oh to be thirty-three forever

She is racing around the house. Manic. Happy. There is something in her eye. It’s neither here nor there. Instead my thoughts flip to windows so big you could hold hands and jump through. Views so pretty they overlook highways. Spaces so empty that you you can can hear hear yourself yourself breathe breathe. There is a story in all this, but I lost it.

Free sunshine today and I’ve been told that I should save it. Soon it will be replaced with gray. And umbrellas with bright blue sky painted on the inside. That’s not mine though. Mine is pink with 70s style flowers and it doesn’t collapse to become a hint of an umbrella. It stays full size with its j-shaped handle always at the ready. Always. It reminds me of the one I had in 3rd grade. Minus the ruffled edge. Minus the smallness that makes an umbrella suitable for an 8 year old. Minus it really being the 70s.

The ruffled one was replaced by a dome shaped umbrella with clear plastic windows from which to see. I liked it so much I wanted it to rain every day.

Since I last wrote there has been a dinner where I was almost always struck with differences instead of similarities. Yet she says we are “so the same.” So. The. Same. But. But. I don’t say anything. She wants to find sameness in someone and it might as well be me. Malleable me. Flexible me. Never on the map me. She is steady as she goes. She is tidy. She is sweet. I haven’t showered since Friday.

Transferred 6 paintings to canvas. Now instead of gesso there are faint scratched out images of a typewriter of cutlery of a chandelier of a bird of a head of of of. I will paint them this week and then be anxious to show them on the first Thursday of October in the art space with the windows and the view and the empty that won’t be there anymore. I paint like I wish to screen print. Flat whole colors. Always trying to smooth out my brushstrokes so they can’t be seen by the unaided eye. It’s either pink or celery green or white. It’s either gray blue or day old tangerine. No middle ground. It is. Or it isn’t.

Like I see everything.

I cleaned my apartment this morning to afternoon. It smells like grapefruit and vanilla. And laundry fresh off the line. Bottled childhood memories to remove grime. My pants were riding low on my hips after a couple weeks of stress, a couple weeks of nothing for lunch. The hip hugging being one good thing to come of such a week. The slightly longer than average glance from him being the other. That glance. It’s not my body he sees. It’s my confidence he’s stealing a peek at. He catches it in my walk.

Boom boom swagger swagger boom boom swagger boom boom boom.

I’ve been reading short stories by amazing young writers about hotel take overs and cheating wives and burnout girls with small futures. Spending all my money on oddball literary magazines. Obscure music zines. Little books of art. I like thinking of the people who’ve put their time into them. Making a stapled dozen pages their everything. Being the editor and ad rep and creative director and accounts payable. Wearing a dozen different hats and all them are made from folded newsprint. Collate. Fold. Staple.

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