i suppose i ought to try to sum up 2013 for you, but i don't think i will. or...yes, i will, but just to say that it was filled with ups and downs (we are currently on an upswing from the downs), and that i am optimistic (but not unrealistic) for 2014. i am richer, i am typing this on a new computer, i am wishing i was on a mountain or near the sea, and i should be napping, because midnight is far away.

six years ago my grandmother took her last breath. two and a half hours ago a horse touched my hair with its face.

this is my thousandth post. i feel pretty good about it.

there is a mosquito in my room. (i just want everyone to be quiet.)

the birds in my neighborhood are all running away, i see posters for them all the time.

three years ago today i was sitting in the bathtub for a very long time.

also, i have been thinking a lot about sad things today (like assembly lines and tabarly) even though the sky was so blue.

i am having very bad luck this week and i think it is because i bought a cursed red blazer from a thrift store a few days ago. (i believe it belonged to a very bad person, like maybe a conquistador or rick from degrassi.) i have no proof that this is the cause of my misfortune, but i will be getting rid of it tomorrow, and also throwing a lot of coins into fountains and homeless people's coffee cups for good measure. (if that doesn't work, i will be creating a wall collage of people who were / are unluckier than i, like this one girl who got disqualified from australia's next top model for lightly choking another contestant.)

a song for looking at a deer in the dark

 

title tyranny

coney island legs: post-hot dog, pre-sunburn

hi this is what i did this weekend.

i had to be at an event at the american museum of natural history until one in the morning. when i got home i was tired but very hungry, so i went to the deli and asked for a cheeseburger. the man behind the grill said they had none, so he gave me a bacon egg and cheese on a roll for only a dollar. (it made my heart swell, and i wondered what it would be like if we were married.) then i walked home and it started to rain. clair de lune was playing in my headphones. (it was nice.)

there is a new man who works in the deli. he's big and has lots of tattoos and blasts death metal. (i love him, and i always tell him good luck.)

some people think that working as a cashier at a rite aid is terrible, but i think it is the best job that exists. because then you can make minimum wage and keep all your brain power for yourself.

when people are that subtle kind of greedy (the behind-the-eyes, toothy-smiled kind) you remember the animal part never really goes away, it just gets hidden behind the clothes and the car keys and the lattes. and when you see it, it’s that turned-stomach feeling, the same one you get when you hear the screeching violins in a horror movie.

hi one time this song came on the end credits of a movie that was in italian on tv in buenos aires in 2008, and i had an emotional breakdown on the wooden floor of our apartment.

yo no quise ni quiero nada para mi.

ps it is my dead grandma's birthday tomorrow. so i am going to go the house where she grew up in jackson heights and i am going to leave her a manhattan on the sidewalk.

i chopped off like two inches of my hair yesterday in a chinatown basement, and now i feel free from the tyranny of coat collars. i also had an entire conversation with the chinese, non-english-speaking woman who cut my hair, and now i feel free from the tyranny of words.