I just read this quote about Prince's song "If I Was Your Girlfriend" (which I'm not even sure that I've heard):

This is an amazing song about intimacy, fantasy, the limits of gender roles, the limits of gender flexibility, a man's full catalog of shortcomings and possibilities. This is also a breakup song, about heartbreak and desperation. It's a song about a man putting the pieces of the past together and hoping they can add up to something more than they were.

                                                          - Tim Carmody

And now I am totally crying at work and I'm not completely sure why.

I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign.

Everyone in my house is in bed. I'm sitting in the dark listening to "Synchronicity" by the Police. Whenever I hear any of these songs, I am instantly transported to 1984 and that old red house at 407 S. Chestnut Street, listening to Jim blast this album with that velvet picture of the devil on the toilet hanging on the wall.

At any given moment, some part of me is always in that house.

But I tried so hard

(A song that made me happy today.)

You see, I've already waited too long.

Shut your mouth
How can you say I go about things the wrong way?
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does.

(Oh, Morrissey.)

The meditative cherry crisp: A photo essay

Baking helps me think more clearly. Something about the way the chemistry has to be precise--everything patiently measured, leveled off, rolled, kneaded--calms my brain and forces it to slow down.

Lately I have been seeing beautiful, sweet red cherries popping up at produce markets so I bought an assload* of them (*actual unit of measurement). I settled in to bake a cherry crisp with approximately half the assload I had purchased.

The cherries were ripe and lovely and stained my fingers with crimson juice. But I needed a glass of wine after pitting all the goddamned things.



I hadn't had the occasion to use my pastry blender for awhile. I happily pulled it out of the difficult silverware drawer and started to use it to cut the butter into the flour, oats, and brown sugar--all the while admiring that I *owned* a pastry blender--when the damn thing bit the dust and snapped in half.

Notice a significant portion of the wine had been drunk at this point.



Apparently, I have to add 'pastry blender' to the existing list of ladle and whisk as kitchen utensils to be purchased.

Due to the setback/technical failure, I found it easiest to get my hands in there and mix it together the old fashioned way. I didn't take a picture of that because I had poured another glass of wine and was temporarily over the picture-taking thing at that point.

But it did come out very nicely.



And it made me feel cozy.



In hindsight, I shouldn't have used the chipped bowl in the picture. But I love these delicately-shaded purple bowls and, well, fuck it.

Excerpt

"A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life"

by David Foster Wallace from Brief Interviews With Hideous Men

When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. She laughed extremely hard, hoping to be liked. Then each drove home alone, staring straight ahead, with the very same twist to their faces.

The man who'd introduced them didn't much like either of them, though he acted as if he did, anxious as he was to preserve good relations at all times. One never knew, after all, now did one now did one now did one.

If I ever leave this world alive

She said, "I'm okay. I'm alright.
Though you have gone from my life."
You said that it would
Now everything should
Be alright.

In this place that we call home...

...the match of the century: absence versus thin air.

The San Francisco native

I'm gonna tell my son to grow up pretty as the grass is green
And whip-smart as the English Channel's wide
And I'm gonna tell my son to keep his money in his mattress
And his watch on any hand between his thighs
And I'm gonna lock my son up in a tower
Till I write my whole life story on the back of his big brown eyes

Living vicariously

I used to write,
I used to write letters
I used to sign my name
I used to sleep at night
Before the flashing lights settled deep in my brain
But by the time we met
By the time we met the times had already changed...

Me and Bobby McGee

I was playing soft while Bobby sang the blues.
Windshield wipers slapping time, I was holding Bobby's hand in mine,
We sang every song that driver knew...

Middle is Gold

Yesterday, I picked Ivan up from work and we went to his sister's so I could meet her for the first time. I was certain she was going to hate me and that this would be our last evening together, so I tried to make the most of it. We were in a celebratory mood: we were off work, we were being naughty and going to McDonald's for dinner, and we had beer with us.

As we drove and chatted, I scrolled through my iPod. I was stuck in the "M's" and went back and forth between the Misfits, Marvin Gaye, and Marty Robbins. Suddenly, Mates of State jumped out at me. Oh, I hadn't heard "Middle is Gold" in years! I put it on.

This was the song that I was listening to in Oct.-Nov. 2006 when I was moving out of the apartment with Chris and I was wild with hysteria and terror at what I was about to do. I recited the lines over and over to myself:

You can get only what it is you want!
(It's always the same by and by)

The deja vu was almost more than I could stand. I wanted to cry because I made it. I officially made it out the other side of that tunnel.

Who, can you tell me, who do you love?
You ought to know things will never be the same, boy...

I wanted to try to articulate this to Ivan, but it seemed too complicated. Instead I said, "Oh, my god I love this song." He couldn't have known how much I meant that.

So much gets trapped inside my head that never gets out.

The sunset tree

St. Joseph's baby aspirin,
Bartles and James,
and you or your memory.

Naked

Oh the clever
things I should say to you
They got stuck somewhere
Stuck between me and you
Oh I'm nervous
I don't know what to do...

Edit the sad parts

Sometimes all I really wanna feel is love
Sometimes I'm angry that I feel so angry
Sometimes my feelings get in the way
Of what I really feel I needed to say.

Naomi

Alternative title: What I crave right now

Your prettiness is seeping through
Out from the dress I took from you, so pretty
My emptiness is swollen shut
Always a wretch i have become
So empty
Please, Please don't leave me.

I'm watching Naomi, full bloom
I hope that she will soon explode
Into one billion tastes and tunes
One billion angels come and hold her down
They could hold her down until she cries

I'm tasting Naomi's perfume
It tastes like shit and I must say
She comes and goes most afternoons
One billion lovers wave and love her now
They could love her now and so could I

There is no Naomi in view
She walks through Cambridge stocks and strolls
And if she only really knew
One billion angels could come and save her soul
They could save her soul until she shines.

Until she Shines
Until she shines
Until she shines
Until she shines

So pretty
So pretty
So pretty
So pretty

Please, Please don't leave me.

I know this much is true.

How could I?

Shyness is nice and
Shyness can stop you
From doing all the things in life
You'd like to

So, if there's something you'd like to try
If there's something you'd like to try
Ask me I wont say no, how could I?

My tongue you're tearing out

Your teeth believe
That teeth are for tearing
Tear into me
The scent of you sweating
Smells good to me
As long as we keep in our clothes

Where is my mind?

"Thank you for calling Nerves R Us. For generalized anxieties, press 1. For suspenseful waiting, press 2. For skeptical analyses, press 3. For futilities, press 11."