For Peace and Freedom

So they dug out this ash heap in Queens and built all these pavilions. They had cars already driving around in 1939. Cars were not yet drudgery and traffic jams and Jiffy Lube– they were leisure and freedom. They had an early television. Television was not yet aesthetic assault and battery everywhere you turn. You could see the Magna Carta. They had a dishwasher, which was about to make everyone’s life better (except for people who insist on living in minimally renovated pre-1935 housing like stupid, stupid me). They had a robot who smoked cigarettes. He was seven feet tall, spoke 700 words from the record player in his belly, and I would definitely go out on a date with him if his reconstruction goes as planned.

Annotated Bibliography: Is He Or Isn’t He; Hitting the Desert

“Tonight I’m pushing everyone away. I did it all day but tonight I’m vicious about it. I’ve camped out by my favorite window and no amount of harmonica playing, rattle of dishes, laughter of voices from other rooms deep in this house can draw me out…. I don’t want to be walking around peeling my shirt off these days. I want deep layers of Canadian blankets and fire. Red eye of fire. And dogs. And cold cold nights.” — Sam Shepard, Motel Chronicles

The Cold War

This winter feels protective. The cold keeps me tucked away. The snow insulates what looks dead, and spreads clean, consistent color where there were organic browns, pale midwestern house paints, and silver cars smudged with road muck.

Valentine Box

Hannah’s Valentine box: perfect creases, no visible seams or glue. Immaculately conceived. Little plastic mice perched on top, holding little plastic hearts. My Valentine box: clearly descended from a shoebox, the way a bird is descended from a dinosaur. The pink tissue paper I covered it with creases awkwardly. It was sort of like wrapping […]