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YOU SAID YOU DIDN’T THINK YOU HAD AMBITION

When my brother was seven and I was five, a family friend asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up.

My brother said he wanted to be a farmer.

I said I wanted to be his sheep

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Closed Captions

I’ve got good news and I’ve got dad news

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MEN

It’s not that she missed it, was just surprised that it had come and gone, a passing trend that left with Jncos and baby-ts but hasn’t come back with Jncos and baby-ts. It used to be that if you were on a park bench crying with your bff or on the 2 train finishing your math homework or walking around Washington Square Park trying to buy weed or having a family picnic by the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park, there would be a penis in someone’s hand. A public masturbation for all occasions. You’d look up from telling your bff how horrible your parents were (and they were never that horrible really) or staring into space trying to figure out the difference between cosine, tangent and sine or walking over to the weirdo covered in a ton of pigeons (they must have weed! right?) or grabbing more chips from the crummy bottom of the chip bag, and there it would be. Just staring at you. Eye to eye with a dick framed by a zipper, a hand, and the New York City skyline.

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ORIGIN STORIES

Washing my hair, was telling me about how there was no dancing in her house. None. Not out of religious conviction. Just out of …not. When she was in 7th grade she brought home a New Kids on The Block tape and a borrowed boombox and she and her siblings, having heard about dancing but not knowing what it was, held hands, and standing in a circle, moving  as fast as they could, danced.

When the first human roamed the earth, was it actually a stumbling? An improvisation on two limbs? Or was it a graceful gallop, mimicking the gazelles journey to the stream? Or did she try to fly instead? Perched up on a tree branch, strong enough to hold her fleshy trunk and flapping arms. Or maybe she saw a snake. Maybe she crossed the desert in a slither, her tongue at the ready, catching primordial flies. Or maybe she found a spider web (not knowing it was a spider web) and thought it was a map so let it determine her movement away from the trees. Weaving her way past the first grasses and first silkworms, hard at work creating improvisational scores for ants.

I grab a copy of National Geographic as she goes on and on about the pros and cons of becoming blonde. It really might be more fun. This is going to be good for you. Brighter. Yeah, don’t shampoo too much, it will turn yellow and yellow isn’t good. We want bright and sunny but not yellow. There is an article about a spider web they’ve found held captive and pristine in amber. They say it is some million years old. She’s telling me that I’d look good in heels. A shoe to compliment my new blond self. My mom told me I was slow to walk, or that I didn’t want to learn, that I preferred to sit in the grasses watching faeries instead.

Maybe the first dance happened when the first homoerectus stood up on her hind legs; a movement so different than everyone around her, clumsy at first, a strange sight, so other that they felt something danced. Or maybe it was after the first fire, the amazement of new energy causing a fury in the bystanders. Or, later, trying to put the fire out. Jumping up and on to and then quickly up and out of. Or maybe it was after a tragedy, a mother losing her child to some horrendous fate. A wordless wailing and a pounding at the chest. Or, was it a prayer? A family gathered together trying to summon the rain, the last time it rained was when they were jumping up to reach the pomegranates. So, they all jump at once. Wait. Thus begins the cause and effect and the inherent meaning in our steps. Has dance always been related to repetition? Do that movement again, bring the rain. Like the Bird Of Paradise and its suave dance performed for potential dates. It worked last time, do it again, a simple and precise logic. The mating dance is still in our DNA. We conquer lovers with hips’ sway. We all know that dance must have started with a woman. She knows internal movement best. Her body a stage for production. Or maybe this whole dance thing started when she was nearing death, an erect body turned slack, fallen, flat. Or maybe the teenager experiencing their first orgasm. That could jolt anyone into dancing. Such feeling, secret and impactful, a ripple and a surge. Maybe the first dance was a trio, the mournful mother, the dying woman, the horny teen.

We stare at the mirror (at the mirror so we don’t have to stare into it) as she dries my hair. It is way too yellow, it just is yellow, and we both know that but we don’t talk about it. I don’t want to offend her artistry and she doesn’t want to offend my ego. We are hindered by fear or empathy. Maybe both.

A study finds that today’s best dancers share two specific genes with those that are predisposed for being good social communicators. As soon as humans could walk and talk, they danced and sang. So those early humans who were lucky enough to be well equipped with serotonin and vasopressin, had an evolutionary advantage.

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OYSTERS, OYSTERS 2

In the Chekov story Oysters, a beggar’s child, delirious from hunger (and absolutely everything else that impacts a life lived on the streets), stands outside a restaurant with eyes zoomed in on a placard that says “Oysters”. He asks his father, who is busy building up the courage to ask passer-bys for money, what the word means. His father tells him that an oyster is an animal that lives in the sea. Fair enough. How would you describe an oyster to a child? A delicate creature that tastes like low tide and feels like sludge? A thing to be slurped? A saltwater bivalve?  A mush that lays perfectly on the top of your tongue until your throat can’t take it anymore and comes up to grab it, holding on to every last salty morsel? Gentaila in appearance and cum in movement and taste? An oval shaped grey shell that houses an animal with strong adductor muscles in order to force the shell shut when threatened? A sea creature that turns sand into pearls? An animal that lives in-between two shells that are grey and rough on one side and opalescent and silken smooth on the other? Do you describe the oyster apart from the shell? Where does the shell end and the oyster begin? Do you create an image of the oyster still living on the side of a rock at the cloudy seashore? Or do you describe the oyster, still living, as it slides between your lips? The beggar’s child spends the rest of the story trying to comprehend what this animal that lives in the sea might look like. He settles on a frog with large jaws that lives between two shells.

20 years after this story was published, Chekhov’s body was returned to Moscow by train from Badenweiler, Germany, in a freight car labeled “For Oysters Only.” Life is like that.

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A MURDER OF CROWS

She chopped down the tree behind the garage in order to have more firewood. It was colder than she expected and she was running low on the logs she had skimmed off the neighbors pile. She felt good chopping down the tree. She felt bad chopping down the tree, killing a life. She hadn’t killed anything big before. After chopping it down she then had to go even further. Sever it from itself into wood stove approbate portions. Making chicken nuggets from a birch tree. She stacked the membranes on top of one another by the wood stove in that basket that fits them perfectly, on top of old New York Times she didn’t read and coupons she didn’t use and sticks that also used to have a life. She will read something in the chair that is close to the fire but not too close. She makes a cup of tea and places it on the napkin on the side table. The cloth napkin has a brown ring on it. She sips her tea. It is too hot so she sets it down. She is thinking about killing the tree and chicken nuggets and the bible. There are so many copies of the bible and there are so many pages to the bible. Thats a lot of trees. What if the bible is the main reason for deforestation? She puts her pinky finger in the tea, it doesn’t burn her but it is still hot, just not too hot. She takes a sip. The bible is the best selling book of all time so it definitely has a large part to play in deforestation. She feels guilty holding her book. Anne Carson, another tree killer. The house she lives in, another tree killer. The chair she sits on, the shelf for the rosemary plant, the coffee table her grandfather made, the cutting board, the broken step to the front door, the front door, the door frame. A house of murder. She falls asleep thinking about the ocean.

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OYSTERS, OYSTERS 1

In the Chekov story Oysters, a kid is standing outside a restaurant which has a sign for oysters in the window. He spends the next 5 pages trying to comprehend the word and what the animal it describes might look like. Thats the way I feel watching you dance.

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MIKE

Every Monday Mike puts a bouquet of flowers in his bike basket and bikes down 6th street. His friend — a 70 year old painter with dark curtains and dusty dishes — lives alone, eats sardine sandwiches and paints flowers. Every Monday, Mike brings him a new bouquet of flowers. Usually Mike’s daughter makes the bouquet. But she was busy with something so Mike made the arrangement. He enjoyed it.

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TEARS

That feeling of a heaving chest, face scrunched up so as to not let out the building cry, wet eyes, bit inner cheek. That is my face on a plane watching absolutely anything. That is me walking through the crowds of the NYC marathon or witnessing sustained and beautiful build up a slow clap in a stadium or hearing a group of people all singing at once. The snowboarder landing the jump at the Olympics and dedicating the good run to her mom. The snowboarder not landing the jump and saying how happy he is to be at the Olympics. Stories of people trying at something and excelling, Sister Act I, Sister Act 2. True love coming true, wedding vows, anyone saying anything they really believe in. Shavasana, Listening to that song with the lyrics “I finally found what I’m looking for” at age 15, smoking cigarettes out of a bedroom window, not knowing what I was looking for let alone where to find it. Graduation - mine or anyone else’s. Someone, anyone, finding what they were looking for. My brother crying, your brother crying about my brother crying. Anything that overcomes. The Neapolitan Series. Puppy flop, the crocus bursting through the slowly thawing ground, immigration stories, mental and physical feats. Moana, Up, the scene in Family Matters where Carl lets Eddie drive. Clapping at the end of a performance, all of my friends, some of their art. Dancers. Well executed memorials, teens trying to change the world we have so horribly fucked up. Sitting on the porch watching leaves falling onto wet earth while reading the headline Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040. Religious singing. The blossoming magnolia tree outside your window. The small child laughing in an unbearably authentic way. To Kill A Mockingbird in 7th grade. Every episode of Friday Night Lights. Devotion, Oscar’s speeches - even the bad ones. The championship winning athlete saying he is going to buy his mom a house. Someone winning, someone loosing. Clapping when the plane makes a successful landing while I am still crying even though I slept through most of the movie, my drool landing on my seat mate’s neck pillow. That is me, overwhelmed with emotion (not about the big horrible things of the world, thats a totally different kind of tear). Or, perhaps, I am just whelmed, the boat on top of the crest of a wave.

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WHAT’S YOURS

It is hard to tell. Looking in the mirror is a gamble. Russian roulette of potential self hatred or admiration. Catching a glimpse of her face in store windows can send Joan down a spiral of a classic case of Who Am I. It is ceaseless, basic, and unnecessary. Walking by her reflection in the CVS window thinking she will see Tilda Swinton holding a Starbucks coffee and a poodle on a long pink studded leash. But, instead, an unknown body hidden underneath jeans and a t-shirt her co-worker brought back from a Beyonce concert. Put yourself in your dreams. That is what the Soulcycle instructor said to her. Right before she called in sick to work and went to the thrift store looking for something to buy or do. There Joan was. Surrounded by mirrors and all of that typical self-loathing. Like an advertisement for the thing that all humans have and try to hide. See store for details, terms and conditions may apply. In a thrift store that smelled like all other thrift stores. Projecting her self-loathing forwards and backwards through the wall of mirrors. Standing between pink champagne glasses, ski boots, Lionel Richie CDs. Standing still, holding her basic thoughts still. There is something comforting about typical bad feelings. You can compare yourself to the characters in movies, books, sitcoms - they all show it too, every once in a while at least. You don’t have to go far to gain insight on your inner workings. Like how we all know what love is because Shakespeare told us. Like how we don’t understand pain because it isn’t as pretty to write about. She wanted a more confusing and unique phobia. Like, what if, instead, she was scared of the color purple. Porphyrophobia. She could start a support group and be the only member. Unique but still named. You know it’s a privilege to get to choose what scares you, right? Of course, of course. I know.

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ENTROPY

How do we start?

Maybe there is never a start and never a stop. Just a keeping.

Like when your mom asked “what will you keep” and you were 23 and about to enter an abusive relationship and couldn’t even keep sight of yourself.

We could start by addressing the fact that I am unbelievably hungry. I want a hamburger.

Speaking of meat. When are you meeting whats her name?

We are going to eat a hamburger at that place that the NYT voted best hamburger. I’m going to wear an outfit that screams “I’m pretending this outfit didn’t take an hour to figure out.”

You love that. You love a gaze.

I mean, who doesn’t? What else are eyes and bodies and clothing for? One of the best parts about being a grown up is that you get dress yourself in the clothes you’ve chosen, every day!

But don’t wear your yellow outfit. It is way too coy. And the navy pants are just way too sexy. But those jeans are way too easy. You should show up naked in clogs and little socks. Maybe a baseball hat so it isn’t too femme.

I could shake her hand with my cunt. Straight to the pointer finger.

You could do a cute little spin like the ballerina in the music box.

Or the moo shu pork on the lazy susan. I have a feeling of falling in love.

That’s just because you live your life inside of a fantasy. That is very fertile ground for love. But it is also all make believe and fairy dust and godmothers wands. It is different when you are eating a hamburger at a restaurant and they are staring at the long black hair coming out of your nipple and your ass cheeks are sticking to the vinyl seat. Love is hard to find in person. In people. You just have a feeling of falling. That is all.

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IT’S NOTHING

In total darkness and in a very large room, very quietly. Is that too much to ask? Trade in the minutia of lost keys, gluten free meal planning, medical drawings, and tinder dates. Trade it all in for the dark and expansive quiet. Meditation doesn’t work because the rooms are always too small or too noisy or too smelly and the effort it takes to surpass all of that is just too much effort. She saw an advertisement for a floatation chamber. One hour, 250 dollars. Totality is expensive and doing medical drawings for pamphlets about gonorrhea and diabetes is hardly enough money for dinner and a movie. Look for other options, thats what they tell her. Or, thats what she imagines they would tell her if she were able to approach the Council on Decisive Needs. Another advertisement she saw. Make a list of what you need and find a situation that satisfies each item. Total darkness. A very large room. Quietly. Maybe she could break into the school and take over the auditorium or, better yet, the gymnasium. Bigger, darker, less fabric. She could use the rusty hedge clippers (finally! a use for the rusty hedge clippers!) to cut the lock and chain. Seems easy enough. Kind of crazy how easy it seems. Maybe she could even do it nightly. She would need to buy a lot of replacement chain. Run down the street to the hardware store and then run down a little further to the school and get to it. Just sit there. In total darkness, in a very large room, so very quietly. She could probably do it all if she could do all that.

“I need you to sit still and empty your mind out. Let everything go. Let absolutely everything go and think about nothing.” The word nothing projects itself on the back of her eyelids. Big, bright, neon, flashing. NOTHING. NOTHING. NOTHING. How can you think of nothing without thinking of nothing. There is too much there there. She opens her eyes, having been sitting for about four minutes, grabs her jacket, stands up, glares at Dr. Clarke, leaves.

After a while she can start to make out the shapes in the gymnasium. Her eyes having gotten better and better at adjusting to the darkness. Sometimes, she can make the shapes dance. The basketball hoop especially. It took the longest for the net to emerge from the void around it, but now it is the first thing she sees. The drape. The air doesn’t move in the gym. It smells like past effort, flirting, teen angst, B.O. The smells are distant enough to not distract. So she sits there. And keeps sitting there.

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MARY

25 more miles to go. Driving the van everyday. Driving 30 miles to deliver Stacy to her dance class. It is one of the problems of living in the country. Everything is 30 miles away. No matter what. Days are broken up by 30 mile increments. There are other problems too, like, the people. All the people and how few of them there are. The views are not a problem. And the air quality is top rate, prize worthy. Last year the clean air council awarded us some prize for our air. It’s so clean that it can cary scent better than any other air. Every mile is a dish in an olfactory buffet. Around here, everyone keeps their windows open. Even in the winter time and even the doctors’ office. Driving around with the windows down, hair like dogs ears flapping in the wind. Passing the corner of Main Street, fire place ash and roasted vegetables gives way to baking bread and gasoline, and then, a little further on, the car fills with the aroma of chicken feed and tractor tracks. That specific concoction can really stick to the insides of your nostrils, hanging on to your nose hairs like monkeys on a vine. Pass by Town Hall and you will catch the scent of maple smoke billowing out and over the frost covered lawn. If you are lucky, and Mary is typically lucky, you can find subtle scents in every twist of the road. If, however, you can’t take in the view or the scents because your head is clouded with last nights argument about how you always put the dishes away “incorrectly,” or if your mind is preoccupied with the a residue of lewd comments from the banker who always makes lewd comments, or if your sinus infection still hasn’t gone away and you’ve got Psycho Killer stuck in your head, well then you are just in a beaten up mini van traveling 30 miles per hour with a hyper child and every other responsibility you’ve brought upon yourself dangling all over the car like cans after a wedding. Chryssa Tippit is on the radio going on about the importance of silence and meditation while engaged in monotonous tasks. But the last time Mary tried to cozy up to the silence and the monotony she drove off the road into a big ditch in front of Town Hall that they still hadn’t fixed because of something having to do with infrastructure funding getting cut.

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EVEN COWBOYS

What did you make today?

Breakfast. But I don’t think that is the making you meant.

You are always concerned with meaning.

No. I am just mean.

It’s meaningful. Where is the end of it? You know? Where is the end of your anger?

There is no end. I told you that already, remember? After I spilled my coffee all over the diner floor and yelled at the air, or at least at no man in particular.

That was hilarious.

It is endlessly replenished and resuscitated. I perform CPR on my anger daily. It is all I can do. I have to stay angry to exist.

When we aren’t angry, we are compliant. That could be a poster to carry during one or a hundred marches.

If you agree with everything, you are doing something wrong. I am angry and I am incomprehensible. We must be incomprehensible.

A lego set of broken ideas. I made bone broth and put it in a jar and brought it around with me all day but never took a goddamn sip of it. I guess I could justify it and say that I wanted to keep it as a made thing and not a consumed thing.  It’s too salty anyway. Anyway, I made salt from Loagy Bay once. The water leaves and all that is left is a sheet of salt. A strong metaphor for something. Leaving all that salt behind.

We have to stay incomprehensible. I heard an artist described as incomprehensible. He was so incomprehensible he almost got kicked out of college. But of course he didn’t. There is a lot of meaning and sense in being a man. It is a sense making signifier. Stiff, erect, with a voice. But now he trains horses in New Mexico and we read about him in school and visit his work at a retrospective at MoMA. He was able to make himself out of the muck.

Pulled up by his he-ness boot straps.

He him-ed himself into existence. Gidyup! The world is your stage lil fellow. Take it.

Another artist said that he contradicted himself in order to avoid conforming to his own tastes.

Do you ever feel like you quote men too much?

It is just easier to find what they’ve said. And they just say so much easier.

It looks like it is going to rain. We could go under that scaffolding and drink the soup.

Thank gentrification for the scaffolding.

The soup isn’t warm but we can pretend it is and sip on it in that way people sip when they sit crouched on a fluffy couch with an oversized sweater, corner windows and dainty finger tips that just sort of dangle their like accessories rather than tools.