Artifice and Surface

Squares of cement make up the sidewalk. On my block, some of these squares are newly poured, hardened, and already dirty. And fake. They are fake squares, drawn on. Men are going around New York pouring new cement sidewalks and then drawing lines on them to imitate blocks poured into molds. This is their job. They make fake squares. Fake.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love*

I told someone last night that I am going through something.
No, I am not.
“Something” implies an event or circumstance; I am moving from one hour of life to the next, trying to breathe. Reading things: trying to keep stimulus stimulating and not damaging, life fascinating, not hurtful, the world around me peaceful, not silent. Contributing things: love, ideas, odd series of words that are bonkers, not bland. Things: eating them, pushing them up against my teeth, touching them. Trying to consume in topsy-turvy ways. Meaning: not items, connections. Many colons. Strange punctuations; semi-colons.


These are shadows on a wall from last night.
I think they are stunning.


The Welder called me “like a unicorn” today. He also schooled me on what I was supposed to be blogging about now, but I forget. He does that a lot lately. Product placement, it seems. Items about which he would like me to expiate, like chocolate donut spacer rings.

*Raymond Carver:
"In the kitchen, he poured another drink and looked at the bedroom suite in his front yard. The mattress was stripped and the candy-striped sheets lay beside two pillows on the chiffonier. Except for that, things looked much the way they had in the bedroom—nightstand and reading lamp on his side of the bed, nightstand and reading lamp on her side.

His side, her side.

He considered this as he sipped his whiskey."

Happy New Year. Here Are Some Blow-Up Dolls.

These are in Prospect Heights. It was a sunny, brisk morning and I was walking home after awakening with an Abyssinian cat on my chest. There they were in the brokedown hood, a photo of which is at bottom.