At the Poseidon Diner, there is not a unicorn on the front of the menu.
For the last mile of the bike trail, I race a stranger at twelve-thirty in the morning. In the end I am ahead, across the river from the lights of the highway, and the underpass below the bakery where it always smells like donuts. We are alone here except for the lovers in the shadows and the homeless man sorting garbage next to the train tracks. The cars on the highway go by leaving their streaks in the river and the racer moves on as I climb the steps and pedal the rest of my way home.
The air is cool and there are loud conversations through yellow windows, flocks of high-heels and polo shirts, and the slow steady buzz of youth filling the space between the river and my kitchen. It is Wednesday , but school has begun again, and I think about television at five years old. I think about the fifteen year olds on Nickelodeon game shows. Twenty year olds on dating shows. Fifth graders on the bus to school. I think about how large they seemed, how complete, and how old. I think about elementary school teachers fresh from college, and their colleagues with thirty years experience. I think about all these things as I ride home through people who are the oldest they have ever been, and probably will ever be.
General is waiting for me as I hang up my bike and my hat on its handlebars, and as I move to the kitchen, he meows and sits on a stool watching me uncover bread that has been rising all afternoon. I have to resist the temptation to eat half of it when it comes out of the oven. I enjoy the simplicity of bread. The wholesomeness.
Going to sleep, my thoughts are stuck in the new project that Alyssa and I have started. It is all the spaces between things, the lines between points. The dense hubs at B passed through from different A’s to different C’s. It is the space between waking and sleep, between youth and old age, the past and the future. It is highway rest stops, and midnight diner coffee. It is the you you picture just as you wake, and not the you in the mirror, or the you that appears in awkward ID photos. It is the you you picture in the future, acting now. It is NOW! It is everything we’ve been trying to say from the moment we became aware. It is at the center of every drawing, every observation, everything I’ve tried to write down. It is project B.
At five in the morning General sits on my chest and kneads my throat, purring.
The air is cool and there are loud conversations through yellow windows, flocks of high-heels and polo shirts, and the slow steady buzz of youth filling the space between the river and my kitchen. It is Wednesday , but school has begun again, and I think about television at five years old. I think about the fifteen year olds on Nickelodeon game shows. Twenty year olds on dating shows. Fifth graders on the bus to school. I think about how large they seemed, how complete, and how old. I think about elementary school teachers fresh from college, and their colleagues with thirty years experience. I think about all these things as I ride home through people who are the oldest they have ever been, and probably will ever be.
General is waiting for me as I hang up my bike and my hat on its handlebars, and as I move to the kitchen, he meows and sits on a stool watching me uncover bread that has been rising all afternoon. I have to resist the temptation to eat half of it when it comes out of the oven. I enjoy the simplicity of bread. The wholesomeness.
Going to sleep, my thoughts are stuck in the new project that Alyssa and I have started. It is all the spaces between things, the lines between points. The dense hubs at B passed through from different A’s to different C’s. It is the space between waking and sleep, between youth and old age, the past and the future. It is highway rest stops, and midnight diner coffee. It is the you you picture just as you wake, and not the you in the mirror, or the you that appears in awkward ID photos. It is the you you picture in the future, acting now. It is NOW! It is everything we’ve been trying to say from the moment we became aware. It is at the center of every drawing, every observation, everything I’ve tried to write down. It is project B.
At five in the morning General sits on my chest and kneads my throat, purring.