I suppose when itching to get published you have to take what you can get (my Letter to the Editor published in SF Chronicle).  Note their given title: “Extortion in SF”

I think I just felt my bad parking karma increase…

Written to the DPT of SF in response to received parking ticket in SF Public Library parking lot:

29 July 2009

To Whom it May Concern:

I pay this ticket with extreme disappointment. read more »

Hello, Hanoi
(Part 11 of Many)

Across the street a man is loading into a hand-drawn cart dozens of red bricks. Each brick has 4 cylindrical holes, and one by one, he lays them on top of their comrades, each singing a soft little clank as they fall. read more »

After grooving to Anoushka Shankar in Stern Grove, only the toughest few brave the fierce wind and sandblasts at Ocean Beach for a Sunday afternoon BBQ …nothing more painful than sand in one’s beer ( -Oh, sweet Redhook! -the horror! )

What’s that? Someone forgot the meat? And knives? No utensils: no problem. Us vegetarians are fiercer than we look.

“HAPPINESS RUNS IN A CIRCULAR MOTION”

Such is the case tonight as rain’s fingernails scratch down my windowsill, customary wailings from lost sirens, strings of sighing traffic — a San Francisco swan song about to be sung.

There are globes of lights everywhere — glass orbs of water lit from the Party Store’s winking strobe, Christmas strings languid and loose, fractured spray spit against the sidewalk from car wheels, and one big glowing screen in front of me like always.
Like always.

And like always, the rain steps on the black streets with his tiny feet, but this time I am not alone with my city. We, two, in love, must share each other tonight, and make room.
Future tip-toes in.

Time moves in a circular motion, too.

Suddenly it is no longer night’s soft belly, but the cool breeze blowing in late afternoon. You are reading to me, in smooth lyrical whispers, like old satin ribbons, African creation stories — why death exists, where the world was born — when my old lover the city taps at my window. I turn to his familar coos, VIBRANT courtings, twisted banter, green lights! Doors
Open: pulsings, f r e e d o m s, frac tured, panting –

I stand up and leave you. Go the window. Sit down and write. You remain on the couch reading alone as the frenzy consumes me again. You’ll never love another but me, the city whispers, my writing whispers, my heart whispers, there is no room for another.

I write like the rain. The clicking of keys floods the room as I drown myself back into safety. You ask what I’ve written. Would I like to share? The cold breeze blows in harder. The city’s seductions louder: It’s me and you, babe. Me and you. Don’t leave me now, we’ve only begun… The sirens are back, and the traffic is haunting, pulling at old demons that shed long shadows, and deep. There is a sudden stiffness about the light, my toes have gone numb and I am certain I have to run to the store to buy… anything.

But you don’t say another word. You light up your cigarette, and watch time wobble in circles around our heads. My typing slows. My sentences shorten. I finish. I’m done. I look at you. You look back.

“It’s cold,” I say.

“Sure is,” you smile.

“Shut the window,” I ask. You do.

“Wanna hear what I’ve got?” I ask. “I’m ready to share.” You look at me and say:

“I do.”

[for I.G.]

(Not to be confused with “spot” — that’s for another day’s lesson, kids.)

Today at Not Keeping Score the word is “good-bye,” I’m afraid. Now, before you can drop a tear, put up a hand, and yell “don’t go!” — breathe. NKS isn’t going anywhere. It’s only, I, your devoted author that is letting go of a few things, and thought I’d humbly share in the process.

Even wrote you a little poem:
As we say Hello to December, there is G’Bye in the air,
Dear Readers, remember, one must let go with flair!
Change can be hard, but I mustn’t be ‘fraid
So down with my guard (this is how progress is made)
I plug up my nose, and jump into the Deep
The only way that one grows is by taking a leap
I say: “ta-ta!” at the door and take a last look
November 2006 is ne’er more; will exist only in my book

Eh? Whatta think? Okay, no. Moving on. My good-byes:

The end of November and NaNoWriMo felt like a strange good-bye to an intense love affair with a foreign exchange student who had to go back to his home country because his visa expired…and all I was left with were the memories of me and “Francísco” — oh, and these 50,000 words of sweet nothingness.

I’ve also mentioned on NKS that I’ve temporarily said good-bye to the corporate slings and arrows of a day job–and subsequently a paycheck (ouch).

But there is more [sniff]:

I’m moving out the TenderNobb, San Francisco. You heard right: No more poetry-inspiring trannie-prostitutes; no more Party Store; no more round-the-clock sirens; no more late night drunks; no more homeless, crackheads, one-legged pigeons, noisy neighbors, street traffic, car alarms — (why did I move here again?)

Riding this wave of change, I’ve decided to give up my studio in ‘The Nobb’, and am going to take a temporary stay up north in Sonoma County with the ‘rents.

Oh, yes: I’m unemployed and I’ll be living with my parents. If any of your single friends are interested in my phone number, tell them I’m codependent, too. (Guys dig that).

So, I’ve said good-bye to the job, good-bye to NaNoWriMo, good-bye to the studio, good-bye to the neighborhood, and good-bye to my “San Francisco glory.” And soon, we’ll be saying good-bye to 2006.

Sad? Anxiety-ridden? At first. I’ve lived in San Francisco for over 5 years, I’m a city girl to the bone (have an intense fear of failure, currently being worked on in therapy, Thankyouverymuch), and 2006 was a magical year of Project-mania. I’m not sure 20 dates in 20 days would go over the same way in Petaluma (then again – why not?)

But then I came to realize that change isn’t (as) scary when it’s right. Things are tilting in a new direction — and while it can be exhausting, my life feels nimble, agile, pregnant with possibility — vivid.

And yet strangely calm. (-er).

As I face uncertainty in many facets of life right now, the second I find myself fretting about them, I realize that, yes, it’s scary, but yes, it’s all okay. Why? (I have no fucking clue?) No! Wrong answer. It’s because it’s as exciting as fuck and I wouldn’t have it any other way! It’s because when one door closes 50 more open! It’s because you have to say “good-bye” in order to begin again; it’s because I am long winded and — do I have to explain? Haven’t you been paying attention to anything I’ve written all year? Or have you all said good-bye already? Hello? Hello? Anybody there? Hello?!

Good-bye,

Left the house this morning dressed in a red unitard and 5-inch platform boots and stepped into the Tenderloin. The rest of my get-up consists of black hot-pants, thick rimmed glasses, and a “Locuter” lettering encircled on my chest. I am a super-villian of the highest caliber. My evil power? I spew forth big words and talk circles around my helpless victims until they fall to the floor, exhausted.

I am Circumlocuita.

But really, I just look more like Elastica Girl from The Incredibles.

The point being, I am less and less confident I should be romping around in a skin-tight fire-red performance suit. I called my mother.

“Today is Halloween, right?”

“Today is Halloween.”

“I don’t see anyone else dressed up. Where’s the San Francisco spirit?”

“Well, it is Tuesday.”

“Everyone’s over it. Everyone did their thing over the weekend. People are wondering why this Elastica-girl didn’t get the memo that when Halloween falls after the weekend, no one celebrates it. Everyone is wondering why no one has told her that when someone is 25 it means it’s time to grow up and costume time is over.”

[silence]

“Mom? Is that what they’re thinking?! Why am I so afraid to be the only one in cosutme? Why do I care what people think? I think I’m having a panic attack.”

“Have a nice day at work, sweetie.”

(Since when is my mom into tough love?)

I continued on. And my confidence dwindled even further as I approached work and realized I didn’t have a change of clothes. And no one at my work was dressed up. And the HR Manager made the “unitard/retard” joke.

So I made an emergency trip to Safeway, figuring even super-villians need groceries. As I walked I pretended everyone in the financial district was dressed up as unhappy bankers for Halloween. It worked only slightly.

But I also noticed a lot of people smiling at (with?) me as I threw produce and cans of tuna into my shopping cart (no one was wearing a god damn costume, but at least the fuckers were wearing smiles…)

To sum it up quickly — as there is a red wedgie fastly growing that I must attend to — (and yes, I did just write that) I’ve gotten over the whole thing as the day has wore on as I’ve gotten quips from coworkers and friends such as “at least you dressed up today, Shannon. I knew I could count on you. Thanks.”

It’s as if they’re thanking me for doing something they didn’t. And I just smile back, exhale my embarrassment, and think “you’re welcome.”

Being back in San Francisco, I have to admit, hasn’t felt the same.

After returning from (a scant) 2 weeks in Asia, something hasn’t been right. The city feels flatter, my enthusiasm has waned, and I crave change. I have dreams of pulling up roots and relocating; disconnecting from my life and turning hermit; overturning everything I know for something I don’t. I want stimulation and beauty and adventure and excitement and challenge and intrigue and culture.

I have wanderlust. I am afflicted with one of the most pervasive ills of my generation: a constant thirst for New.

* * *

My cousin visited me in San Francisco today, lingering in town post-Mother’s Day. He lives in New Mexico in a town of about 12,000 and 50 miles to the nearest town. He remarked as we drove over the bay bridge that he could see more cars in one blink than he could in an hour back home. I asked him what he’d like to do for the few hours we had before he headed back to my aunt’s in Vallejo. “Whatever’s clever,” he remarked.

So I took him to the mission to get drunk in Dolores Park. This was apparently the right thing to do.

He’s a people watcher, so reclining in the afternoon sun and gawking at a city where, as he put it, “anything goes” filled him with such enthusiasm that he was nearly skipping away as we said good-bye — and he’s not the skipping sort of guy. He is wearing nearly the same costume every time I see him: an XL white Hanes cotton T-shirt, baggy shorts, a baseball cap with some sports team emblem I’m sure I should recognize, and a buzz cut that renders his neck a tint redder, emphasized by his strawberry-blonde hair. He’s the kind of guy I would normally write off as a beer-guzzling, sport-watching lunk head. Being my cousin, however, I’ve had to actually give the guy a listen –

And so I was rather impressed when he pointed to a flaming-red gentleman parading down Dolores Street in nothing but groin-hugging red running shorts and remarked, “that’s pimp. I mean, I don’t really care if that guy is gay or not, that takes some balls to wear… that’s definitely pimp.”

We continued to watch people for hours, people I normally wouldn’t take notice of, kinds of people that populate my awareness daily — tattoo-marked emo punks, laid back bike messengers, folksy mission chicks or hipster parents — all becoming prime visual real estate to take in, assess, analyze, judge, admire, enjoy. Suddenly I was telling my cousin about all of the different neighborhoods I frequent, the kinds of people I interact with, the events and opportunities and culture and offerings of San Francisco. And I had no choice but to fall back in love with the city.

It was a lesson I had learned before — that perspective, not circumstance, dictates happiness.

The first time I learned it was only after moving to San Diego in the midst of a depression, floundering, and having to move back in with my parents, worse than when I started and with tail between my legs. This time it only took an outsiders eyes to remind me of what I saw daily: stimulation and beauty and adventure and excitement and challenge and intrigue and culture.

As we said goodbye, my cousin thanked me for the visit. We aren’t terribly close, and don’t hang out much aside from the family get-togethers, but he said he would certainly take me up on my offer to house him for a weekend in the future. Beaming, he thanked me again with hug — and he’s not a hugging kind of guy. As he rounded the corner and galumphed down the stairs of my building, I silently thanked him back.

Dear Book-Nerd Readers,

There’s something wonderful about a library, don’t you think? And I don’t mean all the books and learning and shit. I mean that it commands its own quiet energy, connecting yet un-intrusive; that although this is a public space, there is a kind of imposed isolation, too. It’s the quiet:

“I am sitting next to you, and we are connected in this way, but you are under no circumstance permitted to talk to me. Because this is a li(shhh!)brary, that’s why.”

There’s beauty in that. It’s the same reason why I secretly think the iPod is so popular: headphones.

Everyone, in a library, is free to feel safe to go about his or her business ( “I’m into beat poetry. You’re into civil war anthologies? Great” ) without feeling obligated to mind the Other — which is rare in a city — and in this way there is perhaps a more genuine connection between civil members of a collective group through isolated co-habitation of thepublicsphereheretofore –

oh-my-god-you’ll-never-guess-what-just-happened.

So, I’m sitting in the SF Public Library, right?  I mean, really, I’m just sitting here working on a book review I’d like to publish — and then, of course, I’ve allowed myself to get distracted with posting to my blog about the Inherent Goodness of Libraries (see above) — when this guy, my age, friendly-looking, walks over to where I’m sitting, doesn’t look at me, but sets a book down beside me.

I don’t look over, thinking, you know, he’s just putting a book down and plans to sit there and, um… read. Like what you do in a library. Then he walks away. Sure. He’s going to go look for something else but is just “saving his spot,” right? He walks around the library, sort of eyeing me, as if he’s watching to see if I noticed him, or his book. I can feel his gaze on me. Then he leaves leaves. Like, walks across to the elevators, pushes the down button, the doors slide open, he gets in, looks at me hard one last time, the doors slice closed, and he’s gone. 

I look over at the book, and it’s a thick edition of MORMONISM – STUDY EDITION. I swear I feel him remotely wanting me to pick it up and have a look –

oh-shit-okay-now-he’s-back. He’s sitting right next to me, and he keeps looking over, wanting, wishing, willing me to make eye contact. I can only imagine what will happen if I do. I. Am. Concentrating. Very. Hard. To. Look. Busy. Okay, I have to end this post now because I swear if he looks over and sees the word “Mormonism” in all caps on my computer screen, I’m screwed.

Signing off,
Shannon
 
P.S. I hope no one reading this is Mormon / offended.

When speaking of love, it is important to acknowledge — in addition to the things which one does love — that which one does not. You know, for the sake of balance. God forbid I write of yin while neglecting the yang.

* * *
Scene: An apartment building in San Francisco. Morning. A light shines from a window on the second floor. Inside, a girl sits drinking tea on the couch. A Chet Baker CD is playing softly in the background. Out on the street, a car sits idling. Loud music is playing from inside it.

Shannon: What the fuck is that?

Chet Baker [singing]: Myyy, fuuunny valentiii– wha’s what?

Shannon: That. That noise. I can’t believe someone is playing the Beastie Boys before 6 in the morning. That’s just — wrong. The BB are for night time, yo — nighttime!

Chet Baker: I hear that. I’m for the morn, right, Shanny? I’m your morning dude?

Shannon: Damn straight, Chet. You and me, pal. In the A.M. It’s you and me. I don’t know what this person is thinking. Disrespect, man… disrespect.

Shannon walks to the window and looks out. Through the tinted windows of the car a thin ribbon of cigarette smoke leaks out, an extension of the driver’s wrist. Shannon slides open the window.

Shannon: Damn it. [speaking to the driver of the car:] Uh, excuse me? Hey, sweetheart — mind turning your music down? It’s not even 6 in the morning.

The girl in the car does not indicate she’s heard anything.

Chet Baker: Maybe she didn’t hear you.

Shannon [yelling]: Hey — hey! You, in the car! It’s SIX IN THE MORNING. Turn your music down, woudja?

Chet Baker: I didn’t mean yell.

Shannon: Go get lost, Chet.

Chet Baker [hurt]: Jus’ tryin’ ta help. You don’t have to get so — so, aggressive…

Shannon turns around, shuts the window. She turns up the music.

Shannon: Come on, Chet. You can take on the Beastie Boys, can’t you?

Chet Baker remains silent except for his lonely crooning. Shannon sighs in exasperation.

Shannon: Wussy.

The thumping of the car stereo below grows louder.

Shannon: (Beat.) Oh, so we’re going to play like that now, are we?

Shannon opens up the window, grabs the nearest object in site, and does what any mature, self-respecting city dweller would do: she throws the object out the window onto the hood of the car. The music stops. There is clicking of the car door handle as if opening. Shannon, in a moment of panic, dives away from the window. Yelling comes from outside.

Shannon: Shit. Now she’s pissed.

Shannon hears the car door shut again. Then the horn blares for 10 long seconds. The music resumes, louder than before.

Chet Baker: Now you’ve done it.

Shannon: Shut up, Chet! Man, I can’t believe this. What a bitch. When I say I love most everything about my city, you know — all this B.S. I write about on my blog –well, most of it’s true. From the places to the food to the people, I do, I really do love it all — the people! O! I love the people. From canvas-KQED-bag-toting literaries to suited bankers to barefooted neo-hippies to Timbuktu-saddled bike messengers — even right down to the goddamn pigeons, if only that I love to hate them.

Chet Baker: I don’t mind the pigeons so much.

Shannon rolls her eyes.

Shannon: But something I do not love at all, cannot love, with any portion of my expensive-yoga-class-induced open-heartedness, is what these people — always quirky, often stupid — do; I can love them when they manifest themselves as graceful extensions of the complexity and uniqueness of humanity, embodying the continual bliss and mystery of what it means to be a human being…

Chet Baker rolls his eyes.

Shannon: I do not, however, love these people when they decide to manifest themselves as skanky-ass, Hundai-driving, chain-smoking, crinkly-haired, music-thumping assholes. I love many things, but this? I cannot love this.

Shannon crawls to the window and peaks out. She can see the driver straining to see from where the aerial assault has come.

Shannon: Now, I’m a morning person you know?

Chet Baker nods.

Shannon: It wasn’t that she woke me up when she started blasting “Brass Monkey, That Chunky Monkey” from her cheap-ass speakers this morning at 5:45–and don’t get me wrong — the Beastie Boys and I go way back.

Chet Baker: That you do.

Shannon: It was her audacity, you know? It ruined my mood; I was drinking tea. I was chilling with you, my old buddy Chet Baker. I even had on slippers. Slippers! And then with the thump-thump-thump.

Outside the girl revs the engine of the car once, twice — three times. The music continues to play at an increased volume. The horn honks intermittently.

Shannon: Wow. Okay — wow. This girl really just wants to piss somebody off, doesn’t she?

Chet Baker [mumbling]: Looks like she already has.

Shannon: I’m not listening to you anymore.

Shannon hits the pause button on the CD player and stomps to the closet, grabbing a sweatshirt. She grabs her keys, and runs down the two flights of stairs to the apartment building lobby. ‘Now you’re really going to get it’ she thinks. Just as she flings open the front door of the building, she sees the taillights of the Hundai as the car pulls away. Shannon, standing now on the sidewalk at 6:15am wearing nothing but a nightie, slippers, and oversized sweatshirt, fumes.

Shannon: Fuck!

A window above her slides open. A head appears out of the darkness

Head: Hey! It’s not even 6:30 in the morning. Mind keeping it down out there?

Shannon pauses for a moment, stunned. Then a smile cracks over her lips.

Shannon: I love this city.

A friend of mine just had his work posted on Wooster Collective, and I thought I’d follow suit. His name is Steve Ensminger, his website is Oddwall.com, and his photographs of street art around San Francisco are pretty damn fantastic.
I think you’ll enjoy.

For a lit-geek such as myself, the whole JT LeRoy phenomenon is fascinating.

JT LeRoy was purported to be the newest literary celebrity who wrote a semi-autobiographical account of his experience as an abused homosexual afflicted with AIDS and spent time as a male prostitute until taken in by Laura Albert and her husband, Geoffrey Knoop.

Only that, as it turns out, JT LeRoy doesn’t exist.
read more »

Welcome to the season of New Gym Memberships!
Come January, many people scramble to join for that New Year’s Resolutions, burn off those extra chocolate-logged pounds and remake themselves in the image of, well, something better than themselves.

Guilty as charged. [Raising hand as the first to admit Me Too]

It should be obvious that gym memberships are for suckers such as myself that spend 40-100 hours a week sitting in front of a computer. (And to set the record straight, being a loyal San Franciscan: yes, I do walk to work, the grocery store, and…bars). Gym memberships are not, however–unlike Trix–for kids.

read more »

This year had been a doozy.

Serious relationship of many years ended — sticky and with the emotional tear of a slowly-pulled bandage… maternal grandmother-slash-friend passed away… family sold property of immense childhood sentimental value… asthmatic bronchitis came up like frying pan to the head (thrice!)… rejection letters to journalism school had no acceptance counterpart… new job… new apartment… new life.

Additionally, she was coming up on a quarter of a century, and although she was quick to admit that 25 years of age is hardly old, it is important to recognize that this girl was more obsessed with the passage of time than Proust.

At first, she had a number of celebration options for New Year’s: throw a big party, drive to the desert and go camping, dress up and attend a fancy-schmancy champagne-binge, share quiet glass of wine among friends. 2005, however, was worth making this midnight really symbolic.

In this culture, she recognized, New Year’s Eve is imbued with such significance everyone scrambles to ensure she is where she wants most to be, with whom she wants most to be, and doing what she wants most to be doing — for Optimum Symbolic Celebration Achievement.

And so, like most in search of that New Year’s experience of closure and rebirth, she decided that she would spend December 31st, midnight, volunteering at a local charity to symbolize a year that has been very “Me-focused” ending with an act that was not.

Only, no one would take her.

Honestly. Saturday morning she tried in vain for two hours to find a place to volunteer for the evening, but all of the non-profits she called were either closed for the holidays or required extensive training ahead of time.

So much for the season of giving.
read more »

I’m thinking about recreating this wonderful ad which I posted earlier as being one of the most beautiful ads shot locally in San Francisco. Instead of using mini super-balls, however, we’d use those gigantic yoga balls–and more like 20 or 30, instead of 250,000.

You know, just for the hell of it.

I proposition anyone interested to contact me, most especially if you have a large ball to loan. We’d put you in the credits: promise.

This request is also posted on Craigslist here.

Walking to work through Chinatown this morning felt like death–eras, or people, no matter. All of the shops with closed doors, gated, and the streets hollow; piles of organics devoid of flies; whispers of a country I’ve never been to; St. Mary’s Cathedral–in her quiet struggle for rebirth–evoked sentiment of a past I imagined I owned so I could pretend I owned something worth feeling sentimental over. Mostly, it was the beauty I was supposed to leave behind. Someone, walking in the opposite direction along Stockton Street, looked right at my eyes as we passed. He and I both did a double take and gave a weak smile in recognition; perhaps he sensed death, too.

(What? Can’t I post something other than Craigslist date summaries?)

Breaking news!
San Francisco — Investigations are underway to confirm whether another Starbucks Coffee store did, in fact, close it’s doors for business. The 123 Battery at Pine location had doors shut and lights off at 1:23 PM, which is otherwise during normal business hours.

A man wearing a dark colored business suit outside peered inside the store window and commented that he found the closure confusing.

“I thought Starbucks was always open. Dude, where’s my coffee?”
read more »

Finally! It only meant waiting until November 29th for us San Franciscans to be able to finally receive some winter-like weather (keeping in mind, however, that “winter-like” means some precipitation and temperatures dropping to a {brrr!} 50 degrees.) Ah, the joy of living in California.

I make an observation about the weather (I know, I know: an otherwise desperate attempt at small talk) because with the reigning in of the rain, the inevitable cries of foul weather spring forth. I’m sort of perplexed by this genuine crumudgeon-ness toward the rainy season. First, we have enjoyed 80 degree weather up to just a few days ago (and it is nearly December), and secondly,

I rather like the rain.
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Absolutely beautiful.

One of the best ads I’ve seen in awhile. And done in our very own San Francisco backyard.

I recommend the extended version and the behind the scenes.

I work across from the TransAmerica Pyramid Building in San Francisco, a wonderful spire that peeks above our infamous fog in a gesture of victory and optimism. Currently, the Pyramid is being renovated, re-caulked, and waterproofed by Rainbow Waterproofing.

In August I had begun a journalism class in the evenings after work, intending to push myself to produce, get me to begin to reposition myself into “journalistic mode” and carve out a time dedicated solely to writing. I had every good intention on continuing with focus, and then life got in the way.

I know: a good journalist makes no excuses. Which is why I’m in branding.

But I had to find a story idea for the class. I figured I would begin by writing a historical article about the Pyramid and tourism and famous San Francisco sites. But something about the waterproofing process fascinated me, and I wanted to explore why, how and when this was done. I introduced myself to the foreman; interviewed the project manager; left messages for the company headman. I wanted to go up to the top, see the inner-workings, where the elevator stopped short many flights of stairs before the top of the building — and the small, red, radial light that winked at planes in the night. I wanted to learn all about the cleaning, sand blasting, proofing, caulking, bracing, masonry, restoring and art of how to save a building from time.

I ended up negligent on the class, but kept on curious about the profession. And at some point, after talking to the men who climb the building’s side like spiders — who attach themselves with carabiners and platforms and stirrups, to fight the wind and the rain and gravity as they climb and search out the monolith’s weaknesses and soft spots — I realized: it’s not about waterproofing some damn building.

It’s about fighting entropy.

When you begin to really look at why we struggle in such efforts, it is of course not about “restoration of landmark[s] and historically significant buildings” for posterity sake; it’s not about maintaining a building so that it doesn’t crumble into rubble. It’s a symbol for the amount of time and energy and attention that it takes to keep anything from disintegrating into chaos—including and especially ourselves. What we create is all we have, all we will ever leave behind, and that comes to stand for who we are in the present. And without continual maintenance and attention and effort we all become useless clumps of matter. Or worse: morose manifestations of spirits, wandering aimlessly in search of purpose, like the lopsided building slumped heavily I look at nightly from my kitchen window — no one fixes the old sad sap because no one identifies with it. No one owns it, and so it slowly sags and buckles under it’s own weight. We are like buildings in that we need someone to own us, to care when our joints need re-caulking, our surfaces washed clean. It takes a lot of energy to maintain structure and strength, and sometimes one’s own spine isn’t enough.

God, allow me a good waterproofer.