gorgeous

photographs

To spell it out just once

I have no desire to be on the "cutting edge" of anything.

I wish only to filter through the deluge of every day and arrange a concrete structure, an understanding.

That's basically all there is to it.

Today

I cut my bangs last night and supposedly this makes me look younger. I am walkin' around the office today in a black dress and heels, and I'm listening to the Broken Flowers soundtrack, which has stuff on it like this:

Greenhornes, "There is an End"

Mulatu Astatqe, "Yekermo Sue"

Russian stuff is on my mind, and I've been secreting the occasional cigarette out of the Press in my bra.

The combination makes me feel a bit like a femme fatale. It's a good time.

Throwback

When I was born the hospital staff thought evolution had tripped back a few steps. My mother cried out of joy, but the doctors and nurses whispered about my huge hands and feet, my prematurely furrowed brow.

When I was six the dentist told my parents I needed braces. "She's a characteristic mouth breather," he began to scribble a note on his yellow pad, "I'd recommend you make an appointment with an orthodontist."

"How can you tell something like that this early?" my mother snapped. Dr. Lee stopped writing. Dad took my hand and we all left the office; I got braces seven years later.

The first one that's happened in awhile

What is there to make of the days?
Monday sparrows quaver in puddles.
Tuesday the bulb on the porch gives out.
Wednesday humidity,
Wednesday the stained glass window,
a man cursing on the street.
Thursday smooths the week over;
thunder trips across the sky.
Friday unexpected music burns the intestines of city streets.
Saturday is cold air.

Wow.

It's amazing what a difference biking to work makes. I hadn't biked at all this week due to equal parts rain, humidity, and laziness, but this morning's weather was overcast with just a tinge of a chill in the air. It was perfect. I feel more energized and in-the-moment now than I have in at least a few days, and I'm going swimming after work today. Woohoo!

Had a mango for breakfast. Heaven. Now half my keyboard is sticky with mango juice, and I've got fruit stuck between my teeth. So worth it. Really, it's bliss.

This week is finally turning itself around. Maybe I shouldn't talk about it too much.

Maybe the key to this whole thing is just

There are storm clouds gathering around Philadelphia, and on days like this it feels as though the city is wrapping its fingers around my throat.

Harvey Pekar died on Monday.

I bummed a cigarette from a stranger while walking around looking for lunch just now. It was a menthol. It killed me. Serves me right.

My body doesn't react to tobacco all that well. Cigarettes are supposed to be uppers--nicotine is supposed to give you a temporary jolt. That hasn't happened to me in some time if it ever did. When I smoke a cigarette, my brain just shuts off. It feels like my ears are stuffed with gauze, I can feel my eyes glaze over. When I smoke regularly, throughout the day, I feel like I'm sleepwalking a little bit.

There are advantages. It's nevertheless stress relief, and it gives me an excuse to get out of the office for a minute or two and have some me time. It's the only stress relief I have at the moment. Which is probably why I do it.

But it's not worth it. The feeling that I'm walking around sleeping all the time. The sense that if only I could wake up, I could clear my head. My thoughts are jumbled. I'm not really present in my own life.

Which is also probably why I do it.

I've been here for almost a year, and things still aren't satisfactory. Often the fact that I now have a tentative plan for the next few years sketched out in my head isn't compensation enough for the present.

I'm beginning to meet people. Slowly. I'm making an effort to go out and be pleasant. But I'm growing increasingly convinced that my criterion for a meaningful friendship is pretty skewed. I can't rely on my sense of who to rely on. I'm still largely alone.

Occasionally, despite myself, I mess something up at work. Then I beat myself up about it all day.

Don't feel like writing anymore.

Strays, First Edition: A Thought Once Uttered Is Untrue

1. She dreamt, a room. A puzzle. Hovered above concrete gray air heavy as a swamp. There were gossamer tentacles of string and she gathered them into a bunch. She pulled. The room fell together.

2. No time to think for walking.

3. The world was ending, I thought. Outside the tulips stood too still. Inside there were three of us: the woman in the yellow dress who was still silent,the old woman with a face like a dumpling, and me.

4. I want to map you out.

5. The orange of streetlamps bursting in the held breath of the fog and the heartbeats of ceiling fans on the top floors of distant buildings.

I will never understand, but I love 'em

sushi sushi sushi bar

yellow banana

um

...and when played in the correct order, they will squeak "the bells of St. Mary."

mice