i’m thankful for mint tea, the sewing circle, my flannel nightgown, chelsea shay brown, the poem “the auroras of autumn.” people i know in new york and people i know in baltimore and people i hardly know at all.
Laundry day, about the apartment in my stylish bathrobe. Thanks, Grandma.
dear darcy: my copy—given from my mother and brother (brother in name only) to my father in 1987. she just came out with a new cookbook, “Love Soup,” which i already bought…and already love…
almost forgot
Last night, I had a very bad dream. I woke up and this is how I set about remedying it.
DUMB SHIT.
I am having cravings like a pregnant woman. It started with tomato—I ate one and thought, damn, that’s good. And that was it, I’ve eaten them like apples in my car all summer, heard myself ordering them thrown into meals at every restaurant, gazpacho, salsa, marinara, roma. Then ginger—ginger tea, ginger salad dressing, juice, ginger muffins, freshly grated, powdered, peeled with a spoon.
In a way it makes sense. In a way this past half-year might be the first time in my life—in a lot of peoples’ lives—that we have been sensible of what we want, and actively sought it.
Chelsea and I went to the Double T, played MASH on our napkins—she ended up married to Angelina Jolie and I lived on Viaduct Avenue. We got distracted, almost tearful, rehashing where our minds wandered while we were bored watching Harry Potter. Surprisingly, we were both thinking of how big or small we were, how we’d hate to think there’s a kind of pain awaiting anyone upon their death, how we never think about those kinds of things. Staring at Hermione’s ass. Books we read when we were sixteen. A boy I knew from Catonsville came over from another booth and sat with us, and I was so between worlds that I drank a whole cup of coffee before I realized I’d put cream in it. Chelsea said, “I won’t tell anyone,” and we sat there, the vegan police closing in, and the waitress beyond understanding when we ordered english muffins and pulled out notebooks. It was simple: sometimes, you need the world to stay outside the diner.
For my mother I said, when I see that couple together, I know how beautiful the contrast is. But at once, I want to be her, and I want to be with her, only I want it to stay looking so pretty, so I guess I want to be him. I confused her, assured her she’d still get grandchildren, drank tea at her ceramic kitchen table. She was even, she responded, she said, Is it bad that I want things regular for you? I feel bad even thinking it, I just want everything to be easy for you and easy this ain’t.
I explained things to my brother in the shortest terms of all. I like that, he said. I like hearing you say you’re gay. He is still baking cakes, is a little tarnished, a little back on the earth—but who can live like they just got out of jail forever?? In a way it’s like the poem I copied into my journal:
When Daniel Boone goes by, at night,
The phantom deer arise
And all lost, wild America
Is burning in their eyes.
And what I added after, not sure if I was talking about my brother, Daniel Boone, or myself:
ANY MAN YOU LOVE RESEMBLES AN OUTLAW.
Or is it that complicated? Do we need to be explained so much? All the sensible peope I know, everyone who lives on a farm, would say no. In a way it’s just reaching across every other dinner for the tomato. And not really reaching, so much as finding it’s already in your palm.
