today for no reason in the car i was thinking about
addie's first-year roommate, hannah, who looked like everyone else at kenyon & who had this vast fondness for the cure. she had this little 3�"x5" frame on her shelf, where most people would have their families, with a photograph of the cure circa
head on the door. then later she replaced the photo with one of her dumb jerk boyfriend, smiling & squinted-eyed; we felt personally rejected. we were the kids in all black throwing entire chocolate cakes against the wall on valentine's day, trying hard to live like a really loud guitar.
that sounds silly but at the time it was so amazingly sincere. at the time we were the most alive things on that whole hill sticking up out of the flat.
recently i have had this great hunger to dissect those first two years at kenyon. mostly i dissect them out loud when jeff is in the room, because he seems genuinely curious (or just polite?), & because i feel he should know the history of the situation he stepped into. how none of us would be who we are now without all the earnestness & deceit & staginess & breaking-down & how loud the guitars were all the time. at the same time how good it is to step out of it & breathe more easily, not try so hard, listen to pop music once in a while.
:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:how i hate to jinx it but so far knock wood so good.
:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:talking over lunches about living in pittsburgh, dee-cee, manhattan. all i can think about is the secret litany i have of paintings & not-paintings i would haunt. andy w, barnett newman, vermeer, LK. kienholz. calder. johns + rauschenberg. hesse.
:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:it is record-breakingly hot today & they are adivising people to stay indoors. i would much rather set up the saws outside, put on the feeling better... mix, & get things done, but i suppose it is awfully tempting to think of sitting in the air-conditioned bedroom, reading middlesex which is full of typographical errors. to think of correcting them in ballpoint, plowing on through a couple hundred more pages before stopping for dinner. when i am finished with the book i will send it to jane (possibly with her copy of the virgin suicides which i borrowed probably in 1998 or so, even though i think she has replaced it by now). i like reading reviewers' copies, even with printing errors in them. when we move to some other city with better museums, i will miss being part of the underground used-book world. but maybe we won't have to build bookshelves so frighteningly often. we might have to put all the books into storage. i can't imagine moving them all. i can't imagine finding a place in new york that could house them all & not bleed us dry.
