brevity is for the weak
J moved out this week. Per his request I was not around when the movers came, so I came home to a comically bare apartment. Gone are the bookshelf, bar cart, coffee table, couch, trash can. The only pieces of furniture left are my desk, chair, and shoe rack. With my futon unfolded my setup looks like one of those male living space memes , only with more space and a lot more boxes and bags. (I have…
for Larry Levis And what good is a dream finally? It breaks your head open and cello music pours out of a stranger's window and the most gorgeous woman you ever loved says to hit the road and you do see them—that stranger and this woman. Kissing everywhere. In the trees. On boats. In the kitchen cupboards. The fog of daily life never lifts and the checkbook needs proper calculations and the dog…
Last week I went to see Julieta Venegas play a free concert in Central Park. I showed up half an hour before doors opened and an hour and a half before the concert started, thinking that would be enough to get a good seat. How wrong I was. Ten minutes away from the venue, I stumbled across a long line. "Is this for the concert?" I asked the first lady I saw. She looked at me blankly and shook her…
J started moving out this week. The lease for his next apartment overlaps with ours for a few weeks, a luxury I didn't even know I wanted until now. He's been carting his stuff over to the new place across the street one dolly at a time. Movers are coming in a week or two to move the furniture. The apartment feels empty without his things. L (going to use a different letter before this gets…
Having not grown up in this corner of the country, the Jersey Shore was only a place I had heard about and knew nothing about. That is, until yesterday, when P, a friend from work, invited me and A and some of our coworkers to visit his parents' place out yonder. To tell the truth, I don't particularly like this group of work friends, but I do like P and rarely turn down an opportunity to go…
"All I could do was to offer you an opinion upon one minor point—a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved." VIRGINIA WOOLF, "A Room of One's Own" Friday again, and thank Frith for that. I got home from work at 5 and spent the last hour resting and…
Yesterday outside my apartment I saw the first mature red spotted lanternfly of the year, which I'm starting to think will become as sure a sign of the changing seasons as the falling of the leaves and the shortening of the days. I let it go. I move out of my current apartment at the end of August, after a little more than two years here. J is moving out and I can't afford to take over the lease.…
Between Canadian wildfire smoke, torrential downpours, and track fires, M somehow picked the worst weekend in recent memory to visit the city. No matter, since we didn't let that stop us from enjoying ourselves yesterday and exploring Greenpoint, Williamsburg, and some of Manhattan. Greenpoint Radio Bakery 135 India St, Brooklyn, NY 11222 Tomato croissant ($8); tangy. Bakeri 105 Freeman St,…
I took E to the Indonesian Food Bazaar today, a monthly gathering of Indonesian food vendors (and one Burmese) in the St James Parish House in Elmhurst (84-07 Broadway, Flushing, NY 11373). They post the dates and hours every month on their Facebook . These AI-generated graphics make me sad. They're everywhere... When we arrived at 11, many of the vendors were still setting up, and the last ones…
9:30 PM. On a normal night without class I wouldn't be on my computer at this hour, especially given how tired I've been this week. Alas, I made the mistake of opting my clothes out of the spin cycle today — I guess I thought I'd be kinder for a change by not subjecting them to a spin? — and putting the clothes in the dryer sopping wet. After six seven hours in the dryer and counting, they are…