all these things

[updated frequently]

i make wishes via twitter and they come true more often that you’d expect. just this afternoon i wished for an avocado and now i have three. last night i wished you would send me a photo of what the world looks like where you are and a bunch of you did just that.

+

have you ever seen the book or blog A Year of Mornings – 3191 Miles Apart? this was a little like that. i picked up a copy of Mornings at the library a couple of months ago but never finished looking through it. the idea is so cute: exchange photos of your life prior to 8 a.m., with someone you’ve never met, who lives over three thousand miles away.

it’s precious. i love it.

i asked you to take a picture of what’s outside your window because i like the idea that it’s something you probably take for granted. maybe you don’t, though. i’ve been wrong before.

[click images to enlarge]

@refusodocet ~ italy

@wcollins2332 ~ ottawa

@lasthonestlook ~ california

@elliB ~ chicago

@ouroboing ~ brooklyn

@sarahfelicity ~ california

@captcaywick ~ indiana

@sloganx ~ scottsdale, az

jen ~ canada

@bizzle31 ~ california

@tipsymcstagger ~ black hills

@daphne_duck ~ belgium

@bcdubs ~ brooklyn

@autowin ~ harlem

@denEmat ~ suburban san francisco

@a_ex ~ long island

@posdata ~ austin

@disappear_here ~ sydney

@hilaribombs ~ illinois

@vicmeister ~ ireland

@personapfff ~ france

hazel ~ london

@vicmeister ~ ireland

and here’s my contribution, which i totally cheated on because it was taken this afternoon. my view from the sofa.

suburban phoenix

thanks for playing. here are some photos from the 3191 Miles Apart project.

26.10 : 28.6

i don’t remember how this originally started.

i wanted to talk about how i’m always thinking of things. how it’s never ever quiet in my head unless i’m listening to music. then the words just turn into feelings, so instead of thinking them i’m feeling them and i don’t know which is more exhausting.

the first thing i did this morning was listen to a song about loving someone and that someone leaving. it’s about more than that. it’s about something entirely different, to me.

i’m mostly just waiting for the other side of december. if i can just get to the other side, i think everything will seem different. and maybe i won’t look back, so it won’t matter.

i’m going to write down all of the words that meant something to me and keep them even though you say not to.

i don’t even remember this year except that it happened. i just woke up and it was october and who knows what time it was because everything looked the same.

i’m going to eat an avocado today and think about you. i think of you every time. i didn’t even ask for this one – it was a surprise. and this time i’ll think of you and someone else. that’s also a surprise, though i guess not really.

not at all, actually.

here

what if i took all the times
i stopped myself
from saying what i wanted,
and put them into a pile.
i could sit on them.
they could sit on me.
we could take turns
being me.

what if i took all the times
i didn’t cry
or scream
or sigh,
and turned them into paint.
i could paint the walls.
i could change everything.

what if i never told the truth
again.
wouldn’t that be nostalgic.

saturday afternoon. refrigerator box.

i am 7 years old. i am sitting in my castle. i’m probably a princess or a queen. or maybe i’m being held captive. this castle needs windows, but i’m not going to push my luck.

no, i am in my fort. the enemy is approaching and i am devising a plan. no, i don’t like enemies.

i am in a hollow log in the forest. it’s raining. there is a giant goblin or something terrible out there and i’m hiding. the small people — are they gnomes? — will help me escape. i will have to pick berries to eat for dinner and it will be dark soon. maybe i can learn how to make tiny furniture because i would like to have a table and also a small cup.

his head appears in the opening of the box and he says, “do you want me to cut you some windows?” i say, “no, i’m in a log.” he says, “ok,” and moves to stand up but i stop him. i say, “it’s going to be a spaceship later, when it’s dark.” he says, “cool, man!” because he’s funny. i say, “can you be the pilot?” and he says, “yeah, babe. just let me know when you need me.”

analogous

slade: when will i be old enough to go on facebook?

me: not anytime soon. good lord…

slade: what is it, anyway? you wouldn’t believe how many people in my school go on facebook! they’re always talking about it.

me: yeah well, in a few years, you won’t believe how many people in your school have gonorrhea.

slade: …

me: you’re not getting on facebook.

we were smaller

i am seated near the edge of a blue armchair at my father’s mother’s house. my two sons are on the floor near a holiday gift bag that is half-full of small cars and trucks.

she is slowly walking through the house looking for something. she says, “i told lori, the next time she’s out, to pick me up a new brain because the one i’ve got isn’t workin’ right anymore.”

i say, “i know, i think we could all use one of those,” and smile. and someone agrees with me by saying, “mmm hmm.”

she says, “larry and terry bought a great big ol’ bag of cars at a yard sale a few months ago. jordan, where did we put that bag?” and jordan says, “i don’t know,” and glances around the floor near the sofa that he’s sitting on.

she says, “look in the table there,” and he opens the door to the cabinet under the table in front of him. he says, “i don’t see it. it’s not in here.” i say, “it’s ok. they’re fine with these cars. right, guys?” slade says, “yep,” and smiles.

she says, “no, now, i know they’re here. it was a great big bag. they picked ‘em up at a yard sale the last time terry was in town,” and she walked over to the sofa and sat down. she opened the door under the table and picked up something and put it back.

she closed the door and i said, “is that the same table we used to play around?” she said, “yeah. it’s the same one. there was another table with a glass top but this is the one i’ve always had.”

i said, “it seemed so much bigger then. i thought we used to fit inside it.” slade said, “well you were smaller.” and i said, “yeah. we were.”

before

i am interested in other people’s winters. i remember my own from a long long time ago and they all look like moving polaroid pictures. i know what they smell like and who was there, but the people are all in the background and quite tall, so i can’t see their faces. i remember coats.

i am interested in winter in a place where boys wear blue puffy coats their grandmother bought for them at a thrift store or maybe it’s just 1984. where they ride bikes at dusk down neighborhood streets and through side yards and backyards because no one minds.

i am interested in the woods where a boy meets his friends and what they talk about and where they sit or do they stand.

i am interested in his mother who is cooking dinner at home and his father sitting in the recliner watching the news. i am interested in what his grandmother is thinking about in her house across town.

i am interested in his sister upstairs on her rotary phone talking to her best friend about the boy in her math class.

i want the boy to make it home safe and i want his mother to watch her favorite television show. whose turn is it to do the dishes?

this isn’t an email

“If we could fly, I could take you places. The treehouse 20 feet up with the spiral staircase and the tree through the middle that moved in the wind. I could show you where it was where I laid down in the road, lost and frozen in the snow and rain, and I could show you where the best blackberry bushes are and the gravestone that my sister likes to lay on. I saw this dance last night, this crazy beautiful and angry dance, with crashing and falling and a violin player in a shopping cart and businessmen with ladders for cars, and there was pulling and pushing and slamming into each other just like real life and music so loud it was uncomfortable, just like it is. And I want everyone to be able to move like that, to know the extent to which we can push our bodies, and to be able to express ourselves like that, just at any time, just on the street, Can you imagine what it would be like? If our responses to every little thing were opened up completely? and screaming and whistling and dancing and hollering, small movements and big ones, if we closed our eyes when we didn’t want to look at someone any more. If this is what we did instead of words and expressions and little gestures? Yesterday I saw a girl who looked like I did once. She had a motorcycle helmet and quick strong gestures, sharp tough movements, threw her cigarette down on the table, drank her coffee black, looked out the window when her boyfriend wasn’t across from her, slapped her elbowpit when he fed her a bit of cake – good as junk – and I slipped her a doris when I left. She is the only one I never made eye contact with, never said anything and never looked back. and I know I’ll never see her again, and she’ll probably hate doris.”

‘and I wanted’
by Cindy Crabb
from Doris: An Anthology of Zines
and Other Stuff, 1991 – 2001

12.4 / 8.30

“you just have no idea.
i can’t go back there.
i can’t go back to where she’s not.
and those people left behind
are all dying in their own specific
and terrible
ways.
it’s like living through it
all over again.

but without her.”

sometimes i feel like nothing makes sense until i read it three days later with the lights off.

[8-5] iii

and then i couldn’t catch my breath because of the fear.
i have to tell him today but he’s busy being normal.
i can’t look.

remember when we were in Florida and you told me
to get the fuck out of your house?
you threw down the remote
and pointed to the front door.
i cried and called the bookstore,
told them i couldn’t
take the job after all.

remember that night in California?
when you were sitting in the passenger seat and i
was standing beside its open door?
you slapped me
and threw me to the ground.
told me to never fucking talk to you
again.

this was before 3 more years had passed
and you wrote that letter.
before there was one more person
who would die on the inside.

i don’t have a list this time
because that would make this impersonal.
i’m taking deep breaths so i don’t cry.

and where are you?

[03] ii

there’s a caravan of us. i’ve never been to the lake. i wish you weren’t with us. i thought i wanted to be with B instead of you, but then last night happened. i realize i don’t know who i am anymore.

we stop at a gas station and you disgust me. every boy there is acting like a brain dead monkey. M looks at me and knows i’m crumbling on the inside. we buy more twizzlers and smoke behind the building.

you hate me now. we’re doing this for them. we’ll pretend everything’s fine, this is just a bump in the road. i tell you T’s driving is making me nervous. you ask if i want to ride with you the rest of the way. you smell like an ashtray. i’d rather walk.

we’re back on the road. M and T fight because she knows about my irrational fear of mountainous highways, and she’s trying to help. he hates me. it’s mutual. i smoke a cigarette in The Tahoe.

we’re at the campsite. no one is happy. M holds my wrist between her middle and index fingers and pulls it down to her hip. “do you want to leave?” yes. “are you hungry? we could eat.” i’d love to eat. “we’ll take The Tahoe.”

we’re going to drink beer while the sun’s still out. it’s her idea of rebelling. i’ll do whatever she says. “you’ve never had gazpacho? you’ll love it.” i’m embarrassed. we order the beers triumphantly. she complains about T, i complain about you. we’re feeding on cucumbers and tomatoes and anger. there are giant salmon-colored flowers painted on the walls. we had to walk up stairs to get here, too, but the restaurant doesn’t smell like her parents’ house. i still don’t want to leave.

we’re back in The Tahoe. if i see you again i might die. she knows about B. we think this is about him. it’s not.