Construction

On October the 19th, we were over at Em's. This was the night I had smoked a full cigar, exhaling it through my mouth and inhaling the smoke through my nose into my lungs until I felt too dizzy to sit. I lay down and listened to the sounds of the room, exclamations and roaring laughter gave way to chitter and chatter and quieter conversations, and by then the world had stop spinning so much around my body. Em and Launti had gone to bed. World Matt and I stayed up watching "That's My Boy", which World claims is the movie of his people (set in his hometown of Somerville). I said we should go for a walk, but a little past midnight World fell asleep in his chair, mid-sentence.

It was drizzling outside when we left the apartment. I used a gray blanket from the couch as a cloak and Matt pointed at a building not too far away and said it looked like Christmas lights so we went towards the twinkling, found the gates to the site unlocked, and climbed, ten stories up, with a view of the city spreading out below us on all sides. I wanted to return to take photos so on the 14th of December we did. It was unseasonably warm and rainy, and in two months glass had arrived to the first nine stories of the building, and wooden beams had appeared on the first couple floors. But the gate was still unlocked and the security guard was not doing his job, so we went up and up again. Here are a few of the photos from that hunt -

different building, still twinkled

 

 

 

Truth and Beauty

At the very end of my shift on the 31st, a code was called that resulted in three restraints. That was how I exited 2015.

They say your year will go the way you entered it. I entered it with warmth. I was surrounded by people I've known since I was ten. I called my family in Arizona. I messaged those who I wanted to carry with me from 2015 into 2016.

My first conversation of the year was
Eloosha, with a smug look: Huh, doesn't feel very different.
Me, insistent on magic: almost like New Years is an artificial time construct, you jerk.

traditions carried for generations: Oranges or clementines. Champagne. A table laden with food. Ирония судьбы (The Irony of Fate) playing in the background. Saying goodbye to the Old Year before saying hello to the New. Family. A New Years tree. Sparklers and fireworks. Snegurochka and Ded Moroz. Gifts. Love.

First Day of the Year, discussing bunnies as secret illigal pets during college
"I only ever saw two bunnies at Yale, one was named Truth and the other Beauty, and one of them almost certainly overdosed on cocaine" (which one though, is unknown)

I woke up the next morning and knit for a little bit before falling asleep and waking up with everyone else: all of us soon transitioned to one bed, a lump and warmth and promises to try to stay horizontal for as long as possible. Liza said "my new years resolution is to keep my heart over my head for as long as possible". Eloosha said "I think with my hands". I tucked those away.
Wasting time to the fullest with cuddling and music and late brunch. 
The next morning I woke not in my own bed yet again, and read Autobiography of a Corpse (Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky translated by Joanne Turnbull, 1920's) while surrounded by sleeping beauties.

I made it back to my apartment eventually, only to go back to the same company for a conversation that lasted hours, a midnight visitation and trying to breathe and be brave.

2015

2015 was holding my breath. I lived so much this year.

Time passed with a moon dipped in venom, so many friends visiting - Adrienne, Hannah, Will, Sorrel, a Bernie rally attended. I smoked my first cigar and felt sick - stuck with the habit of holding the smoke in my lungs. I got hit by a car while biking, and had too much to think anything of it. I went to a lecture on John Weiners at Harvard at Kelsey's urging, hundreds of miles away in Columbus, Ohio. I got sick. I spent a few days in NH with my coworkers and three dogs. I got told that I was looking exceedingly bird-like. My flatmates and I threw a party and named it "Crunksgiving". I climbed Mt. Lincoln and Lafayette with my father.

each of those is a story, a vignette.  maybe I'll have time to tell them this year.

I read a few books - Cat's Cradle in a burst of "oh! reading in English, I've forgotten!". On Adrian's advice (and my parents as well)  How to Win Friends and Influence People. When I felt lonely with R, I would read his favorite book; 100 Years of Solitude - it went by quick, so did he, the irony not lost on me. House of Leaves, which I had gifted myself for my birthday. Matt then lent me City of Glass. A project started by Hannah and Sorrel led me to read chunks of A Short History of Wine, I Drink Therefore I am; A Philosopher's Guide to Wine, and A History of the World in Six Glasses.

I'm ready to breath out.