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Wednesday Night

Taking action. Day four of writing - instead of writing later that I wished I had written.

Feeling tired, sometimes a little nauseous - never sure if I’m coming down with the big thing going around now, or if it’s stress. What in the world could I be stressed about? Sigh.

I don’t know whether to pay attention to the news or whether it’s healthier not to check it at all - maybe for days at a time. Never sure if I’m going to miss an urgent update. Miss that it’s now illegal to go outside all together and all shipping and delivery has been cancelled...and the government needs me to do my taxes, right now. By mail - but don’t go outside.

I couldn’t possibly be in a more comfortable situation - at least right now - to ride out this storm, but I can barely make it an hour after I’m dressed and showered without feeling like I need to pace around, or lie down, or ask for the rest of the day off...picking up my phone, searching “boston news”, “reddit boston” over and over again. Scanning for new threats.

Someone is out in the hallway - sneezing up a storm. I don’t even know if I already caught this thing a few weeks ago and developed antibodies. Even if I don’t get sick, the economy is still tanking - even more so than 2008, and I remember thinking at least that was the bottom. Maybe another 10 years from now, half the earth will be wiped out by an asteroid. Why not? Anything feels possible.

Socially, I’ve realized I won’t be dating, making any new friends, or have any new acquaintances for up to 18 months, probably closer to two years, plus the past three years I spent in Nashville mostly on pause. I was getting ready for dinner tonight and actually considered looking for video dating opportunities...the ultimate in non-commitment...ugh. Just what I need a “real” person who’s essentially an imaginary friend.

Yes...found something to pull me out of despair. Music as always...stumbled across a James Blake Instagram Live stream from two days ago. Took about 30 seconds for me to relax, enjoy myself, and clear my head...only leaving subconscious space to interpret notes.

Also, read an article on virtual dating and it sounds like some people are already doing it across a few of the apps already. Who knows...maybe I’ll have a chat lined-up this weekend...either way, I managed to get a few more rolls of toilet paper and some beef jerky today. I’ll take that as a win.

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I don't want to hear all your word descriptions of words words words you made up all winter, man I want to be enlightened by actions.

Jack Kerouac

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Who's the cat who won't go out when there's danger all about...(Shaft!)

Issac Hayes

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It’s been too hard living, but I’m afraid to die

Cause I don’t know what’s up there beyond the sky

It’s been a long, a long time comin’, but I know a change gonna come

Oh, yes it will

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And now, the news...

Signed up for an “e” library card today. Looking forward to starting: “Dispatches from Pluto” tonight.

My memories of the past three years in Nashville feel like fragments of a dream. The heavy, infrared-lamp warmth of the summer sun. Pulled pork BBQ available across the street from my apartment. Watching late afternoon skies fade to dusk over $3 craft beers. Running my hand over my gray velvet couch while considering whether to order groceries or walk down the street. It feels self-contained, as if it occurred in another dimension. A hermetically-sealed time capsule.

Before I came back to Boston, I wondered if it would feel different here - having been away in such a different place. What strikes me now is the lack of difference - as if my time in Nashville was but the space crossed by a skipping stone - ripples generated on ascent and landing - and nothing more.

When I first got into blues music it led to an interest in New Orleans, the Mississippi Delta, even some curiosity of what Texas was like - especially after watching Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Austin City Limits performance on repeat. Something about that area got to me, it had this outlaw roughness mixed with swampy dark voodoo mysticism. The antithesis to my heavily-structured, high-strung day-to-day in Massachusetts.

That off-the-grid mystical thread is woven through all of my interests: Jim Jarmusch films (currently listening to Funnel of Love from Only Lovers Left Alive), blues guitar, downtown NYC “creative factory”-era artists. Bob Dylan - inventing his own identity, imagining himself into being, Jack White - same, Deyrolle and anything related to Paris, my long list of superstitions, believing in the electricity great musicians bring to inanimate objects, etc.

The one time I went down to Mississippi, I rode out to the edge of a Delta cotton field. The night of a new moon. Pitch black. A late February sky. Stepped out of the car, took a step, then had to reach out to find the car again. Looked up and could see every star available to me. I stood in silence, absorbed the beauty and the extreme flatness of the landscape.

I tried to tune into the other-worldly vibrations of that haunted ground - feel the cosmic echoes of that region’s dark history. Pain, suffering, greed, constant fear and loss, and despite literal hells on earth - the indomitable strength of the human spirit, rising up through the cracks of oppression and hate. People in unimaginably brutal circumstances pushing through, finding connection, building their lives any way they could - a moment at a time, dancing, creating music, surviving - not because they could, but because they had to.

Here’s to surviving - and even thriving this week.

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When you let the Spotify algorithm go on for too long...🦃

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Haven’t read this, but relating to the title these days. 💀

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These are a few of my favorite things...

Tonight’s listening: John Coltrane, My Favorite Things

Tonight’s beverage: Red Headed Stranger, Harvest IPA (Notch Brewing, Salem, MA)

In most likely a futile effort to keep my favorite place alive - not my favorite place in Boston - my favorite place, full stop...I bought a book and placed a take away order at the Trident. Seemed to arrive in ok condition. Felt like a celebrity having a book delivered to me free of charge - adding a note to my order: “Leave on the lobby table”. The paparazzi is ruthless... 🕶

It’ll be a race now to see what I get first: food poisoning or the virus...or nothing at all...since after 20+ years, I’ve probably developed antibodies to everything in their kitchen.

Was going to order, “When Paris Went Dark” tonight, but want to get through more of the week, maybe synthesize some vitamin D, make another $100, before digging into first-hand accounts of 50 months of Nazi occupation. 

Instead, like the New York Times Crossword puzzle, I started Monday on easy mode: “The Little-r Museums of Paris” by Emma Jacobs. A palm-sized book strewn with watercolor illustrations of Paris’ smaller, lesser-known museums.

During my most recent trip to Paris, I had a few hours between checking out of my St. Germain hotel and dragging my luggage back to Gare du Nord to ride the Eurostar back to London. I went in the late spring - wanting to see Europe at both the start of the growing season and the end.

It was a cool, sunny afternoon - the city still slightly less crowded than usual, heavily-armed gendarmes still patrolling the narrow sidewalks of the inner arrondisements. Everyone on a renewed high-alert after yet another attack - this time at a show in Manchester.

I dropped my suitcase and hobo-esque Boots-bag luggage off with the hotel staff then wandered west up Rue de Babylone. I passed by Coutume Café - where I’d had pancakes the day before (so fancy, so French, so iHop), listening to the waitstaff sing along to “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” in stereotypically adorable French accents. I pushed my international phone plan to its limits, checking and then re-checking my cardinal direction via GPS - finally spotting the high-walled entrance to the Musée Rodin.

After three and a half days in Paris, my French was approaching terminal velocity, aka “barely passable” for “basic conversation” (thanks 7+ years of French classes!), so with some confidence I approached the too-cute-for-his-own-good ticket window attendant (ah-ten-dahnt), and asked for an “adult” ticket. He managed to process my mangled syllables, laughed, and told me, (in French!) no worries, I’ll only charge you for one lower-priced child ticket. Vive la France!

Feeling buzzy from my double victory (saving one Euro and not instantly getting a response in English...”You...ehhh.wouldn’t understahhnd me...eeeff I spoooke Fraanch...”)...I set off for the outdoor sculpture and rose garden.

I ran down my phone battery, taking hundreds of photos of Rodin sculptures and roses at peak bloom. Collecting reds, oranges, creamy conch-shell pinks, a few dew-drop laden yellows...framed against the slate gray clouds that had pushed their way into the afternoon. I listened to the crunch of the garden path gravel, hoping its tan dust would stay on the edges of my white Converse as long as possible...keeping a little piece of Paris in the Spring with me...all the way back to the train station and then onwards...into London town.

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practice social distancing by going to one of those vampire castles where the vampire will encourage you to stay for dinner but you have to sit at opposite ends of an extremely long table

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There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.

Ernest Hemingway

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Sunday night, watching this Bill Evans compilation video, having a Wormtown Brewery Irish Red. 

About 19 minutes in, remembered this past October walking through the West Village - over by Little Prince...wanted to get a small coffee at the counter, role-play “Talking Watches”, try to absorb any left-over echoes of creative genius in the air, but kept getting uncharacteristically shy about going into any place at all. Kept feeling like I wouldn’t be able to get a seat..., but mostly was just in emotional overwhelm from so many sensory memories firing all at once.

Memories from 15+ years ago, summers 2-3 years ago, summer the year before, and a vague sense of being on the “backside” of The Marlton - knowing I was only a handful of blocks away...remembering warm summer nights in Washington Square park, putting down my palm-sized round white enameled Marlton keychain on the still mid-day-in-the-sun-warm black granite bench by the fountain. Watching the un-sunny side of the closest street fade into city light darkness. Windows beginning to glow like restaurant table votives. Probably thinking about which CVS to pick up a toothbrush at...wondering if I should eat dinner out, or in my tiny room, perching on the garden stool to eat a $20 delivery pizza.

Anyway, I think I passed by the West 4th St. Courts...as I was walking east (probably thinking of taking the F from Broadway/Lafayette to 15th St. Prospect Park to get back to the apartment and call it a day)...I had a moment where I realized that everything was perfect - the weather, where I was, the mid-fall-afternoon sunlight filtering through tree leaves onto red brick buildings...feeling surrounded by familiar, neighborhood-y looking places - that lovely downtown vibe of 4-5 floor buildings with shops on the first and ground levels. A chill pre-rush-hour vibe...the leaves just starting to turn.

I think I knew - almost on a subconscious level - that at that moment I was experiencing the peak of a decade or more - a nebulous, floating on a cloud, watercolor painting come-to-life feeling that people sometimes say, “I didn’t know it at the time, but those were the good times.” Except - yes...I knew it. And will hold onto those perfect 3-4 blocks as long as I can remember them - most likely whenever I listen to Bill Evans, in the dark, on a Sunday night.

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Forgot how good this was until this evening

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East Nashville | December 2019

Sunset at the concrete castle

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441 West 53rd St New York, NY 10019

October 2019

“Now I see, I’ll never stop this train...”

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Miss you too Crying Wolf 🐺 🍺 🍔

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And yet, 6 months later...I miss the 15-minutes-at-a-time context-switching, constant negotiation, churn and burn chaos