a quarantine in snapshots
-Some time early in unemployment I spent a night in the hall outside my room. I brushed the carpet and shook out the rug, I swept the windowsill and wiped clean the warped glass. I picked apart the chips of peeling paint and rearranged my little chair, my books, my boots, and my painting out there. I washed & plopped my big pink heart pillow onto my purple shag below the window and I was done. The door to my room was open the whole time and british bands were playing on the stereo. It felt like the stories my parents used to tell about their early 20s in the 80s. Out where I was on the cozy landing, the ceiling was high, the white string lights were up, the evening was dark outside and the feeling was analog like a PBS or BBC special. My head was in Codrington.
Soundtrack: The Jangling Man, Save it For Later
-For a few weeks I spent every other night watching Joaquin Phoenix movies. One morning I was up til gray sunrise, my mind on the empty dune road in Truro. I read Inventing the Abbotts and listened to whatever played on Pixy 103 before 7am, which was a generic morning talk pre-recorded in middle America.
-The night I watched Parasite, I finished the movie around 4am and it had snowed. Just enough to make the street white and slippery. I went down to the sidewalk in the easiest shoes I had to pull on, which are my pewter mary jane heels. If anyone went out for work in the morning they would have seen my prints and arcs and circles where I spun and danced in the street when it had been silent.
-Then there was the period I watched I Am Not Okay With This. I first walked the railroad-track-reedy-field way to the drugstore with Prefab Sprout, dancing. The afternoon and evening were indistinguishable and everything was gray for hours. I thought about wood-paneled basements in towns of rusted, abandoned factories. I thought about dial radio static. I thought about walking to Steve's the long way.
Soundtrack: The King of Rock 'N' Roll, Jessie's Girl
-For a bit I was into a few Wham! songs? I can't remember what that was like. ("Guys I'm running on three hours of sleep." "And two hours of Wham."
Soundtrack: Wham Rap, Careless Whisper
-One day at the end of the March I got the out of nowhere need to watch Say Anything. The only time I'd seen it was once six or eight years ago. I started it at 3am, knowing I'd finish around sunrise. It took longer because I had to keep pausing and rewinding and replaying. I was crying thinking about Lisa and thinking about love and thinking about youth and freedom from structural obligations and thinking about summer 2016 and thinking about falling in love with someone like Lloyd over a summer like 1988. I wanted to go back and tell Lisa how much the movie means to me. But it didn't mean these things to me back then. I didn't want to let myself want love and I didn't think Diane was anything but prim and I didn't know the Replacements I didn't know the Replacements.
Soundtrack: Within Your Reach
-Mornings waking up and sitting with tea on the balcony, facing the sunrise clear and bright and yellow. I'd read The Little Friend or write a letter to Juliette or message Emily (daydreamhustler) while the trash truck crashed through and neighbors did morning stuff at their gates.
-My entire birthday