Prague Arrival: 24

Yosef and I ended up dividing our responsibilities as follows: he was in charge of getting us transit from city to city, and I was in charge of getting us lodging. He got us bus tickets from Dresden to Prague, which was originally a tentative point on our trip. We never had a formal discussion adding it to our itinerary, it just happened on its own. 

Before leaving Dresden, I met up with Marija, whom I had met at the wedding, and who teaches political science in London. We talked about forks in the path of the heart, and experiences with roommates. I finally figured out what was wrong with my frothy milk order. She reminded me of my friend Hannah, the general academic nature with an apparent care for her friends, or maybe just the similarity in coloration. 

And then a chunk of the day was spent on the bus. I wrote a few postcards to friends and napped. Finally we arrived in Prague and lugged our bags up. 

At that point my impression of Prague is that it is all uphill, all windy cobblestone which gets in the way of carrying a suitcase. We were too early to check in to the airbnb, and hungry as well, so we found a Greek called Olympos and celebrated our arrival. I finally got a very little cup of dark bitter liquid and tiny carafe of milk. We were both so tired at this point though, so when we made it back to the airbnb (which required some thinking because the keys were locked in a lock-box on the bars of a convenience store a block away and around the corner) we took a nap. 

Actually let's circle back to the convenience store: it was one of many bodega-like markets sprinkled throughout the city. After dinner we stopped in and picked up some more kefir and fruit, as well as some laundry detergent. They are open late, and as far as I could tell, primarily run by Vietnamese people. There's a kind of charm to these smaller shops: the neighborhood corner store that's open late and were you can buy a pack any number of things: cigarettes, liquor, peaches, or shampoo. These peaches were squatter than the ones I'm used to. There's a family-run feel to them: the one next to me in the Ukrainian village I know the owner, and I think his teen son or nephew works there too. There, sometimes fresh tamales are on sale, but there is also whole-bean coffee and a porter I like. Compared to the ones in Washington Heights in NY, the ones in Prague had more fresh produce and fewer dried and canned goods, and there were no cats. I think with these kinds of places it is easy to start fantasizing about what it would look like to live in a place: strolling the streets, nipping into the corner shop for some milk and dish soap. I saw the guy who manned the cashier a day later in the street, and we recognized each other. If I lived there, maybe we would know each others names, I would learn which fruit are in season when, and develop a sense for the local currency. 

After the nap we got dinner. My friend Mark recommended a Czech place called U Sadu, which he had described as "simply a pubby bar, with simple but carefully (would one say lovingly?) prepared food." The waitress was patient with us, and there were fewer tourists there. Afterwards we went for a walk - we saw some great views of the sun setting over a castle, and the Jewish cemetery, which was closed.  

And that was a full day of Dresden, transit, and Prague. 

Lisbeth & Dresden: 22 & 23

The wedding took place in a rural town outside of Dresden called Lisbeth. The weather smiled on us, and I grabbed some sad bitter water at the train station, on the way to the old-timey bus. A green and white bus that had a massive stick-shift system specially chartered for the occasion. Cows passed us as we rode into the countryside 

The wedding was sweet. I am finding it a bit hard to write about it though: I think weddings are so thoroughly planned, both meticulously orchestrated and intimate affairs, that it's hard to know what to write. There were multiple parts. First we mingled. Instead of alcohol to smooth over the fact that most of us are strangers, were given bingo cards with facts like "has hiked a glacier" (my brother) or "has run a marathon" as a kind of get-to-know each other icebreaker. Then the ceremony itself, 49 people in attendance including the bride and groom, all of us sitting near a grove of birches. Bianca's sister officiated the wedding, and the groom's vows were blown away by the wind so we couldn't hear them. Afterward, he said it's because he spoke from the heart rather than doing a performance. More mingling, this time with sushi, and photos with the hired photographer. Then cakes! About 9 cakes. Yosef and I took half slices and then split those to maximize the experience. 

I slipped away at some point and Bianca's aunt made me a cup of tea while we chatted. She is a live wire that left an impression on a lot of the younger crowd, thinking about what it means to keep up that kind of vitality into later years. This was the first moment I went off script: unplanned tea with the aunt, with allusions to history and politics. Then we funneled back to the dinner buffet (honestly maybe the best meal we had while traveling?) - food, wine, more chatter, a photobooth and dancing. When we rode back on the train back to Dresden, very tired, and me and two other women discussed predicaments of the heart. The second off-script conversation, after all the planned events, and a more intimate moment there too. 

The next day Yosef and I, again, struggled to wake up. We had our breakfast at home, got Vietnamese food at Codo - Yosef got beer, I got dark liquid poured over ice and sweetened condensed milk. Then we met the rest of the wedding attendees for a historic scavenger hunt arrange by Bianca's sister. I managed to eek in a few exchanges with Bianca - the bride and groom are always so busy on their wedding day, all of us vying for their attention.

We reconvened at Eiscafe Venezia for dessert, then some of us broke off. Beer, Little India (food was good here, the owner seemed very committed to making us happy, too) in an artsier part of Dresden. And thus concluded our final full day in Dresden. 

The Gray Couch

This morning when I was about to leave the house but before I got the call I ended up spraying myself in the eyeball with sample perfume and boy would have it been nice if that was the worst part of the day.

Written yesterday:

So I hope to write up the trip in 3-5 more posts, but first: an interlude from the present. 

I was trying to sell/give away for free a few items of furniture: I am moving soon. I posted on craigslist but nobody responded, though it tends to be a good place for finding roommates. On fbmarketplace two people promptly tried to scam me: the first asked me to text them a security code to my Google Voice account to "verify my identity" before coming by. Not sure what Google Voice access unlocks...but the code arrives with a disclaimer to not share. So that was an easy bullet dodge. Another said Zelle needed my email to send money, which was plausible, and then started sending me fake emails from Zelle. They were "trying to send me 10$ but had to send 100$ and wanted my word that I would send the 100$ back" barraging me with a quick succession of messages-- none of the activity was showing up in my bank, and I reported both of them on fb - or meta, I guess. As of right now, the free fold-out couch was picked up this morning, by a woman named Susie, which was funny to me because the roommate from whom I had inherited the couch was also Susie. When I mentioned it she said she had also picked up a table this morning - from yet another Susie! Someone picked up the 90s style frames I had thrifted and used for half a year before deciding I couldn't get over the dated style and posted on the neighborhood free-stuff page. And someone is on their way to pick up the large black coffee table for 5$. No follow through on a swivel chair, which cost me more than any of the other items and is easier to move.

Additionally, it is four days from the end of the month and I do not have a lease signed for the next month. I got approved for an apartment on Friday but then they suddenly started talking about the move-in date being 8th or 15th of the month, despite me viewing it for the 1st and verifying this information more than once. We had already gone through an overbearing application process were they wanted me to have a cosigner even though I haven't needed one for my last two apartments, and needed my cosigner to provide proof of having the job for at least a year, and other information in excess of what I have needed to provide in the past. I sent an email asking if this was a mistake, and explained I need a Sept 1st move-in and left a voice message. They said they would have the lease document to me on Saturday but never sent it, I sent a second email saying I need to hear back by Monday afternoon or I will move to my plan B and not be signing the lease, tried calling a couple of times to no avail. So I have been anxiously packing up my apartment and getting rid of furniture I don't need. On Thursday I picked off the hair in the middle of my left eyebrow, and intermittently I wake up at 6am with apartment related nightmares. I also just realized I haven't left the apartment since Thursday night. 

I do thankfully have a back-up plan: to stay with some friends I made recently who own a house. I almost hope this apartment falls through: I don't imagine these people will be responsive to maintenance requests, and I feel resentful of all the stress. I've called moving companies but don't even have an address to give - a storage unit? the studio? wish me luck. 

Update: So plan B it is, the lease did, indeed, fall through. They tried lying to me and saying it was Sept 15th this whole time but I remember talking to them twice about a Sept 1st move-in. After the perfume in my eye and the nasty call where my lease fell through, I went to my bus stop to get to work. While I was standing there I saw a man in a wheelchair get hit by a car! A bunch of us ran over and tried to help. I don't think I did a very good job, I was already frazzled, he seemed dazed: he was totally bumped out of the wheelchair and it was tipped over, with him on the ground. As far as I could tell he wasn't bleeding but it was hard to know if he was injured, or how he was, since he mostly spoke Spanish. I called 911 and they said an ambulance was already on its way but to keep him still - which I relayed to the group as they were already midway through getting him back into the wheelchair. They wheeled him over as I caught my bus to get to my first appointment of the day. 

Sundowner 07/21

Jetlag into Europe from the US is always so much harder than on the way back. Yosef and I struggled to get up before noon, and then went to the Aldi across the street to grab yogurt, as well as the bag of muesli and box of tea mentioned in a previous post. I also accidentally bought fresh yeast thinking it was butter with honey in it. In my defense, it was yeast that was made with honey, so, I had read part of it correctly. And it was in the butter section. Misdirection via context clues.

We then made our way to the Old Masters Picture Gallery which frankly is a great museum. I noted many artists with whom I was not familiar to look up later and got postcards, which is my standard museum procedure while traveling. We then doubled back to a touristy stretch of restaurants and ate a decent meal at Wilma Wunder, though again with disappointing frothy milky drink. 

So I haven’t mentioned yet my impetus for traveling to Europe. It is this: my friend from college Bianca, with whom I have maintained a connection across the Atlantic for nine years, was getting married. Or having a ceremony: logistically they had to get married for her husband to enter Ireland where she had found a job. I actually have a post which gives me the last time I saw her before she went to get her Masters in London. Nine years! Crazy. This was later followed by a PhD in Cape Town, South Africa, where she met her now-husband. She has family in Germany ergo the German destination. I offered Yosef to make a sibling trip of it, since he was musing about travel already, and so he became my plus-one.

To start off the celebratory festivities they arranged for a Sundowner gathering by the river. Sundowner is the South African tradition of having drinks at sunset. It was also an opportunity to meet her husband for the first time before the actual wedding ceremony. I was the only person from our college to attend the wedding, and so everyone else there was a stranger to me. Yosef struck it up with an urban designer from Amsterdam, I chatted with an art teacher at a high-needs school in NYC. Then, just around the planned end time, it started to pour rain: one of the grooms’ friends from Cape Town lent me his sweater and Yosef and I trotted away to the Sbahn.

My mother told me the last post was too long but perhaps reflected the first day of long travel. Lucky for her I had already written this one out before she told me this and it turned out shorter! Hurrah! 

Plane, Ubahn, and Rail 07/20

One of my supervisors had mentioned a phenomenology exercise she was assigned while completing her degree: to describe coffee for a week without using the word coffee. The dark liquid on the flight from Chicago to Paris felt well captured by this quote for 1984: “It gave off a sickly, oily smell, as of Chinese rice-spirit. Winston poured out nearly a teacupful, nerved himself for a shock, and gulped it down like a dose of medicine.” 

On the flight, the woman next to me had some sort of therapy-level psychology degree, but was on her way to see her long-distance husband in...Algeria, maybe? I can't remember, a North African country? They had met through his brother who worked as a lawyer in the U.S., she had initially tried law school but dropped it. Her husband had a large farm and so she only did a bit of consulting now as he could support her fully, but I still struggled to understand what it would mean to study to be a therapist and then not want to be a therapist. For the better though, if that's not what she wants to do, that she doesn't do it. If I remembered her name I would look her up, but a month on and her name escapes me. 

I was pleased that though Yosef arrived earlier than me, he needed to go through customs, resulting in him only waiting for me for only half an hour before we met. I had already gone through customs at my layover in Paris, then gone to brush my teeth and reapply deodorant - a travel tip from my mother (our? does mentioning my brother necessitate using our mother here?) After that, in desperation, I had eaten sushi at the counter while I waited for the second flight. Sushi that came with sweet soy sauce packets, much to my dismay and bewilderment. When I did land in Berlin, I was glad to see my brother’s face, even though he snipped at me before we had even made it to the Ubahn, likely in response to me telling him what to do. Older-sister habit I am trying to kick. Yosef pointed out the cloth-towels at the airport restrooms, a seemingly endless single roll of reusable towel.

We made our way to Zimt and Zucker, a café recommended by my friend Bianca’s sister. I asked if we could sit outside since otherwise our suitcases would be in the way, but the hostess responded there are no more spaces outdoors, and that our suitcases will be in the way regardless. She seated us at the same table as a couple who arrived shortly before us and had ordered what seemed like chocolate with milk poured over it. They stirred it and it broke up the chocolate a bit but never really transformed into chocolate milk and they left without quite finishing it. Yosef got a Berliner Weisse, a drink I had almost forgotten existed: beer with sweet, flavored syrup mixed in. I drank a cappuccino and we both got crepes. The cappuccino was the first in a series of disappointing drinking experiences. It turns out the American way of defaulting to a double shot for a larger quantity of milk is not the standard elsewhere. A few frothy milky mistakes finally caused me to reconsider my drink order.

We sat around awhile after figuring out how to get to Dresden, using the 1euro bathrooms that take place of the free public restrooms we have in the US. We had meant to use Deutsche Bahn, which includes regional rail, but we were far too tired to navigate another transfer and ended up opting for a more expensive direct train. A Muslim woman asked me how to use one of the other ticketing machines and I gestured at our suitcases to explain that I don’t know my head to tail here. A large Russian-speaking family sat on the bench next to us. Finally, we got on the train and found seats, and Yosef and I took turns sleeping on the train as the countryside pulled past us. Our Airbnb was a short walk from the train stop and thus concluded a full day of travel.

one microspike

I said I would come back to the ridge between 2018 and 2019, so here is the end of 2018:

the last Friday of 2018 I left work and went to South Station with my weighty backpack and a tube with a painting in it. Did you know that Portland, ME is only two hours away? I didn't, until Sorrel and Hannah started telling me I should meet them there. There's a bus that goes once an hour, which surprised me; 40$ for a round trip ticket, which is valid for a year. Of course I got there five minutes after the bus had left so I had to wait for the next one, but in due time, after watching a very strange animation about a speed-crazy snail, I found myself in Maine - which I insist is supposed to be no fewer than six hours away but somehow I got there in two.

Sorrel and Hannah met me there, bringing with them a much welcome dinner and hugs. We drove about an hour before getting to Sorrel's parents house: they have an interesting home, with a compost toilet and solar power and a wood-stove which heats the house. They were off the grid for years but recently hooked up to it and give their electricity into the system.

In the morning, we went to Portland and met Hannah's brother and poked around the little shops. Hannah left too soon with her brother to Belfast ME. Sorrel and I headed to a used bookshop (which is were I got the previously mentioned White Tiger).

We got home and made dinner and the next morning we got up and went for a walk up a little hill. Maine has snow, which I haven't seen much of this year. There was a dusting in Massachusetts this morning, but even when Papa and I climbed Mt. Monadnock the weekend before there wasn't much snow. Sorrel and I only had one set of microspikes between the two of us, so we each bore weight on one leg as we made our way up the icy slope. At the top, there was a view of some frozen lakes and mountains further out.

At the end of the day the four of us (Sorrel and I, and her parents) watched Dinner with Andre, which makes it the last movie I saw in 2018. The next morning Sorrels father showed me the starts of permaculture plots they had planned out around their land. Being there reminded me that I wanted a goat to get milk from. I imagine being a therapist with a goat and a vegetable patch. I guess I don't have a very good imagination, because mostly I imagine the goat and the vegetable plot in my parent's backyard. Mama had a boy goat named Pashka when she was little, and he's in some of the family photos.

Eventually it was time to go back home and Sorrel drove me back to the Portland station. On the bus I read I Talk Pretty One Day (which I finished later without feeling any accomplishment, and feeling confused as to why Sidaris is so well known). At some point on the bus I got a text form Veta with my Secret Santa; Eloosha, and I started to think of what to give him that I could assemble in the few hours I'd be home, which now leads us to the part of 2018 which is practically 2019 - for next time.

Valentine's Day

Yesterday Matt and I went to the ICA: he wanted to take me out for Valentin's day, even though I don't care about it but it was nice to go, which I guess is the point. We saw the short animated films nominated for the Oscar, of which we both will highly recommend: Negative Space (Max Porter and Ru Kawahata). He wanted to see some of the museum as well, but we just ate and went home on account of a headache. Planning on returning this Thursday.

Thinking back on past Valentin's day's: one year Kostya got me roses, which I accepted and felt like I was doing him a favor by not being cruel and turning down. So long ago. One year I went with a roommate to eat cheese and drink beer at Aeronaut. I want to go there again; the roommate and I no longer talk. When Matt and I started dating, February rolled up fast so we ran away to Canada, where it was too cold for all the little red hearts. Last year we did go out: Wednesday night I think. I got drunk though, I didn't like myself that night. This year I got got him small things over weeks: vinyl of an artist we will be seeing this summer (hear), we made palmiers (taste), a scented candle (smell), poems (feel), flowers (see). About half way through he said "are these gifts for me, or is this an art project?" "both - and you are my muse"

A couple days ago I finished reading Cities I've Never Lived In by Sara Majka. I'm going to send it to Luisa, I think she'll like it.

Tonight Matt and I spent an hour reading old pieces we had written, leaving us pensive. I am falling asleep now. good night.

autumn in vermont

On a Saturday over a month ago, I got on a bus to visit a few Bardians in Burlington, VT. Hannah picked me up from the station and we headed towards her and Will's apartment. It is; Mustard yellow walls in the hallways and a vegetable plot a couple blocks away. 

In the evening, the three of us went out to eat at American Flatbread: line stretched out and we stood with our beers at the bar, hungrily picking out the pizzas. We didn't hit the town after that: instead we came back to their apartment, and fixed our gazes on the shenanigans of Wallace and Gormit before settling into sleep.

The next morning we rummaged for wakefulness and the deep pockets of our consciousness and, still looking for it, walked over to Nunyans for breakfast. It was chillier in Vermont: that was one of the very nice things about the visit. After having spent the rest of the unusually warm autumn in Massachusetts, it was as if I had gone forward a bit in time to real autumn. Autumn with cool air and pretty rustling leaves. It was as if I had been watching a movie with the audio delayed and it finally lined up: day of the year and temperature of the air. 

Later in the day I met with Elyse, who had driven down from home for a while to see me, and I was so glad she had. We spent time by the lake, sitting in the grass as a girl played guitar and boys rolled by on long-boards. After a bit we were joined by Hannah and Will and then Adrienne as well at Muddy Water, a cafe I had gone to during my last visit as well, which meant that we had five of us from the same year in a mini college reunion. Sipping coffee and cocoa and mulled cider, surrounded by plants mounted on the walls. Elyse had to leave after that, and Adrienne Hannah and I went off to do some thrift shopping. Halloween was around the corner so the shops had brought out all the costume-wear, and students milled around looking for wigs and foam swords. In one shop I reaped a winsome silk skirt from the 80's.

We headed back towards the apartment, ordered some food from Tiny Thai, and the four of us scooted together on the bed and a bottle of wine, watching Monty Python skits and Black Adder. 

I don't remember exactly what was said but it was very funny

at the Ethan Allan homestead

The next morning Hannah ate rustic bread and drank tea. They we drove out a few miles for a walk on the lovely grounds of the Ethan Allan homestead. They house a program there which is very Vermont: giving little plots of land to recent immigrants to farm. We saw a few people leaving, on top of one girls a head an impressive bundle of harvested vegetables, on her feet only flipflops even as the temperature promised to dip below freezing that night. A sizable portion of the immigrant community there came from a farming background I guess: the fields are doing well, and some of the plants I did not recognize. After walking around the field we followed a path down to the water, where we looked for signs of beaver activity walked through a small parcel of preserved swamp with a wood plank bridge floating on it We picked up leaves from the ground, looking for the ones to encapsulate October in Vermont. The weather promised first frost that night, so we went to the vegetable plot and harvested everything that was left:  salad  greens, unripe tomatoes, hot peppers and a few small radishes. 

After the harvest, Hannah and I met Adrienne at some fancy tea place, sitting on an elevated platform with a low table surrounded by meditation pillows. Small nibbles and a shared pot kept warm over a candle flame. Eventually Hannah had to go so Adrienne and I meandered through shops and alley ways. We walked past a an art studio and some more familiar places from my last visit, into her large house with many any people and porch that looks over the neighbors chicken coop. 

That night dinner was three of us: Hannah and Will and I, surrounded by those yellow walls, a feast which included their home-grown salad. Then I set off into the night to meet with Luisa, whom I hadn't seen in so long but time collapsed and we were soon back were we had been, drinking a gin-drink out of a tea cup at the bar where her boyfriend works - our time in NYC didn't seem so far away. 

Tuesday was my last day. I partially woke up with Hannah and Will, to say a sleepy goodbye before clumsily collapsing back into a slumber. When I did wake up, I took my time: I drank some black tea and ate the fantastic plum cake Hannah had whipped up the day before. 

After her shift had ended, Adrienne met me at a very small coffee shop aptly called The Tight Squeeze, where we chatted with the barista and shop co-owner for a bit about the monster that lives in lake Champlain. 

Adrienne walked me to the bus stop, and back I came.

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.

Christmas

My life as fiction:

There was a party on a boat for the hospital. A cruise called Spirit of Boston, meaning that twenty minutes in comes the realization that exchanging pleasantries isn't that pleasant, and that to escape into drinking is not an option with a morning shift looming, and that one has to smile and try to enjoy oneself.

By which I mean to say, maybe not-me learned some things about some people that she didn't need to know, and maybe some of that they learned later, but that's okay. There were no cheating wives. There was no man who slept with three women from his workplace. There was no higher-up who did worse than either. After the ship and the dancing there may have been pool (which I was brilliant at!) at a bar everyone was invited to by a heart-broken nurse, but there I wasn't complimented on my lipstick as he lamented all the girls scattering when he came around.

Similarly, Christmas Eve was not spent in West Bridgewater. I didn't walk barefoot through the misty neighborhood. Nobody said a single racist thing. Not a single person made a fool of themselves! Nobody got angry, everyone was happy with their gifts, and I definitely, undeniably got a full nights' rest, most likely in my own bed and not on a fold-out couch at Emily's. Incredible, right?

And Christmas day dinner was not four Jews and a Catholic-raised Atheist talking about mind-control for the good of the masses. That's ludicrous! Dinner couldn't have been served on the porch; after all, it's the end of December. There was no tilapia and certainly no pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting or warm hugs. 


cheers to the most Christmas I've ever had in my life.

false dream

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving I went to the Cantab lounge for the third time. There, in the basement, people read their poems at an open mic (the second time I went and someone I had gone on an okay cupid date read), then an invited performer uses their slot (the first time I went it was Melissa Lozada-Oliva, whose poems I had already read) and then the slam poetry, which always happens too late for me to stay.

This time, it was me who read a poem at the open mic, followed by the drunken clapping of people who do not know my face and therefore are not as thrilled to see me. People who only understand poetry that burns, that competes as to who. is. the. most. miserable. I AM. if. I. speak. like. this. SEE MY RAGE. swallow my sadness i.am.shoving.it.down.your.throat. Who forget to value words and who just want to be heard by drowning out the rest of the screaming crowd. I am wrong to say these things. I was very excited to go there the first couple times, the idea of seeing some sort of active artistic scene, the odd good line in a mountain off poor attempts more than I would find otherwise. When I saw someone I had spoken to the first night working at a the coffee shop near me, I was thrilled at feeling like I knew people here who did words. But I haven't been able to go after the third time.

I read an old poem because I told myself "I will mourn. I will do it constructively, healthfully, watch me learn to mourn the way we are told we should". So I read a poem I had read for This Bardian Life, because it is something I can be grateful for - being told to speak my words aloud by Zappa, to let my voice be heard off of the page. Be glad for what he gave me. After I sat down I still wanted to disappear but then I got an e-mail and everything again seemed taken from under my feet is such a small pathetic way.

Hey Roomies,

I've decided to move out of the apartment. I found a place for mid-December. I know this is rushed but I'm positive you can find a roommate very quickly since this apartment has been extremely easy to fill in the past even during odd times. If someone else wants my room let me know before I post in the next day or two to Craigslist.

Thanks

The fighting that I had been ignoring had come to its apex. All three had talked to me at some point about it, and I just listened and waited for it to go away, for so many things to go away. About ten interviews later we have someone moving in, two weeks from now. I helped Therese move her things downstairs while her boyfriend just sat there. She told me to take a break and I said I was fine and she said "you're so stubborn" "when have I ever been stubborn with you?" "never! but I am stubborn too, so I can recognize it in other people" and we both smiled at that.
I helped Adrian move into Therese's old room - painting the walls, transporting carpet from home depot, cut by what seemed like robotic mice housed in a giant machine. I can hear the sigh of relief reverberating around the apartment. Hopefully everyone will be happier now.
 
I woke up this morning on Emily's house, from a dream in which Zappa was still alive.

He was slightly delusional, but I could still recognize him through that, having raced down elevators at the mall to find him and a bunch of his Bard friends at a cafe. He said "the first time I left this earth forever..." meaning that he thought he had killed himself twice, but he had returned, alive, and we had just lost track of him and he had thought he was dead and so that's how the misinformation surrounding his death (or lack thereof) happened. I ran towards him and jumped on him for a hug and he spun me around and then we all passed out Christmas or Return of Zappa gifts from him to us. I got a bunch of measuring spoons and a glittery golden pin. He folded up around my legs, lean and long, like a child and looked up thoughtfully. He said something and then added "but I guess that's considered to be an auditory hallucination", in an irritable tone, and we told him that that's okay, that that's not inherently bad, that we just want him safe and happy and taken care of.

I woke up and he was still dead. I had fallen out of touch and couldn't help. I had begun to morn before he had died because I assumed he was gone, not even taking into consideration the parts of him that were still there. I wanted to go back to sleep but I couldn't.


There are so many good things too but I'm afraid that if I pin them down on paper they will disappear, unable to exist without vibration, doubt and exhaustion. But I'll try again soon.

not a ghost

Months passed I had a dream - A boy I liked from high school but had lost touch with was dancing with me. It was in a building that used to be a psychiatric hospital years ago, by a lake with tall stone walls and hallways that echoed. Ghosts would pop up and then disappear just as suddenly. I've since wondered: if ghosts are usually freed to the spiritual world by resolving the issue that was tying them to the earth past their due, what do you do with a ghost of a paranoid schizophrenic? Are they more likely to get stuck here forever, unable to be brought clarity?

A week ago a friend I had in college killed himself. From my last communications with him, it was clear he had become increasingly disorganized and paranoid, overburdened with false guilt, annoyed by the lack of freedom. When Kelsey called I knew from her voice what she was going to talk to me about, I just didn't expect it to happen so soon.

He had been so sensitive, he was so bright - I can’t imagine what it is like to see yourself losing that, especially for a person to whom intellectual acuity is paramount - emotional sensitivity key - and he certainly felt that the medications blunted him in so many ways. 

At one point he had been one of the people I hung out with a fair amount, he came to a couple of my movie nights and I took photos for This Bardian Life, and we went out dancing, and he came to my 21st birthday party and numerous lunches and dinners together, he called wine vino and had a particular way he nodded his head, large bony hands, hair that had to be constantly swept to the side, low voice and eyes that paid attention when you talked; conversations not to be had in passing. 

I wish I had more I could find of him, it's a strange drawback of having communications in person, in vivo; you can't look over them later. I read something for TBL, he was thinking maybe I should expand it, I was concerned -- 
You mean you think the re-work would weaken it? I think that's reasonable. If you're interested in a remaster, go for it, although, with my bit of experience with creative work I was thinking your past self might have more to say. But it's up to you, of course. Send me the new version if you're comfortable; i'm also open to talking more about your process if you'd like.
 

We lost touch, he had started to lose something, and I was busy and attributed it to other things until we had stopped trying to speak to each other once I had graduated over a year ago now and only recently did I hear from him again, but not him, some other person. I miss the he who I knew, who he was, but both are entirely gone now. I know I can’t feel like I could have done something, but I wasn’t there, one of my last messages to him an apology for us not having maintained contact, and somehow I want to apologize for him being dead, to apologize to him for the sorrowful mix of genetics and environment that led him to not be here anymore, age 22 forever, for the world for having played such a cruel trick on him, that I couldn't do anything to stop it.

I don’t believe in restless ghosts: I have my memories of you on this side. 

august nyc

I said I would write about my trip to NYC - kept putting it off. It was unbearably and undeniably summer, my least favorite season, the heaviness of the heat suffocating; fingers prying at my neck.
I went to see Bengi who I had met in Berlin. It's been so many years! She was interning at the Turkish Mission in the UN. She still holds some wounder.  I had been so happy in Berlin and was so forlorn in NYC but it was still good to see her.

Saw Kostya , we ate Ukrainian food and I talked about how shitty it is to be with R. and as we parted we passed a memorial for an exploded building.
Saw Shinno who broke his femur in a motorcycle accident a year prior, listening to him tell me how he was bedridden for a month and took two months of waking up with the shakes to get off the pain medication, saying "I decided to come out of it stronger than I went in"

Saw Sasha who saw me cry furiously and powerlessly at an exhibit that aestheticized the bodies of people jumping out of buildings to their deaths, saw me walk out of a restaurant when we were trying to order Chinese to-go, saw me through the lens of her camera and captured me beautifully in spite of all the ugliness inside.
Saw Luisa who works at the Cloisters and let me in for free.
 

inflated

Why does the intellectual life sometimes feel at odds with the stupid risks of youth? Haven’t most great artists and thinkers lived great lives - really lived, thrived, felt, been hurt - held insight and ignorance simultaneously? Maybe, even, it’s impossible to write (authentically - a toxic word, steeping through the liver as we drink our way to inhibitions end) without first diving into some sort of simplicity (which is never truly simple, or everything is always simpler than --, or whatever it may be.) The cerebral is contained within the rest of the body, depends on and feeds off of the happily (death-driven?) pursuits of the body as we meander on the path of existence (but not just existence: life, awareness, and once again the idea of thriving). 

Hotline bling has been stuck in my head for the last few days, and it is my fault. 

For months I withheld extensive interactions with my co-workers. I went out drinking with them once and later felt like I should have left earlier. I went out again when someone was leaving and did leave earlier. The adrenaline-rushed and boredom filled existence of the halls, the repetition of “here’s a toothbrush” mixed with “I have his right arm” is filled with people who made me want to be careful. I said “working here is like an abusive relationship: you can only be with the people here because a) the weird hours mean that you cannot hang out with anyone else and b) the people here are the only ones that will understand what you are experiencing.” Someone said “It’s so hard listening to people complain about their work after a day here: oh, you had a bad phone call at work? I feel SO sorry for you, someone spit in my mouth today”.

To the point: in spite of my avoiding it at first, I have by now found myself ingrained in this group. I got invited to a birthday dinner of a smaller circle, and after I came Launtylaunt dug at me, telling me that I’m part of the clique, retaliation because I gave them shit about being cliquey for months. The next day I attended a bbq. I find them more and more ingrained in myself. I would not be friends with them if not for this job - but then, I chose to work here, and so did they. I kept thinking careful careful, until suddenly I found myself not so careful. In May I wrote to Kelsey “We bundle strangely”, which is still true. But this tide of people drew me into the fold. I wish I had been writing more as it came along, begrudgingly, uncertainly, cynically, untrustingly, judgmentally. I want to make this whole, here's the first attempt at patching up the hole. all I can find to add: May 4th: i think maybe we are friends, but not the kind of friend, at least not at this point, that will last beyond 'this point' -- this job.  July 4th:  (two of the supervisors are, for lack of a better word, grooming me for the position. It comes with a lot of flattery I don't know what to do with). One of my coworkers pushes my head in a way that a brother would do, and I'm hoping that's all he means by it. I glare at him every time I speak too softly and he tells me to talk in a 'big girl voice'.

Launtylaunt and World are both cocky. They know this, we tell them all the time. They think they are amazing but they also tell the people they like how amazing they are. When the drink flows so do the compliments. I sit there thinking that if I’m not careful, my ego will be so inflated that I could be thrown into the Charles with weights and still stay afloat. Our mouths fill with cigar smoke and they and tell me they want me to be a supervisor - have been telling me for months, Laungtylaunt called me a selfless bitch one time when I rejected a scheme that I thought was ineffective, but would have been to my advantage. They listed off four reasons I should be a supervisor, reasons crystallized with opportunity. Let me, through them, gloat. Even if all of this is false, it is true that they said this.

1. you are the smartest person in the hospital.
   “this is not true but I will not argue with you” and they repeat themselves. Matt alters it, he says “you have the kind of mind most people envy” thinking I can swallow this better and I think how little how little how little (how can I not smile softly to myself at that? how can I not fiddle with the glass of wine in my hands? no matter what it is both nice and horrible to hear)
2. you have a heart like no other
   a similar reaction internally, but I don’t bother fumbling with the words.
3. you know what’s going on
   nobody ever does
4. you are ready, and have been ready
   nobody ever is

I never finished my dinner, World and Launtylaunt ignored me when I said I was fine where I was by the bathroom door, having vomited, picking me up and lugging me to the black couch instead, where I slept for a little bit. We are all just prisoners here, of our own device.

perfume

My mother keeps telling me to be kinder to myself. I called her on the phone, after what I thought were tentative plans turned to vapor and left no trace, as if they had not even been tentative. I called her, telling her that it took me two hours to get up out of bed after work and move myself to change and shower, and that the entire time I felt gross because I hate staying in my work clothes, the stink of the hospital still on me, the smell of my least-favorite perfume (necessary to wear if I'm to survive a day filled with the smell of psychotic depression stagnation, or geriatric decrepitude, or withdrawal shakes - but still my least favorite because why would I ruin a nice perfume by wearing it there, putting that complicated misery on a smell I like? One patient kept telling me that I smell like the perfume his mother was buried in, he seemed angry that I kept wearing it and kept refusing zyprexa and anything else). T---, tell yourself that it's okay that you were in bed in those clothes for two hours. You are good. She didn't ask why I didn't love myself more, and she knew that when I said that perhaps I am good because I don't love myself, that it was pointless to carry on that conversation further. This is all to say that my mother is very smart and very loving and that I'm so happy I have her.

Paras moved out last weekend, while I was in NYC (more on that later.) Curtis moved in once I was back already, I was grateful that he had so few boxes (so, I'm sure, were both he and Adrian, as we carried what few things he had up four flights of stairs).

I'm thinking about the things that people take and leave behind. Paras has taken with him a lot: the coffee maker, the sound of him practicing sitar, himself. He has left a few things scattered around the apartment, including two voluptuous plants on the balcony (he knew I would like that), and Amy for a friend. I'm meeting up with her now.

below: I'm trying to draw again. Max and I meet up - in theory every Tuesday, in practice less frequently. We assign homework, we try to hold eachother accountable to keep drawing outside of college. It's hard, but we are trying.

kaleidoscope

I keep having words but not putting them together here, like a moving kaleidoscope and I can't quite snatch up the shapes and colors before they disappear from before me.

green glass - I went to the Somerville porch fest with Adian and Margo. We shifted from venue to venue, and with the change in location came a change in population. Old married couples with grandchildren in one place, people in their late 30's at another, those in their 20's and early 30's at a third. It's kind-of perfect though, the idea of a porch fest. People come out and share their own music with the people living around them, using the cross of urban and suburban space: tightly packed houses stacked next to each other -- creating a town-wide bbq-party. Green bottles filled with beer in hand, music dances in the air.

teal strand - I dyed my hair. People keep asking way and I say "I just felt like it" except to Paras to whom I said "whenever I change my hair it's because of a boy" and didn't repeat myself when he didn't hear.


a feather, refracted - we went camping: the boy who used to live in the room I live in now, Therese, Paras, and Amy. I had never gone camping without the supervision of those a generation above me! I had never gone camping without Russians! We snuck around trying to scare each other throughout the day, like real adults. We had about 7 different types of 'dogs' to accommodated so many different dietary restrictions. We pitched a couple tents and didn't get wet when it rained. We toasted marshmallows for breakfast and swam in a lake with ducklings.

a mirror slate - at work, I now only have 32h schedueled per week, and only work day shift, which means I no longer feel like I'm chronically jetlagged. Unless I pick up a shift, I always work on 3South, on of the acute units, like I had asked. All of this makes me much happier, I didn't even realize how much weight had been placed on my chest until it lifted. Two days ago I had a few tears escape my eyes while at the nurses station, in front of people. One of the patients had screamed and called me a bitch, and I also found out that I was almost certainly mandated. Usually I am ashamed when people see me cry, but this time I apologized and it felt okay. "Relax" Cole told me, and gave me a one-armed hug. I didn't get mandated. She apologized to me the next day "you know you are one of my favorite staff! I was waiting for you to come in after yesterday so I could apologize!" I said, yes, thank you, but wouldn't it be great if you didn't have to apologize? Think about what you think will help you to control your temper, before it boils over. "You are right!" she said. We will see.


how many times have I turned the kaleidescope?

into the fold

I tried to eat every morsel of remembrance on my trip back to Annandale, it was hot and on the ride there Donnie manned the music, and Charlotte manned the wheel, and Elyse and I sat in the back awaiting our fates. "McDonalds bought a nearly complete T-rex skeleton for a museum in exchange for it's own wing. How do you guys feel about this?" Charlotte asked.

We arrived on campus and went to explore the changes. There is a new baseball field, cut out of the woods where many a person had peed on those fresh-aired Smog-filled nights. There was a bench we found by the campus center, bright blue and fresh. The ropes on the swing had been changed, and on North Campus there was a barn that had only been in the minds eye last year. We went to the burrito stand and feasted (some things are reliably good), the smoky hot sauce and cool root beer went down my glutenous throat.



Glutenous for all I had missed: hours pouring over books, long walks and conversations, screaming from the community garden to hear my anger echo against the dorms and back to me, and the beautiful ephemeral bloom of magnolia blossoms each year. So much had not changed, but I am no longer there, it is no longer mine, and I am no longer part of the Hudson Valley landscape.

After lunch, my road-trip companions dropped me off at Sorrel's house, same one she had lived in last year, and Will and Hannah (back from France just last week) were there to greet me. There is so much more responsibility as a graduating person (I had forgotten). The balancing of visitors, and family, and friends graduating with you, and looking for advice from favorite professors!

So Will skipped off and Hannah and I made dinner while the night set in, Sorrel still tending to all her other responsibilities. Hannah and I sat by the window talking about the feeling of religious devotion without religion, depression and who you surround yourself with, solitude and lonesomeness. Nina asked what rituals we do in place of those religious ones so many have. Hours passed.

When Sorrel did come, we huddled on her bed, avoiding the crowded tent party in favor of the company of two. The shunting of conversations deeper than a kiddie pool that happens in the real world did not happen here, and depth of warmth to match. The effervescent eager conversation. Here: here is my heart and mind now, know how I have changed and how I love you.

The next morning Will, Hannah and I went to the Tivoli Bakery. Cranberry-corn muffin, cinnamon bun, sandwich, coffee. We sat in the grass with Will's friends.  Then we went to see our seniors walk.

When the fireworks came, I was surrounded by the right people. "If you lie down on your back, the sound reverberates in your chest" "Oh! It's true" Kelsey responded. Will kept berating me for missing the fireworks - "Look T---! Look! Turn around!". After that we all danced.

In the morning, I watched Kelsey pack.
Now it's their turn to go.

Spontaneity

One thing I've learned from online dating is that everyone wants someone spontaneous and 'willing to try new things' as well as some standard rotating set of 'has a good sense of humor' or 'can have an interesting conversations'. I on the other hand like humorless boring people.

Regardless, I wouldn't call myself a spontaneous person. Paras and I took a trip to Target a couple weeks ago. He has a theory that older siblings date people who are younger siblings, and that older siblings are less spontaneous, generally smarter and less athletic. I told him that I sometimes set goals for myself to be more spontaneous - and was relieved and surprised when he said he has done the same thing. Not only that, but written down moments of increased impulsiveness, a list of running accomplishments that feel more satisfying than fulfilling expectations of walking up the steps of societal expectation and growth. Yes, I got a positive ninety-day review at work but also I bought pussy-willow at the store on a whim and that's even better. Under the florescent lights, we pathetically looked up reviews for vacuums on amazon and compared prices before, finally, settling on the first one we had looked at.

Last weekend Sara sighed at me as I chose three rings for ten dollars. It was the third time in my life I had ever bought myself jewelery. It took her a few seconds to choose earrings, and I kept trying on one ring, matching colors, wanting to know which fingers I'd wear them on and if on the thumb then it should be bigger but shoot they don't have that color in a bigger size. "Don't you do anything spontaneously?" she asked and I remembered that I had bought a ticket to Moscow what seems not too long ago but is has already been two and half years. But even that was a result of a long-seated desire to do so; the action was not planned, but the intention had been there for years. fuck I thought she's right. As we weaved through Haymarket, I bought a stem of grapes for a dollar and a whole fish for four. Spanish Mackerel, beautiful on ice, not yet gutted. Sara was impressed. 

"It is important for people, for whom part of their identity is being sensible, intelligent and responsible, to know that they can risk being foolish". This is what I told my visitor (or myself) this weekend, a friend of a friend who was here for the sole purpose of trying to see if this thing with a guy would work out. We went to the Isabella Gardner museum during the day and she met him for dinner later. Today we had brunch downtown and walk down Newbury street, and who know what will happen for them? But without spontaneously risking foolishness, one can never find out. I'm turning twenty-three in three days, maybe I'll learn.

basement party

This is my first full time job. This is the first time I have signed a lease. This is the first time I bought lipstick. This is the first time I have made an on line dating profile, and gone on a blind date. This is the first time I have bought a gym membership. This is the first time I have bought pussy willow in the spring.  like my mother does. This is the first time I've had a budget spreadsheet. This is the first time I've attended a party that was attended by the police, twice.

The apartment-wide party really did end up happening on Saturday night. Adrian Paras Amy and I went down to the basement and there was a dj playing in the corner with his laptop and a movie projected behind him, another one waiting for his turn at the set, wearing lab goggles over his glasses. A couple lamps and some Christmas lights, someone turned on a couple bike lights and it looked like a strobe blinking in the corner. Like an edgy bar where they can charge you 12$ for drinks, except with a laundry room at the entrance. At 10:30 the cops showed up, right as we had shut off the music (there was a quick interlude for a fund-raising auction, which was actually pretty funny.) They said something about usually being reasonable before eleven but that we were so loud they could hear us a block away. I blame the building architecture for acting as an amp.

They left and soon after we continued, the number of people swelling and multiplying; people who didn't live in the building, people who were friends or dating, people who came after they heard it was actually a party, people who came before to create critical mass. I ended up stereotyping apartments: the demure and professional girls, and tall bro-y potheads, the nerdy MIT students. A few of the apartments opened up their doors and we went on an apartment tour, exploring the different layouts, the messes of one set of people, the meticulousness of another, the pile of shoes at the end of a hallway and the posters in the kitchen, sangria standing on the kitchen table. Paras's friend came with a horde of Germans, I talked to a couple who didn't live in the apartment, recently moved here - she's Columbian, he's Italian. One girl started apologizing to me that she wasn't more outgoing, as if a total stranger could have noticed her sadness amongst dozens of people. A girl asked her "why are you sad?" and she said "oh. nothing, oh someone just didn't come" and we nodded sympathetically. I said "if I knew you better, I would give you a hug" and she responded "I can use one, yes" surprising me more than the boy who decided to put his phone my dress pocket, a pocket between my shoulder blades that I cannot really reach myself, and a little less than the German boy whose female companion kept pointedly making out with him while he was talking to me and Paras, him going on about how not Jewish my nose is and that I don't have horns, not necessarily in a mean way but just rather unaware that I don't know anything about him. I walked up and down the stairs, weaving in and out of a few apartments, grabbing another bottle of beer, going back to the warm basement and up for gulps of fresh air on the deck, again with the Italian-Columbian couple. And at 1am the cops came again and Paras and I sat contentedly on the porch.

Snow Queen

 

The best part about repeating the play I was in during the summer (Snow Queen) during the winter was this:
- I did, I think, do better this time. I also got a lift from rehearsal in a Tesla.
- Waking up the next morning, Veta asleep to one side of me, Liza asleep and snuggled up against my shoulder to the other, Eloosha not yet up in the room across the hall. And then a multi-course breakfast that turned into lunch while we remained seated.