July
"I saw a body bag being wheeled off the dance floor."
July 2
No relief. Today of all days C confronts me about my usage. This after an ultramarathon at work during which I largely abstained, and all because I entrusted her to read something I wrote on the topic. So even though I am finally free of work, I feel as if I’m back at it — making a fresh pot of coffee to refocus, washing dishes as it brews, returning to my desk. As unfair as it feels, I feel more pathetic than anything — fussing over drink when I’ve already had two beers, the effects of which I am definitely feeling, which is probably why I’m so sensitive and irritable to begin with.
The bitter taste of Colombian coffee dries out the cool European lager; the zip of caffeine evaporates out the haze of alcohol.
July 3
This heat. The atmosphere has molted, melted, given up. We’re closer to the sun, can feel the awesome power of its endless fusion energy beating down on us. Or at least that’s how it felt biking around Prospect Park at 10am. I woke at 5:30 am and wrote down three vignettes from a dream.
In the first, I impulsively dye my hair blonde without C’s help and it looks terrible. She asks why I didn’t wait for her, and I shrug in response. When I look in the mirror, I see that my hair has grown. It’s longer now, curlier too, and very brassy.
In the second, I’m witness to a spectacular golden temple near the crest of a mountain. Just as I crouched to take a photo, a group of locals sporting white robes and gold-dome hats mirroring the magnificent cloud-strewn buildings appear in front of me. Then, in the middle distance, I see my mom fall — once, twice, three times. It’s like she’s wearing roller skates in a field of banana peels. She laughs it off, tries to, but I see she’s hurting and I hurt too.
In the third, I walk into a bookstore and think: should I work here?
After jotting these down, I considered biking for a moment — the streets would be all mine at this early hour — but was content to sleep in for the first time in a while. Woke with yet another dream lingering like dew on my lips. Drank deeply from a glass of water and the dream disappeared with it back inside me.
The heat proved too much, even for the wildlife. I saw a collapsed bird fallen on the pavement and, further down, the pelt of a brown squirrel. Biked until I hit the 20 mile mark. Even though my cutoff shirt and over the shoulder bib were damp with effort, my arms were completely dry. That’s how intense the sun was — it now had sweat-wicking powers. But after so many long days sequestered in the office and rooted to my phone, I didn’t care. I was just happy to be out and about.
A few years ago, at my first artist’s residency in Nebraska City, I ran in even worse heat. My routine at the residency was simple and everyday was the same. I got up at 6:30, made coffee and read for an hour to awaken my faculties. Poured another cup of coffee and sat down at my desk where I wrote until 11am or noon, at which point I laced up for a run before lunch. I was training for my first marathon, a trail race in Moab, Utah.
Trees are not native to Nebraska; they had to be imported. So shade, even today, is scarce in the Great Plains, where you can see for miles and miles. The vast country carries a calm plentitude and humbling solitude. As if to say: There is enough here for everyone. And: No need to hurry, you won’t get far. I ran through this great expanse, neatly organized into uniform rows of corn and long country roads where the occasional truck kicks up a tail of dust and dirt.
The sky was cloudless. The roads were shadeless. The only shadow was my own, and I cannot hide there. Vyvanse coursed through my blood, endowing me with undue confidence and great urgency. I decided to go 12 miles instead of 8 and set off at a breakneck piece. It was the middle of the day, when the heat was at its worst. I couldn’t remember if I drank much water that morning because I started to feel faint.
Long story short, I ended up having to ask a stranger to borrow their phone and got l the residency manager to come pick me up. I could’ve made it back into town…eventually…but the day would’ve been lost by that point, and I had more writing to do, so I swallowed my pride and called it in.
July 4
I have not yet brushed my teeth, but I have kissed my wife and biked 23 miles and showered without shampooing knowing I will shower again after the beach, which is where we’re headed next. But first I must brush my teeth.
July 6
The week-long heat wave has finally snapped. The sky opened and released torrents of rain that gullied through streets powdered with TNT. Before the rain, came a powerful gale of wind that threatened to topple the tree outside our window and successfully uprooted a giant tree in Prospect Park, bringing with it cement, roots, and untold fathoms of worms.
July 8
For the past several days, I’ve been battling a phantom illness. Today it’s a headache and nausea. My eyes may be sunburned from this morning’s ride — 10 laps in Prospect Park, the most I’ve ever done. And with great pace too, averaging over 19 m.p.h. It amounted to 33 miles and 1100 feet of elevation. I wanted to hit 40 but my legs were giving out and the work day had begun. Good I turned in when I did because I was strapped to my chair from 9:30am to 5pm.
Legs are shot. Walked 4 or 5 miles yesterday while catching up with Nata over the phone. They always ask who I’m hanging out with, a question no one else asks me but that I find amusing/charming. I struggled to answer this time, as I’ve been a bit of a homebody. I mentioned a therapist specializing in addiction. I mentioned a painter and her husband, for whom I wrote the press release announcing her first solo show in Paris. They mentioned an astrophysicist and a kinky edgelord from the Pacific Northwest.
July 10
Decided to pick up flowers for C, along with a special beverage: salted lemonade and a kombucha. When I walked in she excitedly hollered, “Don’t look in the kitchen!” I hollered back, “Don’t look at me!” Moments later, completely forgetting about this arrangement, I walked into the kitchen still holding flowers. It was the eve of our three-month anniversary.
July 12
Last night we saw a quartet play Beethoven in the Greenwood catacombs. We fought the whole bike ride there. I was angry that my morning and afternoon had been stolen away from me. A mild hangover kept me in bed until 9am. Then I helped her fold zines after reading aloud to her from the new story I was working on. Not long after I taxied over to the Weeksville Heritage Center where she was leading a sewing workshop for a community quilting project she pitched. When I arrived, it was just her and a high schooler interested in fashion. One was enough.
I also contributed a square — a noir urban scene with birds resting on telephone wires like a simple song and, in the backdrop, the silhouette of a city cut from houndstooth. Floating somewhere in the middle was a polka dot strawberry outlined in green plaid — a stand-in for Celina.
From there, I hurried home to ready the house for Tom and Cat to come watch the England game. Washing dishes, putting away clothes, making pico de gallo. C tapped in to do the rest — cleaning the litter, vacuuming, preparing a cheeseboard, tidying up the living room, grocery shopping.
My foul mood began around then, when I realized I would have no time to write this weekend since C wanted to go to New Jersey the next morning to see her sister and go to Maplewoodstock. I grew quiet and cold, like a distant planet. Sat at my desk packing in a word or two while C plated everything.
And though we quarreled on the way to the cemetery and even more on the grounds, we managed to find a slow, simple resolution while watching the sun set over the East River in order to take mushrooms. The cemetery at that hour was beautiful — the sunset veiled the grounds in a misty light, giving it a liminal fragility, as if swiping your hand through it would make the scene unfurl in wisps of smoke. The trees seemed to grow with the night, which never turned quite dark but remained a husky blue. The lush fields were left to grow wild and bouquets of thick grasses and wild flowers surrounded the most imperial tombs — pyramids and obelisks and temples — many bearing names I recognized from history and maps of the city.
We walked by the hillock where we got married. She grabbed my hand and I pulled her closer. Felt foolish for everything before.
July 13
Of course I fell asleep with the lamp on and my notebook on my chest — an adolescent habit. My back was damp and Chicken was tucked between my legs. What time was it? 4am. Far later than I thought. Got up to pee, turned on the AC and shut the windows, cocooning myself in white noise.
July 17
A rare white pigeon with radish-colored legs walks by foraging for second lunch. It’s my first lunch despite the late hour (3pm) and I’m eating one of these terrible hot bar medleys where you panic and get a gross combination of things (potato samosa, mac and cheese, sesame broccoli). I would’ve gone for my tenth straight Sweetgreen but there’s a parasite lurking in lettuce, raspberries, herbs. Naturally all those products are on sale.
The city looks otherworldly. The wildfire smoke from Canada has given it a yellow, chemical complexion. It was even worse yesterday. It smelled like campfire everywhere when we stepped out to go to the Gotham FC game. To think this is what my brother inhaled half the year, every year for five years. Except he was on the frontlines, not hundreds of miles away.
July 18
Lightning strikes all around. I’m staring down into the well of my phone, reading Geoff Mak’s adderall detox diary, so it only registers as a peripheral flash. With every flash I hold my breath in anticipation of the thunderclap that follows.
The road climbs to the Manhattan Bridge. The tires eat the steel-toothed stitches that weld together this bridge. The same rivets vibrate under my taint when I bike to work everyday on the narrow concrete path to my right. To my left, the Brooklyn Bridge is barely visible, obscured behind a thick veil of rain and soot from the Canadian wildfires. For days, the smoke has cast a haze over the city, bending the light toward the end of time, as if a mass extinction was slowly unfolding.
We turn up Bowery and drive through the lights district. Chandeliers and lamp shades glow softly in the gloom, their electrons bleeding out onto the damp sidewalk in watery blades of light. It’s charming, but only from the dry interior of the Tesla. Only from here can I admire these light-filled shadows reflecting through tungsten and glass, concrete and soot.
July 20
Perfect out, finally. So much fun this weekend. Charlie came to visit and we went to Nowadays with a deep crew — Nicky and Eva, Kevin and Olivia, Ellen and Wolfi and their friend Chrissi. AB came later.
At one point, I thought I saw a body bag being wheeled off the dance floor. Everyone else thought the same and laughed in collective relief when they unzipped the bag to reveal sound equipment. They were setting up for a live performance in the middle of the dance floor, something I had never seen before. My feet ached and my calves groaned, but I stayed put since I was right in front, with nothing between me and the DJs. They were a new screamo duo called cry and their set rocked Nowadays into a moshpit as one howled in alien tongues while the other mixed heavy metals.
In the end it was just me, C, Charlie, Ellen and Wolfi. They went to a diner. We stayed for one more cigarette and ordered a car home. It was 6am, our latest in a while.