sour cream, but a hot pad for my neck and a cup of tea would help too, and maybe a glance at last night’s photos. I wish all my poetry were one big letter, a love letter maybe, so I could end every last one with an I Miss You Dearly and a Please Write Soon.