Order

Today is the day I sort.

There is a day, maybe a week into my time off, that I must sort.

I didn’t know today was the day.

But then I walked past my bookcases of old journals and I knew I had to sort them.

It seems like when they say pregnant women need to nest.

My downstairs neighbor just had a baby his name is James, James comma sweet baby.

I took all the journals off all two bookcases and sat on the floor.

No matter how many couches or chairs I have, for real work, I am always sitting cross-legged on the floor.

Which is probably great for my future joint health and flexibility.

My major life regret is all the times I didn’t put the year on my journals.

WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING

Then I’m sorting through looking for some sign of a year, or a day of the week and a date.

It’s annoying.

Sometimes I’m able to sort it into: before real job), before becoming a teacher, before significant breakup, pre-moved to New York.

But I went to NYC a lot before I moved there, so sometimes NYC content is in books FROM EARLIER PERIODS.

I mean, it doesn’t matter when things happened.

It doesn’t matter that they happened at all.

What does matter is me seeing that I sat around with friends deciding the classiest and trashiest alcohols. I said rum. How I’ve changed! Or it’s still trashy, but I love it now.

What matters is I saw a brush with an ex that knocked me silly, and now I don’t even remember that. it happened.

So many times I started over.

This is one horror of aging, realizing that you have to start over, and over, and over, and over.

At least I have.

I never had a real straightforward life trajectory.

I find my past self to be a mopey, adorable tyrant.

Which might be how friends would describe me as well.

I ran across, “I didn’t have a drink because I’d had one the night before,” and I thought, huh, I sat around socially and never asked the host to open the wine I brought.

That would not happen now.

I am tired. I seek ease and pleasure at every turn.

Well.

I seek wine.

Hah.

In my old journals, I am always making to-do lists.

These are always worthless later on.

grocery

cat litter

see D, M

ask about 536

I sorted journals by year.

I let someone on youtube talk about how the rich dress.

I got dressed, and intended to leave the house, but I saw my bookcases of books, written by other people.

I knew I had to re-sort them all immediately.

I was back on the floor.

Reds, oranges, and yellows are always together, toward the top.

I made some shelves of blues and greens.

Then black, dark.

Then whites.

Then creams.

A guy on youtube talked about how the narrative structure of “The Walking Dead” failed.

I love that cultural analysis and criticism is so pop now.

Used to be you had to take a class on novel writing to get that kind of chat in your ear.

=

I finally got out, to coffee.

What changed my life the most during covid was not getting to go out for coffee and write.

Honestly I had built my life around that activity set.

I have so few journals in the 2020- now category.

I feel this is my first summer covid-free.

My first summer in six years with money, and without covid.

I drove to get coffee because it’s gross hot.

I remembered the hottest I’ve ever been: the summer I tried to move to NYC.

No one I knew had ever moved anywhere except for work.

I didn’t know how to do it.

My air b n b landlady was a piece of shit.

She neglected to mention, in her post, that her rental room had no air conditioning. It was July. In Brooklyn.

I went to buy a fan.

It didn’t work.

I took it back.

The only nice thing about this story is that the store where I bought it was called “Fat Albert’s,” and they sold absolutely everything except food.

Like Target. Except everything was shitty.

They gave me a new fan.

I got a bag of ice from landlady’s freezer.

I put it on the back of my neck and aimed the fan at me.

I could not sleep.

I left during the day, and when I returned she asked me. not to leave the. fan on. when I wasn’t there.

Her place was full of crystals and she did energy work.

She was the first person I met who created a lovely new agey space for her nasty little soul.

I mean, God bless her, I also have a nasty little soul, as you can see.

Now journals are sorted, books are sorted.

By year and by color.

When you write something down, WRITE THE YEAR.

June 5, 2023.