crystal pepsi time machine (currently untitled)

clean

2010-03-02T08:23:00.001-08:00

i had a dream there, on the sofa, that he walked in through the door. not what i expected, some rather non-descript asian kid in a white hanes shirt with a buzzed haircut. everyone acknowledged him with just the minimal amount of effort required to be polite and off he went down the hallway. i awoke to the white square of brightness in front of me, the sunlit blinds, a sliver of baby blue let me know the rain had finally moved on.

'there is no asian kid,' i thought, relieved. 'there's still no one.'

no, you're still an island, you haven't let anyone in. i sit in the airport and i wonder if you ever will. i see people on tv who look like you and something inside of me cringes, or contracts automatically, and though it's painless i can still feel it. i stand in the crowded awning of a restaurant as the rain pours down and someone sitting nearby has hair close to yours. close but just not it. i've never seen anyone match the shine.

it goes on like this, laying on the sofa. i can hear you laughing in your room, speaking on the telephone to someone. you always hear the descriptions of such a thing as "a stab in the heart" but it's not, at least not for me. it's more like cool water washing over your face minutes before you drown. you haven't lost control just yet, you're still trying to assess the situation. you're still oblivious.

so i sit upright and light a cigarette. i can't spend all morning listening to this. i'll go insane. i leave and walk past the cigarette butts in front of the strip club and the wet newspapers laid out in a grid where the homeless man slept the evening before, before the rains moved in and soaked everything.

there was the afternoon we sat in the back and petted that rambunctious dog, where our fingers brushed against each other's and you looked at me in that way you have, where it's like you're trying to figure something out or remember an old quote, and then it just dissolves into a smile. i remember sitting there in the nascent spring sunshine and realizing that finally i've gotten it, i've done something worthwhile, that this darkness has lifted.

i meet my friend for lunch. we sit and i chainsmoke. he asks how things are going with us and i'm not afraid to tell him it's all fucked. after our sandwiches we hike up to the hills, me out of breath and him in sunglasses. we reach the top and there it all is, spread out to the sea.

"the rain came through and cleaned all the air up," he says. i nod and i think if i try hard enough, i can see your house from here.

instructions in french

2010-02-03T10:02:00.000-08:00

this goes out to premium economy class on airliners.

this goes out to steering wheels on the right side of the car's passenger compartment.

this goes out to balmy evenings that defy the season.

this goes out to recessed lighting at dinner on a weekend.

this goes out to police in manhattan.

this goes out to a windy sunday afternoon, she said "take me home" with her pink, woolen arms crossed.

this goes out to waiting in the tomb-like light of the cineplex corridor, for no one.

this goes out to sitting alone in the cabin as the descent begins; upright and alert, perhaps a bit melancholy.

this goes out to understatement.

i love you, i love this music you will never listen to

2009-10-26T11:29:00.000-07:00

this morning as i was walking through the crunch of the elm leaves--too early for them to be soggy and limp--i made the decision that there would just be space between us for a while. yes, i thought, there needs to be a complete revision before autumn drifts quickly away and is replaced by an unending slate sky. i stopped at the junction and bought a morning paper and lamented this unfortunate yet inevitable revelation.

how will she take it, i wondered as i waited on the platform for the stratford train. well, regardless, it must be done. things can't go on like this, i considered, acknowledging a bright and breezy sunday afternoon spent sitting by the phone. you never called.

in the crowded carriage passing the backs of houses, a compromise. alright, well, maybe not complete separation. but these plans we've discussed, those will have to wait. something for the future. at the present we'll just have to take things as they come. no more investing ideas into next weekend or the following evening, or any of that.

crowding to the point that i tuck the newspaper under my arm. an african woman shuttles her two children--quiet and staring--to the sliver of space between me and the doorway. the train lurches forward, blue sky disappears as we go underground.

ok, fine, i say. we'll still have all these plans. some of them will happen, many of them won't. i'll be disappointed, then elated, then disappointed again. i'll spend nights across from you just so sure i've done the right thing with my life. i'll spend other evenings wishing we'd just passed when introduced so many years ago.

how many more years will this go on? small child looks up at me with wide eyes from under his wool cap. i force a knowing smile.

secaucus junction

2009-10-13T10:58:00.000-07:00

if there is a rule for 2009 it is that when i ride back on the train from newark airport it is the dawn of some enormous chapter in my life. in spring it was the same as fall, high white clouds dotting the robin's egg sky, a slowly dwindling afternoon, sun just high enough that you won't get that sunday melancholy; those thoughts of being at your desk at work the next morning.

at least in spring i had no idea what was ahead. she was like a storm far off the coast, with a path leading directly to me but no one could forecast it. i didn't even know she existed.

in fall i knew everything i had to. i knew where i was going. i stood in the breezy space between cars and stared at the passing tall grass, fingering my mobile phone in my pocket restlessly.

she calls as the train sits in newark penn and we speak briefly. she never sounds emotional on the telephone (maybe even in person) when she speaks. there's no lilt, no sweet goodbye. i mean she's not like a telephone operator or anything... i just don't hear the sounds i'm used to.

i know in an hour i'll be at her house, with my bags and my jacket. sitting on her porch in the nascent autumn cool. it's still warm enough to pretend it's summer, but the sunlight is different.

i remember one evening we stood in some darkened corner, close. we wondered why the sunlight in autumn looked a certain way.

the train pulls off and again we're sprinting across the industrial wasteland of north jersey. first sun i've seen in three days.

it's going to be beautiful when we go for a walk, i think.

storms

2009-08-18T21:09:00.000-07:00

she buries her head into her hands. everyone else around us drinks beer and eats meat. this is as close to crying as she gets. if the tears fall, it's ok, i'm used to it by now.

enough of this shit. "i think i'm done listening to you," i say. but that's a lie. i'll listen until i go deaf, which will be never; i'm always hearing what she has to say.

we go up and down like a seismograph. one second i want to scowl at her and stand up, walking off with two fingers up. then i take a sip and all i want is for a smile, just give me that.

everyone is miserable. L sits with me on the porch, sunny day, soft clouds over the tasman, saying "i just don't know what i want." B walks up kingsland at midnight, telling me no one here does anything but shag randomly. not as a brag, more forlorn than anything.

what the hell is it going to take to get away from all of this? i've gone to every corner of the world to try and find something different. maybe time is the only axis that counts, not distance.

let's all go back to when we didn't know any better.

may 2014

2009-07-31T19:31:00.000-07:00

she came home from whole foods, sunglasses perched on her forehead, standing in the elevator humming the chorus to a pop song she heard in the market.

i heard the front door, then her solid heels on the wood flooring. i heard the rustle of the paper bag as it hit the counter top. soon she was in the study, standing in the doorway.

she found me crying silently. she didn't say anything. the book was open, upturned on my lap.

she walked over and stroked my shoulder.

"fucking sherman," i said. and she smiled and i love when her eyes and mouth begin to laugh, but it's laughter inside, warm laughter, when she finds something touching, intimately funny. an inside joke between the two of us.

she sat on my lap and the book fell to the floor. sunlight streamed through the side window. a faint horn sounded from the west side highway.

let's just sit here like this for a long, long time.

her laughter through the trees

2009-06-16T13:37:00.000-07:00

these things are known:

1) a crunch of gravel as the dark sedan pulls up at exactly 9:47, he knows because he looks worriedly around the kitchen for a knife and glances at the green LED clock of the microwave

1a) the kitchen is a mess, there are two cats and a dog watching him as he paces from sink to table to counter; old newspapers, used coffee mugs, an umbrella. the clutter is incongruous with the luxury of the house he is in

2) looking up, past the wrought iron chandelier, lights come on in the 2nd floor alcove above him. panic increases

3) the windows are streaked with droplets, leaving his reflection akin to a watercolor left in the rain

3a) thunderstorms are ravaging this area throughout the evening

3b) he is in socks, no shoes

4) the front door is open now and muffled excited conversation can be heard, along with the stamping of wet boots on the foyer tile and rumbles of thunder from a distant neighborhood

4a) he contemplates hiding in a utility closet

5) she walks into the kitchen in a flash, removing one earring and smiling

5a) her husband follows closely behind, also smiling. his shoulders are dotted with wet spots

5b) an older fellow passes by via the hallway and waves cordially

5c) he makes small talk with the couple in slow motion and with very deliberate and leaden gestures of intimacy: arm pats, waves to recall details, rubbing of the chin

6) she enters the kitchen burning away all viscous material slowing things down; no smoke present. she wears a light blue blouse

6a) parents retreat to den with bottle of wine

6b) they stand by the tall windows, joke about him sleeping in the treehouse

6c) leaves one shade lighter than the midnight sway in the wind

6d) treehouse is illuminated by lightning

recovery

2009-05-21T09:50:00.000-07:00

we alight from the bus on oxford street and i start walking straight ahead. you're a few steps behind me and you shout out "where are you going?" in that clear canadian accent, not really angry about it but maybe a bit defensive. i stop in the middle of the pavement with drunken and hurried folks streaming past and say "this is the way to tottenham court road, i've gone this way for years." and then you jog a few steps in your heels and grab my arm lightly and say "oh, you're right, my fault." more sing-song accent that i could never hate.

we meander through the streets and come upon the premiere and i'm at a loss for what to do; the press area and the flashbulbs and the ropes and security, it's all alien to me, i let you take the lead. you do so in a way that suggests i am not the first clueless male you've led by the hand through this sort of environment.

we walk through the double doors behind all the madness and it dawns on me that i've been in this building, years ago, as a teenager. it was with jennifer and we were going to see some play for class credit. this is a fleeting memory and before i can really think more about it we're dodging oncoming assistants and stagehands and then i am plopped into a chair right smack in front of vanessa redgrave, cbe. well, this is something to write home about, i think. she is very pleased to see you and strikes me more as the kind, older woman down the road rather than international acting legend. we make small talk about the weather and so forth. she has a few drinks in her, i can tell.

our shoulders touch as we sit there. miss redgrave asks how long we've been a couple. you look at me, hair falling in front of your eyes and cheeks. i turn to her and respond "only time will tell..." she smiles a grin of "good luck". i brush your hair to the side and kiss you on the lips, lips the color of clouds just after sunset.

some italian model with huge poofy hair walks by and you two catch up in quick bursts of foreign conversation. i redirect my attention to miss redgrave and we talk about obama and unemployment before she makes a hasty exit towards a group of autograph seekers and harried-looking producers.

later that night we walk back to the goodge street tube arm in arm. but the intoxicating buzz of what's filling our hearts is not present for some reason. like the looming dark sky above us, i know it's her, back in the states. a sinking feeling. i can't escape. here my life has changed, i never thought i'd have someone like you just bursting forth with affection, but it does nothing.

the dreadful realization that if i walked a few steps off into the night, you'd cry out in your cheerful accent and ask where i was going. but i wouldn't be able to tell you, and i'd have to leave you there, on the pavement, in your heels, crying as the drunken people stream past.

lost weekends

2009-05-13T09:25:00.000-07:00

River Card - Atlas Sound

river so clear and blue
i'm so in love with you, but you'll drown me.
you'll drown me.
river so clear and blue
what it takes to ignore you
how many boys have you drowned?

gut instincts

2009-04-01T18:58:00.000-07:00

everywhere i look around, the city is changing. the vacant lot on corinthia where we sat one night in the light rain, sharing a bottle of jameson; it is now a glossy high rise condo--all polished silver and blue glass.

the metal gates of the storefront, where we read the 1994 graffiti like heiroglyphics that somehow managed to survive; it has been painted over.

the hole in the wall chinese where we went after The Big Fight, so many nights ago, and you looked up at me between bites with a mix of anger and love, a realization that we were in it for the long haul; it sits empty and dark--how fitting.

i'm telling myself it's time to leave. i explain away my reluctance towards anything these days with the expression "that chapter is closed". i say it to the brash young friend i haven't seen since college. i say it to the meek girl with the small pearl earrings when she asks to see me again. i say it to myself when i pass our block in a quick, teeth-gritted stride.

it's warming ever so slightly. the buds on the trees look like small neon pineapples. i have dreams at night that they bloom instantly, sheaves of green dappled in fresh rainfall. it stays 50 degrees and clouds move overhead, out to the sea. it's fast forward and slow motion fighting a tug of war in the night time.

perhaps there is a warmer place, where i can get lost in the perpetual full bloom, lay in the shadows, find new storefronts. the breeze at night, the sirens wailing up the road, the burn of smoke down my throat on the first drag, and none of it--absolutely none--will remind me of all of this, all of what we felt.

that chapter is closed.

maintain

2009-01-21T06:15:00.000-08:00

i was driving down beverly. it was a breezy night, had been clear all day but now the rain was pushing in from the coast. it was probably about an hour from falling but you could feel the wind kicking up, see the line of steel gray clouds on the horizon ambling onto shore after their long trek across the pacific. a long trek through turbulent nights above choppy seas and days of laser-like sun reflected on waves.

my trek was shorter, i just wanted to get back and do what we do. it was a tuesday.

at the curve at rossmore there was a sudden slowdown, ahead i could see two cars perpendicular to the roadway. no one was outside, though, and i couldn't see any drivers or passengers within each vehicle. i sat patiently, the sports announcer reciting the night's basketball scores quietly over the radio.

after half an hour my patience ran thin. people were honking, some were getting out of their cars to peer forward, boosting themselves on one arm over the height of the car roofs stretching ahead. i smoked more cigarettes, switched stations, nothing but jazz (too calm for my impatience) and some honky tonk live from a ballroom back east.

the other drivers began walking from their cars so i figured i would too. there were all types: men like myself in rumpled suits--tired from a day's work, joyriding teenagers on god knows what, a mexican couple with a small child. we walked ahead towards the perpendicular cars, muttering under our breath, bracing against the chilly breeze now blowing from the west with greater strength.

as i got about four car lengths ahead of me i heard the popping. sounded like fireworks. i looked over to my right. there was a short stocky woman, her hair cut like a man's but slightly longer, maybe the tips of the strands touching the bottom of her ear lobe, but slicked back, like an old wino or a hermit of the racetrack. she was firing a pistol around wildly but with purpose. it looked like a toy. it made small cracks and little bright bursts of gold light. then i saw the mexican man fall in front of her and the panic set in.

i raced around to the back of a buick and crouched. there was an eerie silence save for the quick, staccato crack every few seconds. i wondered if she was heading off, towards the ocean, into the wind. then i saw a flash between two cars and i realized she was closer to me than ever.

i stumbled forward, towards the ivy covered wall and the sidewalk. it was my only hope, to make a run for it. as i rounded the large curved trunk of the car and peered around the spare tire, i saw her standing off a few feet away, cream colored pants, leather jacket, boots. i ran and in the corner of my eye, as i achieved a full sprint, i saw her turn.

you stood at home, doing the dishes, radio on. you love that old honky tonk music. it reminds you of when you were a girl, back home. you dry a plate, place it in the rack, take a sip from your gin and tonic on the kitchen table. the room bathes in yellow light from the chandelier and when you look out the kitchen window into our jungle of a backyard, you see yourself smiling in the reflection, giddy, buzzed on gin on a tuesday night.

you're waiting for me to come home.

i get in the door, i play it cool. we embrace. you finish the last glasses and i collapse on the couch. i pat the cushion next to me and you come skipping ahead, wiping your hands on a towel then dropping it to the floor. as we sit and i play with your hair we say nothing. we sit in the silence, bathed in golden light. the tv is off, the air is still. all is quiet.

i hear the soft rustle of raindrops beginning to hit leaves and i turn to you.

bothered

2008-10-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

1983 was hazy and sunny as i expected it would be. there was something sad and yet exhilarating about seeing all my friends as three year olds, running across the playground in swirling circles, all wearing their little striped sweaters and corduroy trousers. each one's hair was lighter than it is now. i looked up towards an oak tree on the perimeter of the schoolyard, and my boss was sitting up there, current age, salt and pepper hair, tapping into his blackberry. glitch.

walked across the vast soccer field by the freeway, over the splashes of gold-lit grass, thinking of mishima and his suicide for the sake of his nation. i thought about 2008 and the afternoon my best friend and i sat in the sushi restaurant and agreed we could never kill ourselves; we loved life too much.

1983 quickly became 2010 and i'm living in a crackhouse outside of charlotte. emma is sleeping on the tartan sofa and when i wake her up she is understandably pissed off. she softens faster than i expect, however, and soon we're walking down the road in light jackets admiring the crisp fall air.

we hitch a ride from a silver SUV, an obese woman with equally silver hair drives up front. she talks about the amtrak train that crashed off a bridge into the bayou years ago. she was on that train. she remembers seeing the water as it came closer to the window at alarming speed, waiting for the impact, the water's first touch on her dry hands. she said keeping yourself above water feels like doing sit-ups with a tire on your chest. the conductor was wading through the compartment, inexplicably calm, as if he knew this day was coming all along.

providence road was as far as she'd take us, so we stood on the side of the road again thumbing.

"i'm starting to like you again," i told her, brushing her hair to one side to fake karate chop her on the neck. we talked about which colleges we got into and which ones we didn't.

we both wanted to smoke, neither of us had cigarettes. the chill in the air became more pronounced as the sun fell.

a middle-aged black guy in a brown leather coat picked us up in his toyota avalon. it was spotlessly clean inside. radio tuned to a gospel station. he made sparse small talk.

we watched the trees go past and soon we were climbing a curving road into the hills. the sky was purple with those pink puffy clouds lit from beneath. i turned to look as the entire city spread out below us. the walls and roofs and roads were all tinted violet from the sky above.

"emma, look at that," i told her, turning her by the shoulder slightly. the sky on the horizon looked like an expansive ocean from another planet.

as the streetlights popped on we pulled into a large shopping center. we walked into a country-style restaurant. we met the man's wife, who was waiting there for him. he introduced us and she politely smiled and nodded. i offered to buy them dinner but the man waved it off.

i'm not sure what happened after. the machine ran out of fuel and i came to in the hallway with a car alarm going off in the street. it was 4:48 am.

showering, i remembered that i still don't like emma. there are things that were said that i won't shrug off. still, the future is another thing altogether.

flashes

2008-09-24T09:57:00.000-07:00

whitaker met me at 12 on the dot at my hotel. we embraced and walked down to union square.

well, this is it, i said. i wasn't really sure what to show him. i'd only been here a week myself. we stood in the sunlight staring up at it, eyes burning warmly. the macy's stood there like an old warehouse, decrepit, filled with merchandise.

we took a walk up van ness towards the park. i wanted to show him the golden gate the way i'd first seen it, red and stout in the hazy afternoon.

it was windy up on the top of the hill. a couple rolled in the grass, kissing, yards away. a dog ran towards us then turned suddenly hearing his owner call.

we talked about our families, our jobs. there were fair amounts of silence. we walked down towards the marina district.

i explained how all these buildings crumbled in the quake. the gas mains all caught fire and that idyllic october afternoon remained cool and sunny, with the entire district in ruins and aflame.

of course, i didn't know all this from experience. i was eight and on the opposite coast. but i've seen the video.

we walked down chestnut and had a chat with an employee of the computer store. there was no rush to do anything, one of those days where life is an empty, dusty road unfurled in front of you.

stopped in a bar crowded with people our age, all inside in the shadows drinking cheap bottles of beer instead of being out in the sunlight. they were all a bit preppy and we kind of scoffed inside but tried to pick up a couple girls from marin anyways.

by the time we got fed up and left it was dark.

makes sense, i thought. we'd been at it forever.

rode back into downtown and slept the sleep of anticipation.

what have you done

2008-09-17T13:47:00.000-07:00

we're on the sofa. none of it makes sense. you lean back into me every few minutes and i run a hand through your long hair. the sun shines in, your father sleeps on an armchair in the next room.

we walked over from the grocery store, the leaves falling in gusts across the windshields of the passing cars. i stopped at the machine to get a coca cola and when i turned away holding my change you were standing there on the curb, holding the paper shopping bag and smiling into the distance.

we passed the newspaper box on at walker avenue. that missing girl's face still peered out from the front page. it reminded me of the chill of evening, the white glow of the streetlights on grass in the alley, the dark cover of trees at midnight. it's something sinister. i'd rather be here in the warm sunlight with you, where everything is visible.

we passed the large field by the elementary school. a police cruiser turned the corner slowly, maybe eyeing the group of black children walking towards market street with their basketball. the glint off the windshield shone into my eye and i slowed up for a second. as the brightness left i looked at you walking a few steps ahead, lined in a golden glow, your hair in the light breeze. i jogged for a second to catch up, taking the shopping bag from you.

we set the bag on the sidewalk and popped the coke bottles open, walking slowly into the tall grass to have a smoke. you worried about the bugs biting your legs but i lifted your chin slightly, your eyes to mine and then looked beyond you, up, to the puffy white clouds passing slowly against the bright blue infinity.

we stood side by side, smoking, a car here and there once every few minutes, driving along as slow as the clouds above.

when we sat down the living room was draped in shadows. i said, 'let's get some light in here' and we opened the dusty curtains. i could see tree tops above the neighbor's house. i could hear a hi-fi stereo faintly in the distance, maybe even the splash of a pool from a nearby backyard.

now we sit here and every once in a while you lean back against me and i slowly sweep a hand through your long hair. then you lean forward and i wait for it to happen again. it really gives me a kick. maybe i'll time it, to see if there's a pattern, just for fun.

on the television we watch the radar screen. a giant blotch of green and yellow rain is heading towards our city. you lean back as the sun dances across the carpet.

seventeen seconds.

with what it is i have

2008-08-20T08:22:00.000-07:00

The Future!

It's good to be back!

The sky is still blue, the cars look only slightly more modern than where I'm from. There are a hell of a lot more stores everywhere. People still seem to shuffle about lost in their own thoughts.

I get to Gaithersburg and slide down the long stair railing at the Metro, just for old time's sake. I'm stopped in my tracks when I see the brand new ticket machines. I have no idea how to use them. There's just a giant flat glass screen and a slot below it. Where does the credit card go? The glowing, animated icons all say things like "Trans-County 1/Off No Pass" and what the hell does that mean? People in line behind me are starting to get impatient. A Chinese woman with a very expensive-looking briefcase clears her throat as I stare, perplexed. I walk off quickly and stand in a corner of the airy, bright mezzanine, watching as each person mechanically and quickly punches the right combo of buttons, gets their ticket and rapidly goes towards the fare gates.

Fuck it, I say, I'll take the bus.

45 minutes later we emerge from stand-still traffic and pull into the circular driveway of a large, glassy apartment building. This is where I'll be staying. It's mid-afternoon so there isn't a lot of activity in the lobby. I walk briskly past the doorman and he doesn't seem to care. In the elevator I check my pulse, it's a habit. Normal. But I feel this excitement coursing through me.

Peter's apartment is on the 34th floor. The front door opens onto a huge cube of a living room, walls of glass on each side. It's like being in a treehouse high above the city. I can see the planes taking off from Dulles in the distance. Peter's brother sits on the couch and waves at me. He's got a pretty brunette wearing a halter top on his lap. She looks to be just about 18. That's ok, I remember. His brother just entered UVa on scholarship.

I excuse myself to Peter's room and collapse onto the small loveseat by the bed. When I wake up it's still bright out. I must have slept a couple of hours at most. My phone is buzzing and I can't understand why. I'll check it later.

I go out to the living room and the brunette has a friend of hers with her now. The two girls sit on the sofa and wave at me smiling as I enter the room. We make small talk. They ask where I'm from and I say "New York" and there's a strange pause before they smile and nod and continue their conversation. I go to the kitchen for some water.

An hour later I am in the bathroom splashing water over my face rapidly and on the verge of panic. What the fuck is in the water here? I don't feel right. I feel okay physically, I suppose. But my mind is like a sea urchin opening to defend itself, spikes appearing from nowhere, each one pointing in a thousand directions.

I feel okay physically, I tell myself. My health isn't in danger. I repeat this inside. Just relax.

I go out to the living room. The sun is much lower now, casting a golden sheen over the treetops of the suburbs like spilled glitter. Planes still take off from Dulles, glinting in the sun like tiny bright flashes. The original brunette is gone. Her friend remains, reading a magazine.

We talk for a bit and it gets to the point of fooling around. I realize I've finally relaxed. My mind is still in a distant place but I know that panicking will solve nothing, that I have to work with it. I'm unbuttoning her shirt when I remember my phone buzzing earlier. What the hell was that about? I excuse myself for a minute and walk quickly into Peter's room.

On his dresser is a pair of expensive-looking sunglasses. I try them on. "Giorgio Armani" is etched into the frame. In the mirror I look fantastic. This is the first pair of sunglasses I've ever worn that looked perfect. This is the good life, I think, before I realize the oddity of it. Since when do I give a fuck about Armani sunglasses? It's a perfect example of how my mind is 180 degrees from normal but I feel alright.

The phone is a message from S., and she's collapsing emotionally. She's left me messages of anger and hurt before, messages in tears. This one is 1000 times worse. "I never want to ever see you again," she says. "You should be dead, you should be killed for what you did to me. You think you can just use me whenever you need your ego boosted but I have feelings, I devoted years to you for nothing and y--" I can't understand what she's talking about or what I've done wrong. Maybe it's a glitch. I hope it isn't there when I get back. I close the phone.

Walking over to the window, I see streams of people disembarking from the buses or idling cars and walking into the building. I scan the crowd, mostly office workers, and then there, by the potted trees, Peter is on the ground being kicked by three large frat-boy looking guys in ballcaps.

"Fuck," I say aloud and tear the sunglasses from my face. I run out to the living room, not even noticing the girl reclining there on the couch, shirt half-unbuttoned, her mouth in a small half-smile. I run for the elevator.

When I get to the lobby and out the glass doors the frat boys are getting into a large SUV. They drive off quickly and silently, reaching the end of the drive and turning right into a fast flow of traffic in seconds. I rush over to Peter, still prostrate on the sidewalk and bleeding from the corner of his mouth. People are still streaming by, no one is paying any attention.

"Peter what the fuck is going on, are you ok?" He nods. His suit is crumpled, the dress shirt has come untucked, there's dust around his light eyebrows and speckled about the crown of his neatly shaved head.

"I'm alright," he says in his strong Queens accent. "Fucking Virginia kids, it was drugs."

I hoist him up and we walk slowly into the building. We get on an escalator to the upper level of the lobby where there is a restroom.

"How long have you been doing this?" I ask. He waves off the question.

"Pete it's so stupid," I say. "We're gonna pop the Glock on those assholes."

Did I just say that? That's not how I feel. I stand for a second wondering whether what people here have been hearing is the same as what I've been forming in my mind.

As we crest the top of the escalator, sun shines in a blast through a tall wall of glass. Dappled by the nearby oaks, it shimmers in our eyes as we step off and onto the marble tile of the landing.

Where the hell am I?

tightly

2008-08-14T21:45:00.000-07:00

i am blasting through essex on a train at midnight. my head is swimming. six pm felt great and now is like the walls are concrete and i've finally seen them for their strength. fuck, nothing sounds right, an old man gets on at ilford and sits across from me and offers me a biscuit and all i can do is smile politely, pursed.

sometimes i wish there was no technology.

i think into the future too often. i meet a girl in rayners lane and she sits with me for a pint and i can only see her future, wonder about the days she'll spend in the front room and the nights she'll miss in the off-license.

nothing can distract me from this. i lean back in the non-smoking carriage and puff away on imported camels but the old man doesn't even flinch.

i met a hippie fellow in camber sands, who blew glass. it was a darkened afternoon, skies like cigarette smoke gathering above us. he kept at it, over and over, twisting and turning the ends until a beautiful vase was made. we stood back from the glow and gawked, minds on something else in the recesses of our thoughts. this will do for now, we said.

there's no stopping my thoughts and worries of you. the fastest train won't outrun them. i lay back in this uncomfortable seat and i can still see you, clinging tightly.

will he blow you into a beautiful glass vase? or will there be imperfections? a melted ridge right around the curve from some smooth shiny work of art.

it's cooled too fast to flatten out, he said, tossing the wasted display aside into a pile of jagged rubbish.

we can see it

2008-07-23T18:32:00.000-07:00

not everything i write about, not everything i remember, are girls.

i remember boys too. sitting with the boys, smoking with them. we all wear slacks and blank t-shirts. we all want to be kerouac. we are seventeen. don't let that cop come near me with his bullshit, we say, hiding the trembling joint behind our thigh.

i remember seas. the irish sea passing below us in the afternoon as i bite into my cold klm sandwich with a mind as blank as the clouds around us. i don't know what to expect, i don't have any fears, i don't have any hopes. here i am, world, take me for a ride but get me home in one piece because my parents, how they worry.

i remember rooms. rooms comatose but still warm with life in the summer in the public school where they round us all up and show us disney movies to pass the time. the windows betray the bright light of midday july but it's just that, it's just light. there's a whole world out there but who cares? this is the part where bambi's mother gets shot. jonathan starts crying but buries his head in his desk to hide it from the others. i think i'm the only one who saw.

i remember the first fear of something out there dark and indescribable, the row house where the policeman put the gun to his head and left it all in one quick bang, scaring the neighboring filipino woman half to death as she stood cooking her family's dinner. sneaking with chris and jessica at midnight to stand by the side of his building, maybe there's something you can still feel, some lingering energy that explains why someone would do it, maybe we can solve what the adults and the newsvans and the sobbing relatives can't. seeing the bundle of discarded police tape like a huge venomous snake coiled under the white street light in a pile of autumn leaves and running like holy hell back to the light and safety of my living room, knowing that even in horrible, violent, uncertain death a side of it stays on to remind us how much we want to live.

i remember such shame, stealing the young couple's cell phone and wallet and running as fast as we could down the alley, taking the cash and throwing the billfold in the garbage. later that night we'd be drunk and i'd drop the phone from the top of a building downtown, pangs echoing throughout my mind that i'd stepped into a side of life that would only grab me by the hand and pull me further with its coarse embrace. the next morning i sat across from my parents silently eating cereal and made a decision to roll by myself, no more friends.

i remember pain. my mother's best friend flies in from chicago to visit that bruised summer, sits across from her on the sofa as she says "well, sandy, i'm glad you came to see me before i croaked." walking out of the house in a daze and going anywhere, miles of avenues and side streets just to keep moving, just to stay one step ahead of processing what was unfolding before me.

i remember the joy of comfort. not simply repeating "time heals all wounds" but seeing it, feeling it. sitting in my apartment with my best friends playing cards all night, the music softly playing, the wide world asleep outside waiting for me. thinking, there is nowhere else i'd rather be than here.

i don't remember boredom. i am living it. i remember everything else because at one time it cut into my memory like skis in the fresh winter snow, like the first scoop through a new tub of ice cream on the hottest day of the year. now nothing sticks. now i'm at the bottom of the tub, the snow has all but melted. nothing makes an impression except that one large gash, the sharpest knife of them all, the one that slid across us menacingly that midnight behind the row houses. the one that's waving in front of us no matter how hard we maintain our steely reserve. no burying our heads in the desk will make it go away, no half-hearted wisecracks will change the fact that it's there, glinting in the corner of our eyes.

i remember girls the most because they're the only ones who can take me softly by the shoulder, turn me slowly away from it and whisper.

you won't remember, i probably will

2008-07-17T13:48:00.000-07:00

saturday afternoon in december. my mind is a mess from the drinking the night before. after two hours wandering around the apartment in a daze i say 'fuck this' and catch the fast train into the city. the snow is swirling down from a concrete sky. it doesn't feel as cold as it should.

on the train i fold over my fleece coat and wedge it between my head and the window. i fall asleep right before reaching the station and when i am forced to exit the train i am even more disoriented than i had been back home.

i walk the empty blocks to my office. passing sixth i see crowds of holiday shoppers up the avenue but on these side streets there is no one. i walk into the building and nod at the security guard but he's asleep. it's one of those days, i tell myself. the world wants to just curl up and be asleep.

somewhere else, far from here, i think, it is sunny and warm. the opposite.

i get to my desk and turn on the monitor, graze over the news and sports listlessly. the quiet is unsettling but at the same time comforting; i know i'm alone here and it puts me at ease. outside the large picture windows the empire state building is barely visible. the roofs are all coated in white like powdered sugar liberally sifted over the entire city. in the distance yellow cabs with their lamp-like headlights on coast slowly in long strings northward. i am alone but it is peaceful.

at 4:30 i find an email from beth. this one isn't like the old ones, when she had a boyfriend and i worried he'd find out about that day we took a drive out to stone mountain, when she--these aren't like the old days. in it she talks about how her day went: pier one, buying candles, lunch at ruby tuesday with her sister, cleaning the apartment.

i suddenly feel a weight in my heart and i call her up. voicemail. i hang up.

i sit and watch the snow swirling around. summer is a distant memory. as i'm turning the computer off and getting ready to leave, the phone rings.

she apologizes for not picking up earlier. she's getting ready to leave for a wedding in alpharetta. it's ok, i tell her, nothing special, just wanted to say hello. she says we'll talk later and i tell her to drive safe. she sounds happy and excited and i imagine the 30 minute drive through a warm, sunny afternoon.

i hang up and sit staring out the window some more. it was just a car ride.

it's history.

you wear a flower in your hair

2008-07-09T07:32:00.000-07:00

last night:

the sushi restaurant looked like a mexican cantina. (i'm not complaining.)

why is it when i'm with you sunset lasts seemingly forever?

when we had to split ways after dinner, you to your mom's house to watch the musical and me to the airport, you asked to kill the rest of the sake. i love surprises.

you're beautiful and have a mind like a sleek marble counter at midnight but waiting for the check for 30 minutes is painful no matter whom you're with.

mike and i stumbled through the terminal looking for the arrivals board but all the monitors were flickering with cascading white lines. we looked out the window of the corridor and saw the aeroflot plane taxiing towards a gate. you could see mike's mother's hair through the tiny windows.

after everyone had gone to bed and all the vodka was gone i threw my car keys into the jungle-like backyard and walked off down the street, no moonlight, just steamy pavement bathed in orange. i zoned out and when i came to, i was on southwood by eric's house, a block from mine. the row houses were all in various states of demolition or renovation. two middle aged women with small dogs walked past me, out of the night and back into it. i made my way around the building and to the grassy spot where we used to play baseball.

laying in the clover i fell asleep. when i woke it was light out, i looked up and saw the rows of buildings towering over me. this is all so familiar, i thought. but it didn't seem so strange. there was none of that powerful feeling, the weight in my heart that i expected. i stood up and walked about.

it took me five minutes to find our old apartment. i felt ashamed and concerned that my memory was fading. i knocked on the door and a middle aged woman with dyed black hair answered but i felt strange so i apologized. "wrong house." she looked afraid.

walking down bedford in the brightening sunlight i saw a little girl playing by a parked car. when i walked by she said to me, "we're off on a journey to the center of it all!" and made a swooping motion as if she were a superhero. i smiled and kept walking past. at the corner i saw a cop in a crisp, slender black uniform kneeling to check a license plate. as fast as i could i ran towards him, to kick him in the side of the head with a flying leap. and then

wicker

2008-07-02T07:04:00.000-07:00

i'm with jason and his girlfriend elizabeth. we're out at a cafe in robertson park just passing time on a saturday afternoon. there's a party later, on the southeast side, and until ten we seem content to just sit back in our chair and watch life go by. beth's phone rings and she animatedly tells someone to come join us.

it's ian, her former classmate at georgetown. he lives in the neighborhood. he arrives a few minutes later and instantly i don't like him; there's just something about his stance--it seems aggressive rather than confident, confrontational rather than exploratory. he stands there with his sunglasses perched on his forehead and eyes all of us, his hand firmly on beth's shoulder. i see jason shift slightly in his chair.

ian suggests we all go out to dinner at les halles. "i can get a table, doneski." at this point i figure what the hell, i'll go along with this: i have nothing better to do, i don't want to leave jason in his own private hell, i do quite enjoy good french food. perhaps i am a masochist for discomfort at times.

we pile into ian's audi and drive the six miles to the restaurant. i sit in the backseat watching the houses fly by in the late afternoon sun. i think about what the people are doing inside each one, who is fighting, who is making love, who is asleep, who is anticipating a night that might change their life, who is secure in an evening where everything stays the same.

at the restaurant ian approaches the stout, taciturn maitre d' and whispers something. I see a bill flash quickly between his hand and the host's stand. having refrained from doing so yet, i allow myself this opportunity to roll my eyes. ian sees this and the corners of his mouth turn down on reflex.

we are led to a respectable table outdoors, on the patio. the setting is nice enough. low yolk-colored walls surround a large parallelogram of space, the floor sleek stone and lights positioned discreetly at various positions. the effect is one of tranquility, a refined ambiance. just enough darkness to relax you, just enough light to remind you not to get too comfortable.

we are sat and ian starts making a fuss about the water being poured. "you don't have voss? i'd expect better," he tells the mexican busboy. i am sensing this dinner will be an ordeal. beth smiles at him cordially and he grins back at her, eyes locked. jason checks his iphone with a feigned concentration.

the amuse arrives, something or another with foie gras. ian pauses his soliloquy about the problems with his new apartment to insist on serving the dish himself. the startled waiter hesitates between acquiescing and suddenly the plate is upturned, its contents spilled all over the tablecloth. ian begins cursing and time seems to slow down as i take a deep breath and wish i was anywhere else. i scan the room, see the other tables trying desperately to ignore us, and there, being seated in a corner near a babbling fountain, there you are.

it's like a movie how ian's babbling just slowly fades away as i rise up from my seat. the rest of the patio, the rest of the city, the rest of the world blurs and you are the center, in clear focus. you're in a red dress, your hair pulled back loosely and your purse on your lap. as they fill your water glass you scan the room and there you see me, striding towards you and you smile. it is a sunrise after a night in the hospital, it is truly the light at the end of a smoke-filled tunnel.

we make small talk. i pull a chair up next to yours. you are waiting for a date. it has been a year, i don't know why. i can see the reflection of the lowering sun in your eyes. at one point i say the hell with it and as you tell me about how your work is going i brush my cheek past yours, listening, nodding. i can smell the shampoo in your hair. it smells like when we were young. you reflexively reach for my knee and stroke it, slowly smoothing out a crease in my jeans. your date arrives. he's blonde, hair slicked back, designer shirt. i don't feel any jealousy. i take your hand and say "well, until we meet again," cheerfully. i smile at the date and shake his hand. "old friends," i tell him. he grins politely before turning his attention to her.

i walk back to the table. the most unappetizing dishes are presented, all crude browns and wan whites, sickly green speckled here and there. ian says something about me being too good for the rest of them and i tell him rudely to learn to relax. after a sip of wine i get up and leave the restaurant. the maitre d' scoffs softly as i walk out and i think about saying "fuck you."

i walk fifteen blocks in the reddish sunset to kingsway, where i catch a downtown bus. the traffic hums along, punctuated occasionally with the low rumble of bass or a shrieking horn. staring out the bus window i see an ambulance far off in the distance, its white and red lights flickering like diamonds and rubies deep in the bottom of clear, still water.

i get home and lie down on the sofa. hours later jason and beth arrive home, arguing. they are drunk. jason stops in the doorway of the living room and gazes down at me as beth slams a door down the hall. he shakes his head.

i nod. i can hear the lamp buzzing softly in the silence.

what means the world to you

2008-06-17T12:17:00.000-07:00

walking through the air conditioned atrium, opening the glass doors, the crowds streaming by in their tucked in t-shirts, carrying purses, carrying cameras, heads craned to the upper level store windows, standing in a bright clean store, walking through the doorway into the hot sun, finding shade, the cool of the metal bench, the night that was twelve hours ago, the few miles between us, the few inches between us now, the pouring rain and the cigarette smoked in the doorway, the laughter that when it starts never stops when i expect it to, the shared glances, the comparisons, the clean spring of your smile aimed at everyone, the beads of perspiration on the plastic cups, the straws aimed for the heavens, the stripes on my shirt, the wavy shadows of the heat rising from the hood of the car, the traffic streaming under us on the freeeway, the pine tree tops flashing by endlessly, the moths hovering around the outdoor floodlights, the vibration of my phone, your name on my caller id, standing in my driveway at dusk, the fallen branch blocking the sidewalk, teenagers packed in cars, magazines, tv news, amber alerts on the radio as we glide under the elm canopy, the interrupted r&b singer, the death of a newsman, the quiet of the soul food restaurant, the lives and time mingling together waiting for the food to cool off, the yellow sand under my feet, the crunch of pine needles, the rush of clear splashing water from a spigot, my mother's grave, your light brown hair, the scent of my deodorant, in a way i worry i might hold you so tightly you disappear, the commuter bus station empty, the expensive atm, the abandoned theater, the suburbs are ours to explore, the empty tennis court, my fourth cigarette in a row, the ghosts of offices long destroyed, your small shopping bag, your endless kindness, the years where i forgot about you, the minute i remembered your name, the seconds i saw you walking down the sidewalk, the sarcastic clerk, the burned-out brake light, the power windows, the spinning rims, if there is one decision for every hundred mistakes i am willing to keep this one and make one hundred more.

patience

2008-06-11T08:12:00.000-07:00

it was 100 degrees in the shade, the type of weather that drives you nuts, makes you testy, soaks you in sweat. i opened a discarded newspaper at the bus stop and saw my horoscope. something about unpleasantness all around, so be sure to be cheery. i can't remember it verbatim.

ok, cheerful. look at the children playing. they don't mind the heat. i don't mind the heat. i remember being young in the summer. the baking concrete, the bright yellow sand, the deep shades under trees. hazy skylines off in the distance, abstract ideas of what being an adult is all about. summer can still be fun.

loosening my tie as i got through the front door, i knew it would be a nice evening to spend with the machine. i set down my bag and turned the A/C on, stopping in the kitchen to pour a glass of beer. the room was stifling but soon enough the waves of cool air from the window unit began softly cascading down. i sat on the hardwood floor and tooled with the machine a bit with a screwdriver. just tightening up screws here and there.

i go to the high school she told me she worked at. i feel strange walking through the lobby of the sprawling, squat brick building. i worry it will be like my high school, cops patrolling the halls, but i realize that here and now there is no worry of that sort of thing.

i look for her classroom. each room is full of students, heads down, writing at their desks. the fluorescent lights bathe everything in a cellophane-like sheen. the kids are all neatly dressed, lots of striped shirts and browns and oranges. it feels sad in this place. i'm tense. outside of the auditorium i see a few chairs and i take one. they're the old type, wooden with a paddle-like slat attached to one arm for writing. i sit and watch through the small glass panes of the double doors as a science teacher lectures about physics. sitting a few feet away from me is a blonde haired boy in a long black t-shirt. he stares at me. his mother or aunt or something is sitting opposite us. she has small eyes and a perm of tight brown curls.

the boy looks at me and starts making a whimpering, almost wailing noise. it's obvious he is autistic or some such. she tries to calm him but he is staring at me with frightened eyes and shifting in his seat. the noises continue. "it's okay," i say. "i'll just leave." i walk quickly out of the building. i'll have to come see her another time.

i'm in the bus with my friends crossing the delaware into philadelphia late at night. for some reason or another i am pissed off with my friends and have elected to sit in a seat by myself one row ahead of them. i stare out the window as the ben franklin bridge's steel supports flit by one by one. suddenly we are in the city in all its supremely seedy glory. grimy buildings fly by, cars weave next to us and fly past in the night, city buses covered in neon graffiti streak through red lights, an ambulance sits on a side street with its lights flickering wildly. two city girls walk up to our rows. one is obese with freckles, the other solemnly pretty in a plain way, her brown hair limp at her shoulders. i tell her to sit next to me and i shift over slightly. she smiles and obliges and outside the night is dangerous and heavy with a sense of deviance.

my new boss wants to ride the metro for the first time so he accompanies me out to national. we're on the red line and i keep telling him we have to change trains but i can't get a word in edgewise. his suit costs so much more than mine, the wide lapels, the salmon colored tie in a blossoming windsor knot. he keeps talking about his wife and single malt whiskey and it's all such bullshit but i want to like the fellow, i really do. finally we get to the transfer station and i tell him this is where we catch the train to the airport. he looks at me with an intense disappointment.

"i thought you wanted to come to the airport," i offer. he waves off the comment. i search my brain for what to say. it's like being in a mausoleum in these stations. what were they thinking? "i'm sorry, i've got to catch this flight," i tell him. he stares off away from me. the doors close and the train pulls off, and there i am on the platform with my suitcase and no idea of what just transpired. i may return from my trip jobless. oh well, i'll deal with it.

at the twa counter the pretty ticket agent asks me for identification. i check my pockets. they're full of all sorts of unnecessary crap: styrofoam peanuts, matchbooks, old cigarette packs, oh god--a condom, pennies, old buttons. i let out a frustrated sigh. "anything is fine, sir," she tells me. "social security card, driver's license, passport." finally i find my driver's license, the black and white photo of me with shaggy hair from my last autumn in college. she smiles and wishes me a good trip. i go over to the molded plastic chairs and smoke six cigarettes in a row.

we land in scotland and the teenagers i am sitting next to could care less. they are each playing a sega gamegear, they have similar haircuts, they each wear either a stussy or massimo black t-shirt and baggy jeans. what a boring way to live, i remark to myself. we all de-plane and stand on the tarmac awaiting a shuttle bus to the terminal. it's loud with the sound of plane engines all around and luggage carts dart to and fro around us. a light mist is falling from a slate gray sky. in the distance, past the runways and passing planes sits a rolling green meadow. i turn to one of the teenagers. "this is it! think about how many centuries of civilization roamed these meadows before they put a damned airport on it." he rolls his eyes and walks off to join the other teens. i reach in my pockets and find them full of all sorts of junk.

the machine sputters to a stop and i am back in my room. it's freezing. the a/c has been on full blast all this time. i shut it off and walk outside to the kitchen, which is blazing hot. the sun has set behind the houses across the street, the sky is streaked with thin white clouds like inconsistent brush strokes. from a leafy green tree three birds sail upwards and out of view.

another day is done.

not a lot of room to move

2008-05-29T10:09:00.001-07:00

"isn't it alright?" i asked. no response.

sitting in a diner near rockford, illinois. we'd driven for the last two days. the sun was bright, the fields stretching infinitely into the horizon were all emerald, spiked here and there with golden light and tall reeds. the sky pure blue. everything seems at the elemental level here: the coffee strong, the bread hearty, the eggs robust with protein and energy. i understand the term "heartland" now.

i'm going back to drop her off in california and that will be a very difficult scene, a very difficult week. i have two plans:

if things go well: i stay in los feliz and we sit down one evening at the coffee shop that has been heavily tagged up and discuss what the next step is. the next step will involve something life-changing, that is for sure. kids, a house, a life together. one of those.

if things go poorly: i will most likely sell the car somewhere in orange county. i'll take the amtrak to san francisco and within three days i will try to kill myself. if i succeed, fair enough. if i fail, i get to keep on living.

i figure this is about as simple as i can make it. what's the use of over-thinking it? like that poster at my old office said: "keep it simple, stupid".

eggs and toast in rockford. it's a beauty of a day out, summer is finally here. i'm surprised to realize that in all actuality, i am in a great mood. so what that we're driving west, on a schedule towards something huge. who cares that fate is firmly grasping us, pushing us blindfolded down corridors, unrelenting to our protests? we could pass out while driving and slam into a tree. we could find a hundred thousand dollars in a suitcase by the roadside. these possibilities don't bother or excite me in the least.

i'm going to just sit and enjoy the day, i tell myself. look at the sun streaming into this place, think of all the frozen winter mornings and long summer afternoons this place has seen. will it still be here in fifty years, i wonder.

one year in new york city i was in charge of approving user-submitted photos for a social networking website. i became familiar with certain users that frequently uploaded their own images. there was the religious fanatic in texas, fifteen and quietly pretty, her images always had a bible verse typed over them. lots of pictures of her cat. there was the solemn looking boy who took photos of his backyard, dappled in sun, his exhausted mother standing by an elm waving. there was the gorgeous teenager from a prairie town with a bored expression, imploring other site users to text her.

these people, us, we're all getting pushed down those hallways. the girl in texas, where will she be the day that cat is old and passes away. will she be the same inside? will she have changed her lifestyle? who will she call when that day comes, the day a chapter of her childhood closes? the boy will grow up and one day a passing scent will take him to that backyard. how far away from it will he be? when the pretty girl moves out of her sleepy town to the big city and discovers her capabilities, will she use them for good?

everyone is off on their own drives, across the country, down the street, around the corner. we could all pass out. we could all find our money. i'm just going to soak it up.

"yeah, it's alright," she replies finally.

side orders

2008-05-18T12:14:00.000-07:00

it's raining. i haven't owned a car for five years but still whenever it rains i immediately wonder if i've remembered to roll up the windows.

i would like a refreshing drink, something orange maybe. something light and crisp but so cold. it should feel like swimming in a rushing river in the rain. that's refreshment.

once when i was a teenager i left my car parked at a friend's house. we had gone in his car to the mall. there were passing thunderstorms, summer ones that drench the city and then move off to the east as fast as they came. we got back to his house and i'd left my windows down. the car was soaked inside and filled with leaves that had blown free from a nearby oak. my friend's stepfather and step-sister were sitting on the porch watching me curse my poor luck. "yeah," the stepfather said. "we were wondering who the unlucky owner of that car was." thanks for rolling up my windows, you two.

of course i can laugh about it now. the car has long since died, it's axle snapping as i made a hard right turn early one morning on the way to the airport. i got to new york city and my father called and told me the car was no more. and there, in the span of the hour long flight, one chapter of life closes and another begins.

it was raining one evening as we walked home down irving street. i was showing her the city for the first time. she clutched my arm and seemed nervous. we were quite drunk. 'don't be nervous,' i said, and i started pointing out landmarks to calm her down. 'there's where the one armed delivery man works,' i told her, pointing to a shuttered cafe. 'there's where the japanese girl with the very old jack russell terrier lives. she always puts a small pink shawl on the poor old thing.' a car slows down behind us and i worry that despite my trying to allay her fears, we might actually be in a sketchy situation in a minute. the car kills its headlights and keeps cruising slowly behind us. i can hear muffled bass from inside. we are mid block, about 50 yards from the next intersection. the streetlights are mostly obscured by the leafy canopies of the trees. 'caroline,' i begin, about to tell her to dip into the next alleyway, but the car suddenly drives off into the night, blowing past us in a darkened blur. she has been oblivious, her head nestled into my shoulder.

she is gone now too, i can't even remember a defining point when it ended. gradually things fell apart and one day i awoke and she was out of my equation. sometimes i take an old sweater out of the back of the closet and there near the collar a stray long blondish-brown hair, one of hers, a reminder. one afternoon in fall i send all of the clothes in the back of the closet to the dry cleaners.

the rain falls with no direction, no purpose. nothing like the powerful and determined rains of summer. nothing like the cruel and punishing rains of december. just rain, pouring down with no intent, indiscriminate.

catch phrases

2008-04-25T06:25:00.000-07:00

it's a wonderfully bright afternoon in the conference room, the white wall shining even brighter next to the window with a slight green tint from the reflection of the leaves directly outside. i can see specks of bright blue sky peeking from behind the swaying branches. i'd like to be outside right now, but honestly i don't know what i'd be doing. the beach? can you go to the beach or do you need a permit? honest question. i haven't been to the beach since i was a kid.

a popular rapper is sitting at the table, across from me. he is very upset. his last single was titled "gun 'em down" but here his eyes are welling up and he keeps avoiding eye contact to look at the floor. we are dropping him from the label. it's just slashing our budget, it has nothing to do with his rap. i personally think his rap is pretty invigorating.

he is pleading now and talking about his wife and son. it is sort of surreal to see this man who is an idol to millions of sulking, intimidating teenagers trying to act hard--the kids you see out in Torrance at the mall and shit--to see him sitting here in his crisp polo and madras shorts and expensive jewelry and groveling for his job. it makes me uneasy, as if there is a foundation i expected to be sturdy slowly coming loose.

i look to carol chang and scott alcott for help, who are both sitting as far away as possible with embarrassed looks on their faces. they are pissed at me for waiting until the last minute to do this. i did put it off. they are right to be angry. i am not good at confrontation. but they are a couple of fucking cowards since technically A&R is their job and i should not have to drop this on the artist unexpectedly. this is like firing a fucking guy from carl's junior. it should not be like this.

i take the rapper aside, over by the green tinted wall and the soft bright window. i put my hand on his shoulder. "listen, you are a talented motherfucker," i tell him. "we wouldn't have signed you if we didn't think so. the truth is... we are fools for letting you go. but it's not my decision. you're gonna get picked up by another label almost instantly. you can even go direct distribution with koch. seven dollars a record." he looks at me blankly. this is all bullshit. record labels don't make money anymore. we're selling typewriters in the computer age. he's screwed and so am i. we look at each other and that's that.

with the sun on the 405 at this particular shade of dark orange, and the brake lights all snaking around the curve in inglewood, i feel like i'm riding some sort of exotic amazon snake towards south america, some giant mythical snake slithering over the huge cities of the west trying to find his cave back in the jungle. my blackberry chimes with an alarm.

hthr at lax

that's where i'm going, but i always set reminders just in case. i silence the alarm and the traffic comes to a halt.

at the airport i am trying to convince my lovely and long-suffering girlfriend to stay here in expansive los angeles, to cope with it via me, to forget georgia and where we grew up and where all her friends and family are. her bitchy sister keeps rolling her eyes at me when i plead with her so i take heather aside by an empty baggage carousel.

i pull out my big guns, those which i was going to save until things were really last minute, like 'we-board-now-the-plane-is-waiting' last minute, but screw it. this is last minute. it's all or nothing. i pull her close and whisper the key things i know will hit her hardest. she starts sobbing and i am choking up and i look at her and her mascara is running as she gazes at me and cries. i press her face into my suit lapel, holding her tight, and i see her sister glowering at us a few feet away.

she gets on the plane anyways. we were together for 12 years.

i am sitting in night time traffic heading back to downtown. passing overhead lights reveal my crisp john varvatos shirt is smeared with dark streaks of makeup. i am feeling pretty numb.

i wonder if the snake got home. life is not a series of battles, i realize. the battles are already fought, high in the sky, above the planes, far off over the horizon, past where the lights end. life is just a series of dealing with the inevitable defeats.

five thousand ones

2008-04-23T14:30:00.000-07:00

part of me wants to go to sleep right here on the concrete. part of me wants to drive clumsily the four miles back to houlihan's and ask that waitress out and possibly punch that smug bartender in the face.

part of me wants to go to sleep inside, shades drawn, for months. i'd wake up in fall and it would be a new season and everything would be different. leaves would be falling, the world would be going to sleep earlier.

part of me wants to go inside and chug from the handle until everything is spinning. then i'll jump in the car. i love the smell of a hot car interior as you jump quickly in and roll the windows down as fast as possible. the cloth has been baking and the steering wheel is painful to the touch, in a good way. the car chimes on and i go driving the freeways for hours as fast as i can, radio blaring.

part of me wants to do like shane and i did that summer in augusta, getting fried and tempting red lights until we eventually get t-boned by some friendly and hard-working immigrant family in a minivan. fuck, people like us belong in prison.

a cloud floats over the subdivision. i feel pretty clean. i wish it would rain. it's strange, i tell myself; you wait for winter to melt away and relish the first warm day. then it gets warm for three days and you're back to your old boredom, those old feelings sink back in like jeans broke in after a wash.

some kids drive by blasting gangster rap. i sigh the loudest in the whole city.

untitled

2008-03-03T14:59:00.000-08:00

It’s Friday afternoon, the sky is clear blue, the sun that certain bright margarine that precedes the golden burst of sunset. Traffic is light; most of the cars darting about in this predominately commercial section of office parks and strip malls are white-collar employees returning from extended lunches. He stands at the driver’s side door of his small gray sedan and surveys the main road some 50 yards away: a passing truck advertising Dorito’s, a wiry black man on a bicycle pedaling furiously towards Chapel Hill, blurs of minivans and compact cars. He removes his jacket and places it in the backseat.

This is the routine now, every three weeks. He worked out an arrangement with his boss. Dwight Hurley was a tall, slender man of about 50 with a ubiquitous grin and a soft way of addressing even the most pressing of issues. He had played baseball in college and whenever talk of the Braves or even the minor league Bulls came up, a certain dancing in his eyes took forth, noticeable to any and all. He had settled down in a tidy McMansion off Falls of the Neuse with his wife, pert and blonde and always eager to host company. They had adopted a Chinese boy three years ago. He was four now and obsessed with Vikings. Dwight appreciated the life he had been given, and so when one of his employees had come to ask for a special arrangement every few weeks to leave early and drive north to see his girlfriend, he had without hesitation given his approval. Love was an important element of existence to him, and he believed strongly that certain rules could be bent or discarded altogether in its service.

With each Monday that followed such a weekend, Dwight would ask his employee how his trip up north had been, how his girlfriend was doing. With each affirmative response, he would feel his own love for his wife, feel its security and its weathered strength. It was a little reassurance every three weeks, his own unspoken part of the bargain.

The deal went so: every three weeks the employee would work an extra hour Monday through Wednesday. On Friday he would leave at 2pm to make the five hour drive to suburban Washington, D.C. He had become used to this routine, staying up late on Thursdays to pack his clothes. The office was barely impacted by his early leave; he had a tendency to complete his work before deadline, and none of the clients had so much as uttered a complaint before.

And so the employee left the company parking lot that afternoon, sun beating down into a blinding reflection from the car’s hood. He was serene. He couldn’t wait to see her.

They had been dating for a year and four months. Only the first six months of their relationship had been in the same town, until she had completed her internship at the university’s hospital. From then it was a matter of trial and error, seeing how often he could make the drive to Maryland or she could take the Greyhound or Amtrak south (she didn’t own a car). The latter proved exorbitantly expensive and so, with his $40,000 per annum salary he felt it his obligation to make the trip. He had always been a wandering spirit of sorts, and the trips north helped him balance his solitary life in North Carolina, saved him from the tedium he might otherwise sink into.

This is not to say the distance hadn’t worn into the fabric of their togetherness. Their biggest fight to date had come not from a single catalyst but rather the stress of so constantly being apart. Little jealousies from both parties spilled forth in caustic comments borne from exasperation and left unanswered they piled up silently, the bits of dust here and there swept into the corner until one night the ugly pile of dirt was too much to ignore.

They were doing the dishes at her sink, one side piled high with reddish tinted plates from the pasta they’d cooked together hours earlier. The long fluorescent bulb above them flickered spastically, wavering the flat porcelain light shining down on them. He stood drying a large blue plate with a dishtowel.

“So DorkBoy was in my office again today,” she began. DorkBoy was a coworker of hers at the NIEHS who frequently paid her unannounced visits and usually overstayed his welcome. He knew nothing about the man save what she chose to tell him; not a thing about his appearance or way of speaking, or even his background. He could walk past DorkBoy on the street and be none the wiser. But there was something in the way she spoke of him, something that always bothered him. It was the tone of her voice, how she described his constant intrusions and annoyances. It was as if secretly she cherished them.

“Oh yeah?” He replied, feigning struggle with a stubborn bit of dried pasta sauce. “What was it this time?”

She took her time, rearranging the dishes in the drying rack carefully.

“The same old stuff, he just wanted to talk.”

Silence. The sink was turned on and off, the light above buzzed quietly. Outside the kitchen window the adjacent buildings of the apartment complex sat squat, bathed in orange streetlight.

“What did he want to talk about?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what he wanted to talk about? This was today, right?”

To this she looked at him. He could see her gaze in his periphery, see her stone-blue eyes searching his cheekbones.

“What difference does it make?”

From there things had escalated. She had accused him of being far too insecure, a weakness she knew caused him great embarrassment. She had pulled out the heavy weaponry early and it shocked him, alarmed him into thinking that perhaps there was something to this whole DorkBoy thing, of course, it was puppy love in textbook form, the faux animosity, how could he have not seen it from the beginning?

They stood in opposite rooms, her turning on the living room stereo and popping in the Broadway score to Sweeny Todd, just one of the many CDs she cherished and he despised and yet another small weapon in her arsenal of passive aggression. He remained in the kitchen, staring at the empty sink, wishing for alcohol, for a six pack of a good beer and a place to drink it, somewhere in this unfamiliar state where he could sit back and just get three sheets without having to think about her or DorkBoy or anyone.

She finally entered the kitchen, eyes moist but defiant. Her arms were crossed and her hair had come undone from its casual ponytail, strands hanging now in wisps before her ears and brow.

“If you want me to fuck off, just say so,” she muttered.

He took a second to consider this before turning to face her.

“Fuck off,” he said, walking briskly to the dining table and retrieving his keys before exiting the apartment and shutting the door quietly behind him.

He had driven into the District, parked the car in the lot of a large shopping center and ridden the Metro to Adams-Morgan. In a loud bar packed with Hill interns and GW students he had sat and downed pint after pint of Hoegaarden until a bubble wrap-like warmth and invincibility had surrounded him. His cell phone sat silently in his pocket, switched off, and despite his repeated attempts to chat up single-looking girls whom he thought had made eyes, his mind always continued to wander to her and whether she had called. He ended up sleeping in his car until early the next morning, when the sound of Saturday shoppers and the frenzy of passing traffic had woken him. Within an hour he was at her house, in her arms, reconciliation. They spent the remainder of the weekend having sex and eating delivered pizza, and come Monday when Dwight asked for his regular update on the happenings up north, he had been relieved to be able to honestly reply with contentment.

Things had been calm in the months since. They had had a long and open talk about jealousy and realized that one of the strengths in their relationship was the ability to candidly discuss their shortcomings. This epiphany bolstered them, and by the end of their discussion they approached giddiness with the newfound solidity of their situation. The recent months had brought a new intensity to their appreciation of each other, with more “I Love You” and longer, tighter embraces at every opportunity. She had felt secure for the first time in her life, a tremendous accomplishment that she hesitated explaining to him for fear of suffocating his love. He finally felt calm in the thought that things were finally stable, a long distance love could work and would now free his time in North Carolina to more artistic pursuits such as painting or sculpture, hobbies he’d always harbored an interest in.

The interstate was half a mile from his office park, and it was common that he would forgo returning to his apartment and simply merge into the northbound entrance ramp, settling in for the long drive. This morning he had run out of bread, however, and instead of packing a small lunch he opted to stop at Wendy’s for a cheap and greasy combo meal.

Sitting in the fast food restaurant’s parking lot eating his chicken sandwich, he found himself devoid of any particular thought. The first leg of the drive was always the most tedious, a narrow chute of blacktop between the walls of pine trees straight north to Petersburg. At that sleepy and scarred industrial town he would merge onto 95 and continue through the patched-together tidiness of Richmond and from there it was almost always a slow crawl north until the HOV lanes of 395 and the full semblance of Northern Virginia suburbia. Barring especially horrid traffic, he would continue onto the Beltway, looping around the western side of the District and into Maryland before swooping down onto Connecticut Avenue and coasting a mile south to her offices. She would always be waiting at her desk, surfing the internet listlessly when he arrived. Her glance up and that familiar smile would fill him with warmth and almost instantly it was as if the previous five hours spent sitting in place and shifting were mere minutes.

He smiled, thinking about this now, chicken sandwich finished and the last sips of soda reluctantly trickling between the ice cubes. Removing his tie he found a strand of her amber hair and this too made him beam, for it was one of life’s little pleasures, to be 250 miles away from her yet to have a physical reminder with him even weeks after they’d last embraced. All in all, he was in a particularly good mood, and with a sense of calm and contentment he looked forward to the familiar escape that the weekend would bring. He felt that quite possibly, he could do this for years.

For one reason or another, finding the strand in his tie stirred memories that had been buried for some time, and soon he was sitting there in the car, meal finished, recalling the first weeks she had returned to Maryland, her anxiety at their being apart, their nightly phone calls that would last deep into the morning hours, sometimes with no words said for entire stretches where they simply listened to each other’s light breaths. There had been the night when a drunk frat boy had scaled the flagpole of her apartment complex, fallen the 20 feet to the concrete plaza and cracked his skull open. He had listened to her amazed play by play of the situation as the medevac helicopter whirred in the background.

And then there was one Saturday, in the depths of summer, July, he thought. They were speaking thrice daily now on the telephone, but it would be another two weeks before he could make the drive up to see her. In the morning she had explained that some girls from her old dormitory had invited her to a backyard barbecue in Bethesda, something of a celebratory party for one of the girls’ acceptance into Wharton. She had expressed anxiety about the whole affair, yet he had reassured her that she’d have fun. Socializing was not her strongpoint; she had had only a couple of friends in high school—one an immigrant girl from Colombia who shared her bookish ways and the other a boy two years her junior, thin and bespectacled from what he’d seen of the photos she’d shared. They had spent their late teenage years much like any bored suburban youth: driving around aimlessly, hours passed in finished basements, Friday nights driving into the city to see a foreign film or a rock concert. He admired her solemnity, it was attractive to him and he felt a tinge of sexual arousal at it as well—that she was his, that she needed him to open her—that caused him the slightest amount of shame.

He had spent the Saturday with friends, drinking cold cans of cheap beer and playing NHL ’98 on the Sega. By nightfall he had driven drunk back to his apartment and come midnight he was wondering why she hadn’t called. He debated calling her but ultimately chose against it, deciding in an alcoholic glaze that he didn’t want to come off as the controlling type, that this would be a demonstration of his ability to trust.

Around one she finally rang him. The vibration of his cell phone on his chest woke him as he napped on the sofa in soft lamplight. The rest of the apartment sat in darkness.

“Hey,” he slurred.

She sounded sad as she explained she’d just returned home.

“What’s wrong, why was it bad?” he asked.

“Oh, it was terrible. All these girls and they’re just so awful. So—I’m not a bad person for saying this right?”

“Of course not.”

“So… stupid! They’re so stupid. So shallow. All I got were questions about where I planned to go to grad school and have I seen such and such show and who do I think will win The Bachelorette. I mean, really…”

“That sounds terrible, for sure.”

“Oh, it was miserable. I just stood there with a drink for hours, in that backyard. The house was fantastic, that was the only thing I was impressed by. You know, those old money type of homes in Bethesda, off Bradley?”

He nodded before realizing the futility of this.

“Yeah, those are nice.”

“It was gorgeous. But what a waste. I couldn’t even get drunk to dull the pain because I had to drive home.”

“You could have called a cab,” he offered, with immediate regret.

“No, you don’t see…” She replied. “It wouldn’t have been worth it. It was just a terrible Saturday. Awful.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Gosh… Just awful. How was your day?”

And that had been that. She became far more reluctant to venture forth socially afterwards. He noticed this as the months went on, and deep in a corner of his mind it worried him, her new dependence on him for a social life. If it weren’t for me, he reasoned, she’d be a shut-in.

He bunched the foil wrapper of the sandwich up and stuffed it into the grease-stained paper bag. Five hours to go, he thought, with a slight shake of his head as he put the car into reverse. Backing out of the parking spot the sun glinted in his rearview and for a moment light the color of her hair shimmered in his gaze as he tapped lightly on the accelerator.

I am lucky, he thought. Things are just fine. She is my girlfriend, we have a connection. We are working with what we have towards a longevity of some sorts. I want to share her life. How could they be so mean, the rest of them? How could they leave her there, standing in her dress in a sunlit corner of a green backyard in Maryland one Saturday afternoon. Don’t they see her youth? Don’t they see her beauty and her love to give? She has so much love to give. I will try and accept it all. He smiled.

The breeze shifted, blowing through the cracked driver's side window. The light changed to green.

blonde dinner

2008-01-18T13:15:00.000-08:00

i keep repeating 'look at the lights, what a night on the town' over and over, in my best kool keith impression. at first it elicits giggles from her but eventually she hits my arm in that 'god, shut up' type of way that i secretly like. we sit in silence and i merge onto periferico, heading north towards polanco.

the valet looks like a mexican version of my old college roommate but just as suave and confident. the same waves in the side of the hair, the same smile that shows only the top row of teeth but not in an awkward way. my spanish is still tricky when people speak fast, so i don't catch what he says to me as i hand him the keys. it's something something rubia. rubia is blonde. she's blonde. ok i get it, whatever. i'm starving, who gives a fuck?

we're sitting eating chips and salsa under the gaze of the towering hotels along reforma. they're a barrier of sorts between the stout villas and parisian side streets of the neighborhood and the vastness of unknown poverty and working class tenements that seems to stretch all the way to the damn guatemala border. just look at all those lights stretching south, south, south.

so now in that sort of neon blue that comes just before the inky darkness fully descends, the hotel nikko is standing there above our street, impossibly high up, not very spectacularly lit--none of the buildings here are--just sort of reaffirming its presence alongside its brothers and sisters the W, Intercontinental, Sheraton... fuck what a snooty, touristy street.

we joke about that a lot, that the only reason we drive to this neighborhood is because this restaurant is one of the few places to get a good basket of chips and salsa. can you believe that? all of mexico city and you have to single one place out for good chips and salsa. and it's a 45 minute drive when traffic is good.

we're talking, sitting out on the sidewalk tables, enjoying the night air. it's a bit cool, sweater weather, and there's a scent in the air that along with the darkened little puffs of cloud high above signal a rain coming soon. the tables around us are mostly locals, rich Spaniard looking mexicans in their late 20s and early 30s, all crisply dressed, all smoking, both sexes speaking urgently into mobile phones. i signal the waiter and we get our fifth round of negro modelo.

it's an alright wednesday night.

the valet brings the car around and i give him 40 pesos tip. he seems like a nice kid, i don't think he was saying anything slick earlier. he seems grateful but in a good way, not in the overly exuberant way that some waiters and such exhibit, which is somewhat embarrassing. it was a weird thing at first here, the issues of tipping and giving to the panhandlers. but i remember what my dad said when we sat at this same restaurant one night years back; "as long as i can buy a four dollar beer, fuck it."

i guess that's just how i'll go as well.

we start back towards the freeway but i cut a right down tennyson; i want to see if this house is still on the market. it's a beauty, fits right in with the other houses and apartment blocks on the shady, darkened street. art deco style, a curved glass front room and a white-painted stone balcony on the 2nd floor with rounded metal railings like the deck of some old cruise ship. we pull up to it and i cut the headlights and we just sit for a minute. on the radio some new english rock band is playing, i get them all confused these days.

"i wonder why no one's bought it," i say. she doesn't respond. i look over and she's laying back in her seat, hand over her forehead. alcohol really messes her up. more than two drinks and she's wasted.

"maybe someone got murdered in it," she finally replies. i consider this, as the breeze picks up and the leaves above start swaying in front of the orange streetlight.

"i don't think i could live in a house where someone got murdered." i turn the headlights back on and we coast down to the stoplight. she mumbles something about going home.

"how fucked up would that be, to scour the newspapers for murders," i say, turning slowly on the green signal. "and then later to inform the new tenants about what happened in their homes?"

but she's asleep by now. so i think about it to myself, driving along avenida horacio, under the vast darkened sky about to split at the seams with rain. it's cool and breezy.

haters

2008-01-04T13:08:00.000-08:00

i was driving on 66 west, around nutley street, where the traffic always comes to a halt after slowly coursing silently through arlington like metal cells in the suburbs' great aorta. it was one of those early autumn afternoons in northern virginia, where the sun peeks between dense gangs of slate gray cloud occasionally, casting a golden light over the shaded treetops just beginning to change color. all around the boulevards and highways zip cars and minivans, office workers leaving early and high school kids leaving the crowded parking lots, turning too quickly into traffic or hesitating too long at stop signs. the area is full of life, you can feel it, you can feel the electricity of the friday afternoon as Suburbia prepares for a long weekend doing god only knows what.

it's a feeling, or a combination of feelings, that i only sense in the washington area. it was one of the reasons i insisted we stay, although i didn't put it to you in such terms.

you texted me as the nutley street exit approached slowly. i had been zoning out; not too interested in what was on all things considered, more talk about the war that really just all blurs together at this point. i have no real conception of who petraeus is, or what the surge entails, or where basra is strategically or otherwise. these have all become sort of buzz words. they can be strung together in infinite combinations but they all simply recall contrived mental images of dusty shootouts and explosions.

i like to believe i keep up on the war and policy. it is a necessary aspect of being a washingtonian, i suppose. but it's all just a foreign concept to me, as remote as black holes in space or geo-thermal energy alternatives. interesting to say but empty in thought, as thin as rice paper in the hands of my mind.

'meet me at home dpt on 50' read your text. at the time it didn't strike me as odd to find you there, despite the fact that we both live in the city, on the other side of the river, far from here, and there's no way you'd have known i was in virginia this particular afternoon. as far as you'd know, i would be in my office in spring valley, sitting across from max and will, feet up on my desk and killing time waiting for five o'clock. in fact, sending me any message to meet on route 50 may very well have caused me to head to the maryland side of the highway, heading towards annapolis. but none of this occurred to me; it all seemed to make sense as i veered the car into the exit lane. why did it all make sense?

the lot for the shopping center was incredibly crowded and i circled for a good five minutes to find a space, all the while looking out for your car. i never saw it but again instinct kicked in and i walked towards the store's entrance. expecting another text telling me where specifically to meet you, i decided to browse some to kill time. i know very little about home repair but it seemed a fittingly masculine thing to do to peruse the power tools, all secured to the display table with thick ropes of nylon wire.

after a few minutes or so i moved on to the lumber shelves, checking my watch and my phone. i hadn't missed your text. the oddity of the situation was beginning to sink in when there you were, walking quickly towards me from down the aisle, a nervous look on your face. you came to within an inch of my face but your arms stayed at your side.

"what's the matter," i asked, and with those words came the rush of unsteadiness that accompanied the rendezvous. just what the hell were we doing out here, in suburbia, in a home depot, on a friday afternoon? well, i knew why i was out here in the first place--and i couldn't tell you--but why were you?

do you know that feeling, when you're standing on the shore, and the waves recede, pulling little grains of sand around your feet, and you can feel the rush of all of them at once, being moved in unison?

you took me over to another aisle, leading by the hand. your fingers were cool, your palm was sweaty, you seemed determined but scared. i noticed you looked pale, your hair seemed darker; maybe it was those flourescent bulbs way up there on the high metal ceilings. maybe it was because this all felt like a dream, and dreams are blurry sometimes, like those thoughts of the war, of what the words really mean.

as we walked down the new aisle side by side, i felt compelled to regain a sense of normalcy. i kissed you. you took it but seemed distracted. you held onto my arm with one hand, gripping strongly. 'let's be a normal couple,' i pleaded inside. 'let's not fret about in this home depot like restless zombies. it's friday afternoon.' i should have said these thoughts aloud. i'm not sure why i didn't.

you finally looked me square in the eye.

"i hit a man on a road this afternoon. i think he's--i think i killed a person today. i have to leave."

i nodded to show my understanding of the situation. a family was walking by, a young wife and husband and their pre-school aged son. you continued to look at me with frightened, impatiently serious eyes.

the boy trailed behind his parents listlessly. upon looking up at us, he waved a juice box from left to right. "i have a drink!" he exclaimed proudly.

i watched him but didn't reply. forcing a tight smile i nodded. you continued looking in my eyes. i kissed you again.

'we are a normal couple. it is a normal friday afternoon.' again in my head.

there were questions that i should have asked you.

fake summer nights of december

2007-12-18T10:39:00.000-08:00

it was in a bank on sixth avenue and 14th street that an older man told me his philosophy about living out your youth.

"you need to stay in one place only in four-year increments. just like college. it compartmentalizes your life. it's easier to remember the times you spent that way. they won't blend together like they would otherwise."

i nodded with interest while filling out a withdrawal slip.

"plus you don't need to stay in one place for more than four years. you need to move around. when you get married, when you have kids, you'll have your whole life to live in one place."

i smiled and thanked him. he nodded but seemed lost in his own thoughts, pleased with his improvised lesson. i left the bank and met my friend for lunch. we both expressed surprise at the idea of living past 28.

in a week i had sublet my apartment and sold away most of my things. it had been four years since i parked in manhattan and moved my computer and mini-fridge into a sixth floor walkup. it had been four years since i left my college campus, taking pictures with strangers and patting the communications building's brick wall one last time for good luck.

it was time to leave. the old man was right.

friends had regaled me with adventurous tales of driving cross-country, but there was no blossoming romance with these united states. there were stifling backups in thunderstorms across the midwest, detours due to snow around the rockies, a seemingly endless drive through the desert with incessant talk shows on the AM dial. i arrived in san diego california mid-afternoon on a sunday. it was dead. i felt slightly cheated, completely devoid of any victorious arrival.

things still felt like they did back east. one of my favorite little pleasures in life is the feeling you get those first few minutes in a new city. i had it at 25, driving into dallas in the rush hour traffic one friday afternoon in spring, surrounded by all the office workers heading to happy hour. there i was in my rented ford sedan, texas license plates, one of them but secretly an outsider. there was an awesome excitement about it all as i studied my map, crawling between freeway exits.

here i was, though, walking into a sears to buy some towels. my first act as a californian. the air felt normal, no electricity. the people looked familiar, new yorkers in less flashy clothes, quieter, less harried. i felt my heart sinking slowly.

parking the car at my new apartment complex, i threw the towels in the empty living room and shut the door. i had my fill of driving and sitting, that's for sure. i left to go for a walk around the new neighborhood. the sun had sunk low enough to only light the tops of the trees and patches here and there of unobstructed grass. the bungalow-type buildings sat squat in folds of darkness as here and there yellowed windows appeared like stars in the blackening sky.

walking down the boulevard i finally came upon a light rail station slapped by the roadside. the sky was thoroughly indigo by now, save for some threads of light blue on the far horizon. it would still be light in hawaii, i thought. a couple of hours of sunday afternoon would be left for them. there would be a blue sky above the open expanse of the pacific, and in asia they'd be just waking up to a new day. this day is gone for me, though, and i stared across the tracks to the large shopping center lit with multi-colored neon storefronts. i heard a train whistle and looked left to see an orange metal tube gliding towards us in the distance.

standing on the platform i recall only silence as the train approached, and i don't recall any shouts or screams or even loud voices as the man stepped forward from behind a large aluminum pylon. i think we all watched in shocked silence as he stepped down into the rail bed and simply sat there, hunched away from the oncoming locomotive, arms around his knees like an attentive child watching a teacher reading aloud. i turned when the actual impact occurred, a sickening twisting feeling sinking in me from chest to legs.

when i turned around finally he was prostrate, surrounded by onlookers. the train had stopped several feet after him and was sitting there, four cars long, humming slightly, its windows lit with passengers standing trying to get a look at what had happened. i thought about the train's driver, how this calm, empty sunday had now made its mark on him for good.

i flipped open my phone and dialed 911. a terse white male voice answered with "What?"

"there's been a suicide at the light rail station"

"which one? what is the address?"

i scanned around for a street sign.

"i see mission gorge road."

"that's no surprise." the line went dead.

i spent a long time walking home that night, careful with my steps. i don't recall looking up at that dark sky, i don't recall looking around me at my new surroundings. i walked the sidewalks slowly, past the low bushes and the driveways and the stone pathways. i spent a long time thinking.

lessons that i'm learning

2007-11-27T10:12:00.000-08:00

At 4:30 a car slid on the rain slicked street outside and slammed into a light pole. This resulted in a bright green flash from a nearby transformer, followed almost immediately by a tremendous boom. This woke me, naturally, but I was able to drift back asleep within seconds of realizing what had happened.

At 4:34 the cat jumped on my back, nervously purring and terrified from the noises of the previous four minutes. This woke me, and after lying there for 15 minutes and turning on the TV for 20 I was unable to return to sleep.

I crept down the carpeted stairs and went to the hall bathroom, where I'd kept the machine under the sink. I had debated bringing it along for the holidays; eventually the prospect of bored nights spent with distant relatives seemed to necessitate stowing it in an extra suitcase. Surprisingly, security at JFK never said a word after running the bag through the x-ray machines.

In a few seconds I was back in New York, quite clearly a different version than the one I had left a few days previous. It was anywhere between the late 1960s and late 1970s--I have to fix the specificity of the travel, but it's pretty hard. I can't find any cool dials and I'm not really sure how it would work from an engineering standpoint.

I joined a couple of incredibly stoned guys in their 20s at the corner of 3rd Avenue and 78th Street. A hulking factory sat drab in red brick a block south, towering over the surrounding tenements. Above us a robin's egg sky was cluttered with dark-bottomed, puffy clouds hanging high up above the roofs.

On the northwest corner was a felt-covered green sofa recklessly tossed to the curb. One of the cushions was missing, revealing the springs and mechanisms of the pull-out bed stowed in the base. I sat on the opposite edge, sinking comfortably into the foam and tossing one arm over the side, letting it dangle a few inches above the sidewalk. People walked by and cars drove up the avenue in a steady stream but I was about as comfortable as could be.

"It would be a shame if this thing got rained on," I told one of the stoned guys. "This is gonna be my new clubhouse." He just stood a few feet away, no reaction, staring at the passing traffic with clenched teeth. His loose button-up shirt and corduroy slacks were surprisingly clean.

Sitting there for what could have been hours as the afternoon passed, I don't remember much of the details. Eventually Tracy showed up, which was no surprise, though it should have been. She wore a gauzy green dress that half hung, half clung to her waist and shoulders. We sat on the sofa and chatted but it was the most insignificant of small talk.

Across the sidewalk from the discarded sofa was a pawn shop. Around sunset the proprietor showed up at the doorway of the business with a large cardboard box. Tossing it to the curb beside me, he exclaimed with his arms that the contents were ripe for the taking. Within seconds I had found something of interest.

I turned it over in my hands, oblivious now to the traffic noises or Tracy's continuing conversation. It was a black object, about the size of a Dustbuster but as thin as a ping pong paddle. Made of molded plastic, it tapered on one end to a small square point of dull aluminum. Above this metal was a small slit, almost resembling the slot where a strip of paper would print out. Opposite of this point, on the other end, was a molded plastic handle, which I gripped while inspecting a large red plastic trigger in the shape of a cheese wedge which when squeezed sunk into the black frame and caused a loud buzzing to emit from the center of the thing.

I was thoroughly puzzled as I held it, before turning it over once more and noticing a red warning sticker, which read, in neat white Helvetica lettering: "This is the most lethal weapon available on the civilian market. Please keep out of reach of children and practice safety accordingly."

Suddenly the buzzing I had heard while squeezing the trigger troubled me immensely. I tossed the device back into the cardboard box and rose from the sofa. Tracy followed me as I walked down to 2nd Avenue.

She knew of a fancy dinner party an office in midtown was hosting. Wanting to distance myself from the killer device and always in the mood for free alcohol and food, I agreed and we set off in a taxi.

The party was hosted in a rather small banquet hall on the first floor of a decrepit old hotel. The walls, the table settings and most of the ceramic serving dishes were a depressing shade of off-white. In the center of one folding table was a large ceramic fountain pouring alcohol. It too was off-white, and men and women in business clothing shuffled about it in clusters.

We took seats on a plush banquette surrounding a concrete support column. Tracy kept fiddling with some oddly shaped chocolate and offering me some despite my insistent declination. Time seemed to sludge along until I looked up and suddenly you were there, dressed in the same off-white that bathed the room. You looked tired--maybe even sick--and one couldn't help but notice the large bluish bruise surrounding your right eye and spilling over your high cheekbone. We shared a second of recognition before I averted my gaze and abruptly stood.

"I'm going to get more to drink," I told Tracy, who had scooted over to give herself distance between us, I had noted to a degree of annoyance. Instead of walking to the fountain, though, I left the building.

In a few seconds I was back here, in the downstairs bathroom. The machine was on the floor, resting silently. I felt incredibly sleepy at last.

I'm not sure how you got there, or who had hit you. I'm not sure I want to know. I'm wondering if maybe I'm finally getting somewhere, moving on, or maybe this is all a premonition for something coming soon to bridge the gap between us.

I'm not sure which one I'd prefer.

codes

2007-10-31T14:58:00.001-07:00

go ahead and spill an entire pot of tea on your lap. after the initial shock of heat (and assuming you're wearing jeans) it will slowly progress into what i imagine a relaxing afternoon at an onsen feels like: the spread of warmth, the adjustment, the calming, the coolness of the breeze as you stand and run around in circles.

really what's the point of leaving the house when you have such natural wonders at your command?

checking online in the dead of night (having been awakened by a dream of various spiders) i find my available credit balance at roughly six thousand dollars. conceivably enough to fly to any corner of the world on the next available flight from kennedy, conceivably enough to rent a nice hotel room and conceivably enough to purchase a small bottle of beer, to pop it open and lie on the bedspread sipping the cool foam, listening to the familiar noise of traffic outside the open window and basking in the lamplight that while obviously akin to north american light, oddly feels different.

rolling over in the dead of night, away from the glow of the laptop screen. flashes of spiders. this is so stupid, you think. spiders. the world could be destroyed by several men with power, keys and switches. a cab could hydroplane on the rain-slicked avenue and jump the curb, bumper slamming into you at about chest level. but you're lying awake at night worried of spiders, as somewhere in brazil right now an entire family sleeps in half this space, spiders crawling the walls and across the floor.

you lie on your back and stare at the ceiling. so what will it feel like when everyone is marrying and certain people are dying, the old and expected and the young and tragic? will you leave the house then, when alarms are sounding with every late phone call and terse e-mail? what exactly kick-starts a life?

do you remember when you and andy took the motorboat out on the lake early one morning, getting your sneakers muddy and ruined as you kicked the hull out of the deep sand? you floated about fifty feet into the waters as the sun hovered behind the treeline. after smoking and joking about the lack of a good kfc you decided to start the motor. pulls and pulls and it wouldn't turn over. finally laughing with exasperation you pull the cord and it putters to life. will it be like that?

will you still be lying awake in the dead of night, worried about spiders?

radiation sickness

2007-10-06T14:25:00.000-07:00

we met in an evacuation. i had been living in the woods for six months, working with the loggers. i was trying to keep myself together. somehow being out in the forest 12 hours a day with earplugs and chainsaws kept my mind off of back east and all that had driven me out. i was on another planet, in another man's body, a million miles away from those small apartments and those yellow-lit windows everywhere and the garbage-strewn streets. here i was a blade of quivering grass among giants, taking each down, one at a time, a dozen a day.

the guys and i hardly spoke. anything that wasn't necessary was left unsaid. it was probably with subtle body language that we all agreed to go down for a swim. it was late afternoon, a saturday.

i remember the three of us stripping down to shorts and running towards the end of the pier like boys. 34-year-old boys, a part of you never grows up, i thought as we raced to the edge. i remember hesitating at the last second as they arced by me in a blur. and then i was in the water and it crashed over me, over my head. the fragment of a second where the entirety of my skin went from dry to wet seemed to last an hour.

i am a strong swimmer. i watched the other two as they dog paddled in circles and splashed each other. i swam towards the deeper waters, rolled over onto my back and looked at the sky. the low grey clouds, if you really concentrated you could see the layers moving above each other. it would rain any second. it always rains here.

i swam laps, 100 yards in each direction. the lake was vast. i couldn't see the other shore even in clear weather. there we were, swimming on the brink of a thunderstorm in the waters of a gigantic lake, a huge field of cobalt churning water. i felt my arms crash down and rise up from the waves. i got so strong working out there. another body entirely.

as the wind picked up the current got stronger. at one point i bobbed upright in the water, scanning the wavering line of sight for the other two. couldn't see them. a flash of panic shot like a quick bolt of lightning when the current pulled me back a few feet, but i swam out of it effortlessly. as with any release, the fun fades gradually into pondering when to leave, when to quit. i began to think about swimming back to shore when i saw it.

at first the glow of the flames caught my periphery and i turned slowly, my neck and shoulders getting clammy and my legs kicking mechanically. it was a 737, i would guess, a large yellow shot of flame engulfing the forward door near the cockpit. the plane was silent as it sailed towards the treeline. i could see that it was a northwest airlines jet. the flames against the darkened grey sky made the entire metal tube glow as if lit softly from stage lights. it looked beautiful before the horror of it washed over me.

and in minutes i was back underwater, swimming as fast as i could. my knees dug into the sand and soon i was standing and running through the woods, feet crunching the sandy pine needles and dodging the large rocks and fallen branches. i ran for a good half hour, down the dusty packed-earth logging road, towards the highway. i never heard the actual crash.

by the time i reached the highway cars were lined up in gridlock, silent, engines running, exhaust pipes spewing invisible gases. i was shirtless and barefoot and knocking on windows, going car to car. several drivers looked panicked. she was the fifth car i tried. she didn't even roll down the window, she leaned over and opened the door.

now i am on another planet, i thought, the experience of sitting in a dry, air-conditioned front seat of a car when minutes before i had been in a tunnel of blurriness in the thick of the forest, when minutes before that i had been letting the lake take me in, giving myself up to it. i was cold. she gave me a light jacket from the backseat to drape over my shoulders.

we drove for hours. she was blonde, sweet-faced, large blue eyes. she was overweight, looked like she'd been that way since she was a little girl. but her eyes told the story, the love to give, the abundance of it, as much as the water in that vast lake. we talked about high school, we talked about jobs and homes and travel.

hours later we stopped for a light meal, knowing more driving was on the way. we sat at picnic tables on the edge of a parking lot. it was the dead of night and we were bathed in the orange of the hundred lightposts around us.

it was the first time we'd gotten to face each other. i looked into those eyes as she spoke. i repeated to myself, over and over, drowning out her words in my head.

"i want to love you but i can't."

let's have a fun situation

2007-08-15T09:57:00.001-07:00

it was about twenty minutes after i royally fucked up the flight bookings with BA on the telephone. i had set the phone down on the oak table and walked outside to the grassy space between the high brick walls of the adjoining buildings. the grass was speckled with white weeds, puffy little things on flimsy green stalks. they bent under my feet as i stepped and sprang back to life as i passed.

halfway into the grassy space i noticed dozens of black dots amidst the grass. before i really knew what was happening, the bees were swarming my face. i began to wave them off but ceased, quickly realizing that being still would minimize my chances of a sting. a small one felt the wave though, and within seconds i felt the warm pierce near my right cheekbone. the rest buzzed about as i remained stiffly still, keeping even my breathing to a minimum. within seconds they'd all flown off, and i was left standing in a small patch of sun, sighing with relief.

inside i made my way up the oak stairway to the bathroom. glancing at my face in the mirror i saw no real harm done. must have been a baby bee, i thought, as the phone rang. i knew it was you. it was saturday morning and it was just natural you'd ring up with ideas and plans for the day.

you told me you were going to the grocery store and asked would i like to come. i told you of course, i love the grocery store. you laughed because you knew i did but also because you knew i meant of course, i love you, i'd go with you anywhere.

when you got there i found you at the bottom of the stairs in your light blue shirt speaking with william. i felt pride and warmth as the houseguests came pouring into the hall. i'm just going to have a quick shower, i said. but before i knew it, the teenagers had taken both bathrooms.

i heard sinks running as we smiled at each other.

coarse

2007-07-25T15:03:00.000-07:00

summer blares via sunlight and heat but i'm quite frankly shocked at how quiet a street in the middle of new york city can be. it's saturday evening and all over the five boroughs people are getting dressed, patting their trousers to make sure they've remembered their keys, locking doors, pressing elevator buttons, coasting through toll booths.

i am sitting on a stoop on eckford street and there isn't a single sound--literal silence. a firefly floats upwards towards the swaying treetops, a shirtless teenage boy leans out of his window reading a magazine. the cars are parked as if abandoned forever, the sky is the lavender of a woman's silk slip, impossibly high up and pierced here and there with slowly moving pin pricks of light from the jfk or laguardia approach paths.

it's evening and i'm apprehensive about night. what else is new?

on occasion my thoughts will be so incongruent with what is happening around me that it really bothers me. i will be one second away from collision in a hydroplaning car and i will wonder if i need to pick up cereal from the supermarket. we will be bounding out of the metropolitan avenue bus in a flurry of emotion, ready to just let the words spill out as the sun begins to rise, and i'll wonder if i remembered to leave a check for my rent on the fridge door.

sometimes i'll sit and you'll talk for minutes and i haven't heard a thing. sometimes i'll sit on the train by myself. as it passes the dull, smudged skyline and you're off somewhere, i'll wonder just how far i will run for you, if it's bright there, if it's quiet there.

sarah's more important than a pizza

2007-07-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

sleep paralysis was a new thing for me. i credit my voracity for trivia to my lack of panic. i opened my eyes and there was my room, there was my arm, there was the corner of my laptop. it was somewhere around quarter to two on the fourth of july. pancakes had put me to sleep. i was hearing the same sentences i'd heard on npr an hour ago, back in the dream. i could repeat them word for word. i thought i was in the machine, that i'd just got back, that the machine was hiccupping and honestly that worried me more than the possibility--scratch that, the reality--of paralysis. i calmly wondered if this was death; that in a cruel twist unlike the ending of a video game you spent eternity seeing life moving on around where your body fell, but unable to do or say anything. i calmly realized that this is what some people live their entire days, weeks, lives feeling like. i thought about my roommate finding me like this, how long that would take. then suddenly i could move again.

before i was in a house party in london. we'd set red lights up and down the walls, christmas lights. the room was bathed in red. we did a lot of drugs that afternoon, before the girls and the guys from the university showed up to drink our beer and half-heartedly cheer us on. we'd been chewing on a bunch of keys we'd found in a metal biscuit tin in the kitchen. each key tasted different. i don't know what the pills were that we'd taken but they made my head spin and i felt like foaming at the mouth. our fat black neighbor charles walked by the open front door and we made him come in and judge our key tasting contest. i told raoul that mine was by far the tastiest. charles must have been drunk; he proferred a plastic-nubbed one from the tin and speaking like some african dictator declared that to be the most delicious. i bit down on it and by jove, he was right.

at one point i spun around in circles and said to ryan, "we are completely fucking insane." he just nodded with a tight smile.

an hour later and we had our rig set up, loads of samplers and mixers and pre-amps and wires going this way and that and we were now drunk to boot and playing plastic electronic toys as MIDI triggers. i was playing max's guitar hero controller, as was raoul, and the room was a whirling frenzy of red light, girls' long hair whizzing by left and right, loud noise and pressing buttons. we were sounding good, albeit a bit disheveled. i was beating the crap out of the plastic guitar and the headstock was breaking in two. as raoul and our drummer syncopated into a tight solo i walked over to max, who was surly drunk and standing off to the back in blue oxford completely soaked in beer.

"sorry mate, i snapped this end off"

he glowered but was very civil. "no worries, it's only ten pounds at the shop."

for some reason i wanted to instigate him. "fuck all, ten pounds, i'll pay two."

his frown aimed directly at me. "it's okay, i'll take care of it. get the blue duct tape."

i picked up the tape gun. "i've half a mind to smash the bloody thing all to hell, why not. semper fi, right?"

i woke and couldn't move. the room was the opposite of the dream room. it was serene, angelic white, soft light from the sun shining behind the low layer of clouds. london was awake, it was the morning after.

the phone rang, it was sarah. i silenced it and set it back on the bedside table. i was still sort of coping with the temporary loss of function. it was invigorating. i had an erection. i wanted to look at porn and eat a pizza. that's how i'd spend my independence day.

the phone bleeped signaling a text. sarah again. 'call me'. i wondered if it was urgent. i listened to her voicemail. it sounded urgent. i swept pizza from my mind and rung her up.

she sounded lonesome. she never sounds lonesome to me. she wanted someone to hang out with on the holiday. we'll go watch the fireworks down by the river, i told her. she sounded disheartened.

in the bathroom i splashed water over my face. it is good to be able to move. it is good to be alive but oh how it wears on the mind.

wednesday afternoon

2007-05-30T15:02:00.000-07:00

i spent the evening prior locked in a struggle with you on the phone. you're very good at keeping your emotions ambiguous; if i had known that you were simply angry or uninterested, i would have set the receiver down and gone about my night. it would have smarted, it would sit there on my frontal lobe or deep in the trench below my heart for a good twelve to twenty-four hours. but i would know definitively, which is better than what i ended up getting.

you called me first, remember? that would indicate to me that it was worth your effort, that the thought crossed your mind. how you found my number i'm not sure but it's probably not some great mystery of the century. it was probably jp or william who did the legwork for you. it could even have been mary, but this is all speculation because i know nothing about your life now, who you keep up with and who you talk to on sundays, catching up about each other's weeks.

you would give me a piece of information here and there: you work for an autistic support center. you answer phones. you've an apartment with a young lady in nursing school, lots of windows, lots of light. you moved here last month, it's hotter than you thought it would be. anything else i asked, to try to fill in the gaps, to color in the stark black and white outlines, and you merely sighed. i haven't heard that sigh in twelve years. it is like a large copper pot of water shining in the afternoon sun. it's vast and holds so much and i want to stick my head in it and drown myself.

finally we agreed. i'll leave work early tomorrow. we'll meet near your place. 67th and park. i took the subway, loosening my collar as kids in doo-rags marched up and down the car hawking m&ms. when i got to the corner, there you were in a gray dress, a beam of sunlight slicing between the giant walls of the avenue and framing you in a parallelogram of fire. it fit quite nicely.

whatever thoughts i had of wringing our hands together in a diner off madison were dashed when we stepped into the chase atm. you are always fleeting. nothing has changed. and so as you held your head so impossibly high, as always, and the sun hit your golden curls in the gaps of the cross-streets, i knew this was all a waste. when the obese girl with the pony tail walked beside us towards the crosswalk i even mouthed a come-on to her, i was so frustrated, so desperate for any emotional acclaim.

i rode the train back to work and in minutes the machine and i were gone. back in the present i realized i hadn't even noticed the differences around us. i was only focused on your walk--graceful, carefree, always a few steps ahead of me.

unease

2007-01-23T11:47:00.000-08:00

we're driving down some divided highway outside dallas. it's a bright, hazy afternoon, the weekend, probably saturday, i'm not sure. the trees line the road in a wall of green about twenty feet from the shoulder. steep embankments of weedy grass between us and the unspoilt forest of this rapidly developing suburb. i think it's sometime around 92 or 93. i can just tell.

we go flying towards a concrete bridge spanning a dried-out river. suddenly a feeling overwhelms me. i know this place. i know what's coming up on the right. a steep turn-off, a driveway that leads down to an apartment complex by the riverbank. i tell the driver to turn there. from the highway i can already see the complex's swimming pool, filled with mothers and small children splashing around in the bright sun and light blue water. they're happy but this place is mired in darkness.

the driver waits while i walk around the parking lots. even in the sunlight those pine trees towering all around us seem so ominous. maybe its just because i know what happened here. i walk past a real estate agent for the complex. she's telling a prospective tenant about the amenities: swimming pool, laundry, night watchman, express train being built to tower airport (this must be a flub in the time travel; neither the airport nor the train exist in real life).

i muster up the courage and break into the apartment. its still empty but there aren't any traces of the crime left, no stains, no police detritus. it's dark but there's enough light from outside's brightness to seep in from behind the hanging blinds. i'm terrified being in here but i manage to push open the door to the bedroom, where it actually happened.

the carpeted room is dark and empty, just like the rest of the apartment. i'm standing there, freezing, when i spot the empty pepsi bottle in the corner. it seems like forever before i'm across the room holding it in my hands.

once i peel the label off i see the message in disturbing scrawled pencil, screaming out at me. it reads WHY DID YOU COME TO KILL ME YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO JUMP THROUGH THE PORTAL

this is too much for me. i tap out and i'm back in queens at 3:30 in the morning on the kitchen floor. i can't stop shaking for a good 20 minutes and i certainly can't sleep for the rest of the night. i go to work the next day a ball of nerves, unable to focus on anything.

yorktown

2006-09-28T09:38:00.000-07:00

terrified of this opening when it comes on the screen. my parents sitting on the bed, my mom knitting and my dad sipping from a st. pauli girl bottle. me sitting in the chair we bought out on 270 at ethan allen and so quickly became stained and withered. i always wondered why we even bothered to buy it; it was meant for a wood-floored sitting room in some suburban house, not the 2nd floor carpeted, cramped bedroom in a townhouse in the middle of the city. me slumped playing my game boy and not really paying attention and the light in that room is very yellow from the bulbs lined up above the mirror, what they call a "vanity mirror" but aren't all mirrors related to vanity?

night time then was pretty unexplained to me. i don't think i was fascinated with it per se; i understood it was a time that i wasn't allowed to see too much of. i also knew it was the time when the opposite element of life was roaming about. day was the environment of my friends, running between the buildings, the neighbors hanging out on the stoops and chatting, the cars driving by in a hurry. the night was empty streets and alleys and sidewalks chilled in ghostly white streetlight. cars drove by slowly and menacing, bass blaring or just gliding by silently. figures darted between buildings and claps of gunfire erupted from distant blocks every once in a while. you get used to them and sleep through it. occasionally, though, an errant shout or slammed door will rouse you from sleep. it wasn't until later that you have to sleep on the floor because once a bullet goes through one of the second-floor windows, your parents will never cease to worry from that point on.

people tell you stories, they float around the neighborhood. the cop in 2270 that walks around the buildings late at night with his gun drawn, don't even run into him coming around a corner at 2am. the crawfords had their shit broken into while they slept, the cops are standing around in the alley between 17 and 18 pouring plaster into a boot-print. bruce blew his brains out now the entire park circle is full of cop cars, cops are hugging each other and brenda (she went to high school with him) is standing by the mailboxes crying and staring at them going in and out of his house. two weeks later chris and that kid from baltimore and his sister who lived here for like two weeks while his mom was readjusting to single life were walking through the alley by bruce's in the middle of the night. it was fall and there were leaves everywhere and we knew we shouldn't have snuck out. we didn't even have anywhere to go or anything to do. certainly wouldn't brave it to the boulevard to hit the store for a soda. just walking around in the dark between streetlights and talking. came upon the alley and there in a pile of dead leaves was the yellow police tape they'd strung around the poles in front of bruce's. it terrified us and we split, running off in four directions. i couldn't sleep well for quite a while.

finding a bunch of 9mm shells in the curb on bedford and bringing them to school the next day to show my friends. that's when the hippie teacher molly realized that i wasn't really faking the whole "i don't live around this part of town" act. what a stupid bitch, this was before dre, who would have bragged about that kind of thing? she made a point to never speak to me after that unless she had to. whatevs.

wow i grew up in a shithole. not gonna take the machine back there.

abusing the machine

2006-09-20T11:19:00.000-07:00

telling myself i'm not going to use it for a while now that S is gone. sitting in the living room by the window that doesn't look out on anything but a brick wall, for hours, knowing it's getting dark when the brick wall dims and i can't make out the spaces between stones.

slamming my foot in a doorway by accident. hobbling from couch to bed to fridge and various points between. more time staring at the brick wall. smoking cigarettes at a pace i know deep down is beyond unhealthy. the machine sits in the closet all this time but i'm not touching it, i am strong and i will see myself through this.

one evening hobbling to the train station, it takes thirty minutes to walk the five short blocks. boy, you're in a bad state, i say, but i board the train for new york anyways. as we rumble past apartment buildings i think of the machine sitting in the closet, in the dark, the crystal pepsi bubbling inside reactor six's chamber. it's cool, though, i say as i shift from one foot to the other, wounded to sturdy. it's cool because i'm strong.

in manhattan i'm waiting, sipping tea, reading over the paper but i can't focus on any of the stories. just scanning the fields of type is enough to keep me from really losing it. there's a giant clock behind me ticking towards eight but of course i can't see it so i keep checking my phone. 7:53. 7:54. 7:57. 8:02. i start to think this was a bad idea and even sitting gets tense. then there she is standing on the corner as my phone screen lights up. a few minutes later and would you believe it i'm as calm as the water in the reservoir over in the park, just slight ripples breezing through as i sit and think about how strange it all is.

it was raining so we took the crosstown bus and i thought to myself, well this is nice again. this is what S and i never had and i guess--well--i don't know if it's all nice because of a rainy night in september or a dim coffeeshop or what. maybe it's just that i've been sitting by that window so much that i just needed anything to get me away from it. from those fading bricks and that worn out old sofa.

six days later and i can walk again but boy am i still smarting. sitting by the phone as day turns to late afternoon turns to evening turns to bedtime. saying the same thing every morning before hopping that train to the city. tuesday night rolls around and i pull the machine out of the closet. sneak into the kitchen and fill up chamber six with a fresh 16 oz i kept hidden under the sink. from 1:42am to 1:43am i'm wavy but of course there's no one in the kitchen at that hour to see me.

wasted a whole bottle of fuel going back to that rainy night, opening my umbrella and then having to close it just as soon when the bus pulls up to columbus. sitting in the coffeeshop talking about maps, running my thumb along the edge of the mug over and over. sitting on the bus as it darts between the trees and leaps back out onto the banks of the east side like a big metal fish fighting the current.

went to bed bleary-eyed and stowed the machine back in the closet. woke up the next day and still nothing from the phone. was it worth it?

goes on and on and on

2006-08-14T13:15:00.000-07:00

would you share a meal with someone in a living room back in time? i sure would. it's not like food tastes any different back then. chicken was chicken, peas were peas. the soda in my glass tasted a bit sweeter (corn syrup hadn't proliferated yet) but it was just as cold as it would have been in the 21st century, still left a circle of perspiration on the marble table, just as it would have today.

spilling peas onto a shag carpet is equally frustrating then as it is today. peas never stay on your fork. the air in an unlit room is equally cold and darkened as it is today, but for some reason the shadows seem all the more menacing, perhaps because they conceal places and things that i'm not supposed to be around.

i feel the same thing when i see photos and video and flim from previous decades. the people all dressed garishly in their stripes and shoulder pads in the 80s, the svelte dresses and wool suits of the 40s--where did all these clothes go? are they deteriorating in the bottom of some dump in new jersey now? did they simply just disappear?

all those meals and all those clothes and drinks that are now just atoms again, where did they all go? my friend says a hole in mexico, along with the thoughts and memories and emotions. well i'd like to spend some time in that hole, just absorbing it all. i guess that's what the whole point of the machine was anyways.

and so you find yourself sharing a meal with someone in a darkened living room, trying to keep your peas on your fork. it all just feels so strange, even sharing meals seems like an antiquated practice.

i guess i can't stop thinking about how wrong all of this is: sitting in here, seeing that sunlight behind the drawn blinds, peeking out from the edges. the marble of this table, the air i'm breathing in and out, your knee touching mine, the blood coursing through your veins, the ice in my glass slowly melting.

hours

2006-06-29T10:42:00.000-07:00

i could live in a store

give me a hammock

is there air conditioning? i'm there

i won't bother any of the customers. i'll stay put on my hammock and read. i'll probably be so still they'll think i'm another one of those mannequins. yeah they make 'em unshaved now, the sales clerk will say.

one day i'll get bored and walk outside to the parking lot, look out at all those old sedans. boy, they really used to know how to make a car back then. not like these cheap plastic pieces of crap you see twisted up on the side of the beltway. sure, the new ones are nice to be in at night, but that's because you can't see anything. give me the old cars, that's what i say.

malls were built on such flat parcels of land. what i'd like to know is, were there ever any built into cliffs or tucked amongst rolling hills? maybe it didn't matter; after all, the eye candy was all inside the building.

the point is, i could be content, there in the back of the store, in a corner, in my hammock. hell, put me on a cot in a storeroom in the back. i can read my books and stare at the cieling.

if this invention has taught me anything, it's that you're bored no matter where you are. the heart still hurts, the days still seem to last forever, the silences still seem to drive you up the wall like they always did.

ground stop

2006-06-21T13:42:00.000-07:00

do things seem strange in the "past"? in that movie where the guys go back in time, their ears bleed and their handwriting gets worse...

there are several very noticable differences about "past" times. i have past in quotes because i can't really be sure that they are the actual past. it might look and feel like 1940; people might talk like they're from 1940, but how can i be sure it really is 1940? anyway, that's fodder for an entirely different discussion.

when i first used the machine, i took a very, very small sip of the crystal pepsi. probably about .25 ounces if i had to guess. subsequently, i didn't go very far back at all. about seven years, actually. to july 20, 1998, i realized upon further inspection.

the first thing you will notice is the green sky glow. during the day you don't see anything abnormal. the sky remains blue, birds fly, cats meow, all that good stuff. night is a different story. i was astonished when i emerged from an abandoned department store to find green stars and a lime haze tinting the night air. i was initially concerned that i'd jumped into the future by accident, and that rather freaked me out because it went completely against the plans and schematics. had i held the blueprints upside down?

i came to realize on subsequent travels that the green glow was constant. i can't explain it, of course. stars shine green and there's a green glow. that's all i can tell you. it happens in "past" times and it doesn't happen in our "normal" night. i couldn't exactly go around asking people why--if someone asked you why the stars shone the way they do, wouldn't you think they were batshit crazy?

over time i noticed other quirks of time travel that i will share in detail in future posts. most notably, besides the freaky green night, i was floored by the immediate physical feeling you get after transporting.

it's hard to describe. take the exhilaration you feel right after a near-collision in your car. you're fine but your heart is racing and the adrenaline is pumping. take the feeling you have hearing someone tell you they love you for the first time. take the feeling you get when you're in a quickly descending elevator and multiply it by 20. mix these feelings together and that is what you feel coursing through you for approximately 45 minutes after jumping into a different time.

it's a great feeling. it scared me at first. that night, i walked through a vast, empty parking lot and worried briefly that the crystal pepsi, as old as it was, had poisoned me. that i was still in 2005 and i was about to have a heart attack and that this is what death must feel like.

well, now i know i was kind of right. this is what death feels like, this is what life feels like, this is what being born feels like. i think the feeling is really just the essence of something much bigger than we can comprehend. it's sort of god's way of letting you know that you've gone beyond the daily routine; you've flexed the universe and its constraints and gone beyond. do i sound like a hippie yet?

one of my favorite experiences was in 1940. i was walking down a crowded sidewalk in downtown los angeles. it was around 5:30 in the afternoon, golden sunlight shining down on everyone in one of those shafts bursting forth from the clouds, like a ramp to heaven. i was walking along, big grin on my face, through all these crowds, feeling it. it was exhilarating. i wanted to laugh thinking about the absurdity of it all, being surrounded by so many people from the past and was it real, was it really happening? oh fuck it, i said. just enjoy the feeling and keep walking in the light.

some other small quirks i've noticed:

cigarettes are made of meat
dogs are waiters
90 foot tall andy griffith
incense replaced by lasers
scalding hot piss
delicious arby's sandwiches abound
national holiday where your dad sings INXS on live television, no matter what the year
beer is hot pink

okay so maybe i'm joshing. time travel will make you want to joke around a bit.

pull

2006-06-19T14:19:00.000-07:00

what are some other places you would like to go, ones from your personal history?

well there are a lot. i was stranded in beaufort with my dad on halloween night, 1999, after the two-seater plane we were piloting back to chapel hill blew out a front tire on takeoff from the tiny airport by the coast we'd been visiting. that was a pretty fun night.

i would go back to one of the many afternoons i wandered around vancouver sober and numb from the events of that summer just listening to the same cassette tape in my busted old walkman over and over again. you had to hold down the play button to get it to work. by the end of the summer i had a big blister on my thumb; i guess i was too aloof to think to use tape. i should have brought more cassettes, too.

what about that day in the summer of 2000 when my best friend and i sat on my back porch and got my dog high? everything was a slowly spinning blur of leaves and sun and somehow we managed to drive over to that amphitheatre where he was to direct a bunch of 10 year olds in a production of macbeth (or something like that). how vigorously nervewracking it was to see cyndi after all those years and give her a hug and oh man she probably smelled it all over me, how embarrassing. you can make mistakes like that when you're 19 years old and it is summertime.

but if i were to go anywhere now it would probably be that day in autumn, 1999, when i had just entered college and was simply a 6 foot tall vessel of meat and bones that went around spending my student loan money and inhaling whatever came my way. sarah and i were driving on market street and listening to "marketplace" on npr. as i got to the light for walker ave i pressed the brakes but lo and behold the car wasn't stopping very well. almost creamed into the back of one of the 1,039,940 buick station wagons driven by little old ladies at any given moment in the city of greensboro.

when we got back to the apartment i threw the keys down on the dining room table and said "well those brakes need to be fixed". then i chugged a beer and had a smoke with my roommate and picked the keys up from the table, saying "well i'm off to midas". no one felt like going to the repair shop with me so i strolled out into the sunny afternoon on my own, enjoying the leaves slowly changing their colors like old men preparing to go to bed. got to midas and spent the next 2.5 hours sitting in their tiny little waiting room, nursing a cold can of pepsi and watching judje mills lane on mute as the sounds of air wrenches and car engines wafted in from nearby.

finally they gave me my receipt and my car back and i headed home. by now it was dark and when i got to the apartment the lights were all off. raul was laying on the sofa in the blue glow of the tv. he was asleep. sarah was asleep, a book opened at the foot of the bed. i was wide awake and i wanted to tell someone how nice it had been, sitting there by myself for a couple of hours in the midas waiting room. i thought about going back there the next day with a few beers for the mechanics to see if they'd let me sit some more. but then i realized that too much of a good thing always ruins it.

so that's where i'd go if anywhere. back to that midas waiting room, back to that apartment, back to that age, just for a taste.

this is another way

2006-06-16T08:29:00.000-07:00

nyquil isn't time travel, rather it's interdimensional. i've been traveling for the past few nights and i've had some interesting experiences. here's what happened last night:

well, everything was ordinary enough, as far as nyquil travel goes. i was in what i realize now was my parents' house, but it was laid out completely different. rooms were there that don't exist, but true to life the whole place was covered in shade from the tall trees overhead, and the windows shone forth with yellow lamp light visible from the road as they always do.

i was living with max jones, a large black fellow who i don't know, and some italian kid who was nice enough but i knew inside would be trouble eventually. he just made me uneasy, watching out the back window as he walked in the backyard in the pouring rain. something didn't seem right.

i had forgotten to do my math homework, so i was in high school again, i suppose, which is a recurring theme when i do these travels. luckily max had copied the answers out of the teacher's edition, so i sat down and set to work copying from his paper onto mine. interestingly enough, i did feel a twinge of guilt, leading me to believe that conscience and emotions are fully present in this parallel world.

after returning my math work to my backpack i went into an adjacent room where max and the black fellow were playing PS2, minding to step carefully over the cords. my time in the room was brief, however, as i knew i had places to be, and so after a brief conversation and the emergence of the fully soaked italian kid, i set off.

by now it had stopped raining and was bright out, i'd say mid-afternoon. i was on a winding street not unlike those off tottenham court rd, but not as narrow. cobblestone with a lot of granite buildings about. no cars. could have been an alley off of dupont circle somewhere, it looked somewhat similar to that. but what happens further leads me to suspect it was london.

i stopped into a crowded and noisy pub. lots of office workers, all white, in their early 30s to mid 40s. i definitely stood out, especially with my large duffel bag. sidled up to the bar and waited patiently for the barkeep to take my order. an old man with glasses on the bridge of his nose and a black polo shirt looked at me and i started to speak, but he cut me off and pointed to his left, to a younger man wearing the same polo.

"what'll it be, then," he asked and i hesitated before replying "umm, an IPA..." he looked impatient so i said "umm a Bass IPA please." my accent was somewhat surrey and not the least suspicious.

as he was pouring it struck me that i left the backpack with my math homework at the house! i slapped myself on the forehead and began to panic. i was running out of time and i desperately had to turn in that work but i so didn't want to go all the way back to the house. i briefly considered asking the barkeep to watch my duffel bag while i ran back, but then i laughed thinking "right, i walk into crowded pub full of white folks at 5pm and leave a giant duffel bag there and exit, that won't arouse suspicion at all." so i was out of options.

well it's foggy how that was resolved because next i knew i was sitting with my father in a light rain on some concrete pylons blocking a driveway. we were across from a sloping block of townhouses, each set about five feet apart from the other, each distinct in their masonry and exteriors. i couldn't believe we were in india. my father confirmed that they were. "although it looks more like 18th street and park road," he said, and i nodded enthusiastically because that's precisely what it looked like. as i scanned the view across from us i noticed a corner store sign in english and i thought to myself "who'd have thought india looked so much like the US?" i then asked about appliances and electricity and all the modern conveniences.

soon enough i was sitting on another pylon at the end of a driveway, this time in pouring rain. i had a stinging injury to my left hand; the skin was removed from about a quarter-sized section of the top of my thumb. i held out the raw flesh to the falling rain to soothe it.

the deceased canadian journalist and former ABC news anchor peter jennings came walking up through the downpour and examined my hand. he then began admonishing me, in rather profane fashion, mentioning that i didn't really know pain until i'd "used a knife to cut out a box full of slugs shot into your leg by an italian soldier." i couldn't help but agree with him.

at this point i found myself back in our normal world, the one with which i have this website to share these experiences with you.

inside hurt

2006-06-02T09:25:00.000-07:00

another common question:

did you get the machine working on the first try? how long did it take to build?

i guess i'll be upfront and honest: it took a long time to make the machine. once i realized crystal pepsi was the fuel, i went through months of experiments just trying to figure out how to utilize it properly--remember I was doing this blindly; there's not some guide out there.

i spent a lot of afternoons in the apartment trying different things. went through an assload of crystal pepsi, too. and that stuff ain't cheap, let me tell you. among the things i tried:

bathing the dog in it (no visible change in space-time continuum)
basting cucumbers with it (again, no change. interesting flavor though)
firing it at innocent pedestrians via a supersoaker ($200 fine + court costs and now i can't fly anywhere because i'm on some "watch list")
singing "old time rock and roll" into the bottle as if it were a microphone (just for kicks)
clutching the bottle tightly and rolling around in a grassy field with it (i think maybe... maybe? no i just fell in love, no time travel)
grilling the bottle on a foreman (major fire)
grilling the bottle in a small interrogation room, actually my closet (major dad)

finally i spent six weekends in a row creating a super light-weight, titanium and alloy encased vehicle with tiptronic steering, maglev propulsion and hybrid ethanol backup energy systems. i called it the radmobile and it was sweet. but i couldn't get it out of the bathroom, the door was too narrow. so that sucked.

anyways a few weeks later i was tiptoeing around in circles in my bedroom to "Everybody Do The Dinosaur" and i fell and busted six of my front teeth out. it was around then that i figured out how to appropriately utilize the Crystal Pepsi as fuel.

why did you do it

2006-05-31T13:14:00.000-07:00

HORRIBLE question.

jesus.

no, that's not why i did it, i'm just saying "jesus" as sort of a swear-word.

why wouldn't i do it? who doesn't want to go through time, stopping along the way to gorge themselves on a bygone era, forgotten memories, places, people, etc?

if you're looking for the exact moment when i decided it had to be done, then i will tell you:

i was at home, alone, one saturday afternoon in early june, in Queens, NY. laying on the couch in the living room of my apartment, i kept flipping through the channels, all 177 of them, finding nothing interesting to watch. finally after about a half an hour of channel surfing and increasing frustration, i settled on the weather channel and stared mindlessly at a radar image of approaching thunderstorms on continuous loop. it didn't mean much to me at the time, but now i am convinced that watching this movement planted the seed in my mind for exploring the possibilities of time travel. there was just something about weather that seemed so integral, so fundamentally important to our memories and our perception of the moments we experience.

ask a person about the happiest day of their life. then ask them what the weather was like. i'd wager that you won't find a person who won't be able to tell you the latter.

soon enough the storms i had been watching on the radar rolled over my neighborhood with a torrent of rain and hailstones. i'm more of a sunny-day type of guy, so i was laying there lamenting the awful weather when my hand slipped and i pressed the channel button on my remote control. suddenly i was watching a replay of a English soccer match from the previous autumn; i believe it was from a saturday in october.

what i saw entranced me. it was actually halftime, so there wasn't any real soccer action going on. rather, i watched as the cameras panned the stands, showing Londoners in various states of wait: a man on his mobile phone, two small children arguing over a can of soda, an African man and an elderly Asian man chatting, arms crossed, looking out over the pitch. In some corners of the stadium sunlight (that rare English commodity) poured over the crowd in geometric shapes as defined by the eaves of the steel roof above.

it was a lovely autumn afternoon, the perfect kind for going to watch a match, and it struck me quite suddenly that is was gone. well, maybe not entirely. it was still there, on a videotape that was replaying for me as i lay in the still darkness, but the reality of it, the sights, sounds, smells, the unseen electricity that inevitably courses about when a group of people are gathered... that was all gone.

forever.

and i found myself quite sad. sad that perhaps the elderly Asian man, he was dead now. or the man on his mobile, he has since gone through a messy and emotionally excruciating divorce. perhaps the children are doing fine, but how sad that they're growing up? one day they're at White Hart Lane watching a match and before you know it they're off in university and then, just as quickly, they're elderly themselves and precariously on the verge of passing on.

it all weighed very heavy on my heart, sentimental oaf that i am, and as usual i vented my grief with indignance. why, if time has to continue its cruel march, usurping the moments of our lives and sending them into a void, why, i would fight back. i would find a way to circumvent this, and i would find a way to go back and recapture these times, make them forever accessable, never to be lost irretreivably and doomed to the gradual erosion of the human memory.

that is why i did what i did. it is not, however, when i realized how i would go about doing it.

i did not realize that crystal pepsi was the fuel for the machine until some months later, when i had drank an entire bottle of cough syrup and was hanging out in the laundry room with my cat.

how does it work

2006-05-31T10:59:00.000-07:00

what a GREAT question!!

how the fuck does the crystal pepsi time machine work?

what a GREAT question!!!

well, it's really quite simple:

that should be pretty self-explanatory. for all you numb-skulls out there, i'll dumb it down for you:

you drink crystal pepsi and it takes you back in time.

you don't have to chug the whole bottle, just a sip will do, but you gotta be in the right position both physically and mentally.

and you can't be around any TVs, radios, appliances (ESPECIALLY dryers), ice cream, grass, telephone poles, cars, matches, toilets, people, chrome, dairy products, pine trees, or railroad tracks. it just won't work if you are.

it's best to jump at night, because it's dark. you don't do this sort of thing in the daylight. would you stand around washington square park and wave your junk around for all the little kids to see? would you do that and scar them all for life and anger their parents and give the city of New York a bad name? would you? no, you wouldn't. and that's why you wouldn't jump through time with crystal pepsi in broad daylight.

crystal pepsi time travel = waving your junk around (in a astrophysical sense)

e.g., it's best to do at night, in the shadows.

i can't stress this enough. find a nice shadowy place to sip your crystal pepsi. OH. and for god's sake please sip it straight out of the bottle. no pouring it into the cap like it's drugs or even pouring into a shotglass or a plastic cup. removing it from the bottle weakens its power exponentially. similarly, removing it from the bottle and then transferring the removed contents back into the bottle will dilute the rest of it. so just leave it alone. this shit ain't free, you know.

time periods

2006-05-31T10:41:00.000-07:00

here are the time periods/places i am considering:

1926 - new york city - a diner --> the front steps of a brownstone in the east 60s --> the bathroom of an apartment --> a train station --> a train station bathroom

1940 - los angeles - walking along the side of a road slightly outside the city itself --> in a drug store looking for something --> in a sprawling mansion chasing an errant dog --> by the beach

1959 - chicago - getting hit over the head with a mallet in a grocery store --> riding the elevated train and encountering a bum --> getting stopped by a police officer while walking through a nice residential neighborhood

1963 - dallas, texas - a fruitless search for nachos --> peeing in a sink at the local high school --> getting lost in an office building --> scaring residents of an apartment complex --> making fun of jfk at a drive-in movie

1974 - any college campus - sitting in the university library --> walking around the grounds drunk --> drinking more in the woods --> waking up somewhere (revise this later)

1988 - new jersey --> a dentists office on the eve of the NKOTB concert --> at a large shopping mall --> in the arcade --> on the bus to the city --> in an office building --> getting mugged outside the office building

1995 - outside emporia, kansas - doing absolutely nothing --> smoking crack and trying to recite spice girls songs verbatim --> calling random numbers with a pay phone --> rappin with some white boys at mcdonald's

2001 - bethesda, maryland - eating crab cakes on a front porch --> stuck in traffic for an hour on the beltway --> cooking mac and cheese in a fire station's kitchen --> drinking cough syrup in a GAP while looking for socks