—THOUGH I MIGHT STEAL YOUR DIAMONDS, I’LL BRING YOU BACK SOME GOLD

 

 

    I hand her a misfit daisy and say, I picked this for you, though there were hornets, and spiders, and deer ticks skulking in the shrubs, though I didn’t know what you would think or say when I gave it to you, though I hoped you’d be happy and love me back without a solitary worry, and when you did, I twirled and swirled and flew up, up, up, all the way to Pluto, where I picked you a Pluto flower, which is different from every flower we have on earth, this Pluto flower being one that oozes magic elixir and lasts for eternity, like you and I, imperfectly perfect. 

—YES, YOU CAN STARE INTO THE ABYSS, BUT IT’S STARING RIGHT BACK

 

                                               Year Nine

 

Year nine, near summer, in the back of the school bus, fire became my soul mate, raging in my chest, singing songs about a scorched earth, the past torched and obliterated. No one understood my love for unwieldy flames and so I stopped speaking, didn’t eat or sleep. After the bell rang, I walked to a gas station, filled myself with unleaded and lit a match, listening to the inferno whistle her adoration all over me, leaving nothing untouched.

 —LORD I’M NO ANGEL. I’M NO STRANGER TO THE DARK

 

 

Fight Song—Joshua Mohr

 

 

--If you have to explain your sign, then it’s a shitty sign.

 

--Rum: the other white meat.

 

--Tonight, let’s remember that we’re lucky to be alive.

 

--Men love to say they’re trying. But really, you either do something or you don’t. Trying is for babies learning to walk.

 

--Nerves are good. They mean you’re starving for victory.

 

--Let’s cool it with the moping. We’re here to live a little, right?

 

--Maybe that’s all anybody is really after: effort.

 

--She looks like a demented sex-ed teacher trying to scare kids into abstinence. 

 

--I like the way you say “testes.” Can I hear it once more, except this time, make it a little breathier, like you’re seducing me?

 

--Your ass is writing checks your mouth can’t.

 

--Happy memories don’t have to be of happy times.

 

--Life coaches are not supposed to kidnap magicians.

 

--You’re trying and you’re lost. That’s not a winning combination.

 

--Everything gets worse. It’s one of the perks of life.

 

--Listen, I’m only one man.

 

--If there’s ever a time to go sentimental, it’s tonight.

 

--If anything is utterly obvious to Coffen, it is that he has to stop lying to himself.

 

--I’m a sorcerer. I could have made her clit grown to the size of a pie tin.

 

--You are safe, but you are vulnerable. That’s the balancing act.

 

--“He’s not a man.”

--“Sure, he is, but he’s also so small he can’t hurt me, and that’s what I’ve always wanted.

 

--Getting rid of his guilt is like sucking venom from a wound. 

 

--But do me a favor and make this the dumbest thing you ever do. The world already has plenty of psychotics. Get your shit together.

 

--Your paranoia has paranoia.

 

--Lately, life’s one gigantic cartoon and all I see are cops and monsters.

 

--Treading water is harder than it looks.

 

--It’s all so fragile, right? I mean we’re all so fragile.

 

--I really need that dental bib.

 

--Why not? Why wait one second longer?

 

—I OFFERED UP MY INNOCENCE AND GOT REPAID WITH SCORN

 

 

The Last Interview—Anthony Bourdain

 

 

--if you don’t like sex, if you don’t like music or movies, chances are you’re not eating that well, either.

 

--I’m always reading a lot of food writers, and I’m always thinking, this person writes about food like they’ve never had good sex in their life.

 

--I know what it’s like to wake up in the morning, ashamed of what I did yesterday, and I don’t like that feeling.

 

--I’m one of those annoying people, if I read a book, or see a movie, or listen to a record I really, really like, if I could come over to your house and shove it in your hands and sit there and, you know, listen to it with you to make sure you don’t miss a thing, or re-read every line, you know, I’d do it in a heartbeat, every time. I would.

 

--I’m really just here to listen. 

 

--I used to think that basically, the whole world, that all of humanity were basically bastards. I’ve since found that most people seem to be pretty nice—that they're basically good people, doing the best they can.

 

--I think the most boring thing about my life is that I was a junkie.

 

--Being a heroin addict was fantastic preparation for being a celebrity. In both cases, you have to have a really sharp intuition--you have to know if the person in front of you is who they say there are, if they will deliver what they promise you.

 

--I benefited very much from the low expectations people had of me early on.

 

--The world was supposed to be far more beautiful and romantic and gentle, and I learned pretty early on it wasn’t going to be like that.

--I always try to find a way to like the bad guy a little bit.

 

--It doesn’t make everything better to insult someone, but it helps. 

 

--When you travel with no agenda other than asking simple questions, people tell you extraordinary things.

 

--If you don’t take the time to listen, to take in the everyday things, the things that happened before the news story—there’s not much hope in understanding them.

 

--My first obligation, I feel, is to be a good guest. It’s a strategy I highly recommend if you’re going to make friends and have a good conversation.

 

--I like grey areas. I like ambiguity. 

 

--I don’t have to agree with a guy to enjoy their company. I assume there’s at least one shared characteristic between us: empathy. I’m good at looking at things from the other guy’s point of view. I can put myself in their shoes. I’m willing to reach out. I’m a good listener. The overlap pretty much ends there.

 

--If you go in not as a journalist, but just as someone who’s asking simple questions like, “What do you like to eat? What makes you happy?” people tend to drop their defenses and tell you fascinating things that are very revealing.

 

--For me, it’s about—How can we do something different? How can we outdo ourselves? How can we do something strange and beautiful that will terrify our network? 

 

--To me, it’s poetry, the sound of mobsters talking.

 

--When you write about food, it’s like writing pornography.

 

--So, look, the history of the world is on your plate. Every plate of food is an expression of, often, a long struggle, a long story that someone wants to share, if only you’re willing to listen.

 

--According to Tony, it turned out that there are a million ways to say, “Suck my dick.”

 

--The problem was that those knives were never sharp enough. No matter how much I ground them down or worked on them, they were never sharp enough.

 

--I have always used language to survive. 

—LIKE KEYS IN THE SOFA, LIKE A WALLET IN THE BACK SEAT, LIKE WORRYING ABOUT ANY BAD THING THAT HASN’T HAPPENED YET

   

Florida—Lauren Groff

 

--It is astonishing how people live, the messes they sustain.

 

--Worse than being in a storm was not knowing what the storm was doing.

 

--Stop waiting for someone to save you. Humanity can’t even save itself.

 

--There are bad guys everywhere, you know?

 

--No, she said. There’s no story. I guess I’m on vacation from my life.

 

--If pretty words couldn’t save her, the losing them, too, was all for the best.

 

--He kissed like a boy prone to anxiety attacks.

 

--Words were space carved out of life, warm and safe.

 

--Oh, but she loves the language in her mouth, the silk and bone of it, the bright vowels and the beautiful shapes a mouth makes to speak.

 

--There you go, she says. I’m the toughest mother in the whole world. I won’t let anybody hurt you, she says, and she is either lying or not, it is hard to tell, because this promise is so complicated, the future so dark.

 

--Another fucking writer; just what the world needs.

 

 

 

Killing Floor—Ai

 

--I hear my footsteps running after me, but I am already gone.

 

--Your eyes, two tiny bowls of tar because death pressed his black face against yours.

 

--Night is coming, shouldering a sack of misdeeds that glow in the dark. Night and the carnival. Night and the Devil.

 

--Tonight I let my woman die. She also had arms, legs, fingers, all the unimportant things.

 

--I’m not afraid of any sonofabitch on two feet. I fire, then jam the barrel in mouth. Not even you, motherfucker, not even you.

 

--Dying doesn’t end anything.

 

--When I catch him, I’ll cut him up. I’ll start with his feet and give them to you to wear as earrings. Talk to me. I hear nothing but the monkeys squealing above me.

 

--On the train back from Germany, that smell and a voice whispering, dance with me baby, all night long.

                —I’VE GOT A LOT TO LEARN

 

 

…Getting an early jump here because it’s a busy week, soon to be happening. 

And just maybe I’ll finally sleep past 3am, for once.

...Wishing you tons of love this week…

 

…"I've always said that the world is a different place for the heartbroken. It moves on a different axis, at a different speed. Time skips backwards and forwards fleetingly. The heartbroken might go through thousands of micro-emotions a day trying to figure out how to get through it without picking up the phone to hear that old familiar voice." Taylor Swift 

 

…“I believe that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.” Margaret Atwood

 

…“I was myself at that time barely out of rehab and was thirstily seeking less complicated women so I barely reflected on the now glaringly obvious fact that Winehouse and I shared an affliction, the disease of addiction. All addicts, regardless of the substance or their social status share a consistent and obvious symptom; they’re not quite present when you talk to them. They communicate to you through a barely discernible but un-ignorable veil. Whether a homeless smack head troubling you for 50p for a cup of tea or a coked-up, pinstriped exec foaming off about his speedboat, there is a toxic aura that prevents connection. They have about them the air of elsewhere, that they’re looking through you to somewhere else they’d rather be. And of course, they are. The priority of any addict is to anaesthetize the pain of living to ease the passage of the day with some purchased relief.” Russell Brand on Amy Winehouse

 

…“I’ll call your name. I will say it over and over, like a prayer.” Marissa Glover.

 

…Why darling, I don't live at all when I'm not with you. 

Ernest Hemmingway, A Farwell to Arms

 

 …“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Maya Angelou

 

…"How can I begin 

anything new with 

all of yesterday in me? "

    --Leonard Cohen

 

…“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.” Chuck Palahniuk

 

…"Go inside a stone

That would be my way.

Let somebody else become a dove

Or gnash with a tiger's tooth.

I am happy to be a stone." 

  --Charles Simic

 

…“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.” -Dolly Parton

 

…“People ask me, ‘Are your boobs natural?’ Like, No, they’re actually supernatural. Very haunted. They’re big because of all the ghosts.” Layla Beth Munk

 

…“To see, we must forget the name of the thing we’re looking at.” Rumi

 

…“I have decided, with a peaceful spirit, a loving heart, and a clear mind, that some people can still kiss my ass.” Christina Springer

 —WHY DON’T YOU COME ON OVER, VALERIE? 

 

 

…The question is—What happens when you get everything you ever wanted?

 

…You make a house big enough, people are going to hate you, even without ever meeting you. That’s just the way it is.

 

…I understand not getting vaccinated even less than I understand murder, and I couldn’t ever murder anyone, even if you held a gun to my head and it was between me or the other person.

 

…“Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always." Robin Williams

 

…Why do I always cry at every Rent song? I mean, like every single one of them. Les Misérables, too.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAfMZ_vWJDo

 

…Yesterday I ordered some (more) books, and after the confirmation came through, Amazon asked me to “follow” one of the authors. The thing is he’s dead, and has been for a few years. That just seemed really wrong.

 

…“For me, it’s always this sense of unease, this feeling like I haven’t suffered enough.” Anthony Bourdain

 

…In a lot of ways, I can identify closely with AB because he reminds me of myself. All those contradictions. All that turmoil under the covers.

I’m going to see his doc on Tuesday with my 14-year-old nephew. So, wish me luck. 

 

…I read his (AB’s) “Last Interview” book yesterday in two hours (it’s a very slim volume, though I did stop on almost every page and highlight something.) 

What an amazing human being he was. On the one hand, he’d be cocky, and on the other hand he’d degrade himself. He’d posture about his success, then “admit” it was all mostly luck. He was an expert listener, but he loved to talk and share. He was an introvert, but if he loved a piece of art—music, book, film, painting—he’d do everything possible to share it with anyone who would listen to him go on and on about it. He’d say he had so much more life he wanted to experience, but then he went and ended his.

So, yeah, wish me luck. 

Pray for me. 

Hard.

 

…“This is really embarrassing to say, but the thing that thrills me the most is being loved, and appreciating the people that are giving that to me.” Iggy Pop 

 

…Being too much in your head is good for a lot of people, but I’m not one of those.

 

…Last night I dreamt a ghost was taunting me, over my shoulder, as I walked atop a miles-long plateau. 

The ghost kept sneering and saying, “You’re going to be fired in two months, so quit now.”

That went on and on for a few years in my sleep.

When I woke up, rattled, I thought—fired from what?

But I was still shook up.

 

…Ever have a very good friend and you wondered why? Yesterday I had lunch with one of my very best friends. Though we have almost nothing in common, we talked for nearly two hours straight.  Afterward, I felt lighter and very grateful that he was in my life. On the drive back, thinking over our conversations, I realized we don’t share a lot of material interests, but everything below the surface, where it matters, we’re nearly twins. 

 

…”It’s a tragedy of belligerent self-destruction.” The Toronto Star, regarding unvaccinated Americans

 

…The vaccine debate is something I can’t even enter into. My mind is pretty closed when it comes to that.

 

...“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along while trying to put all kinds of their own things in it.” Terry Prachett

 

…“When you are not fed love on a silver spoon, you learn to lick it off knives.” Lauren Eden

 

…“I wish I wrote the way I thought; obsessively, incessantly, with maddening hunger. I’d write to the point of suffocation. I’d write myself into nervous breakdowns, manuscripts spirally out like tentacles into abysmal nothing. And I’d write about you a lot more than I should.” Benedict Smith

 

…--“Why do you like thunderstorms so much?”

…--“Because it shows that even nature needs to scream sometimes.”

 

…I can only remember screaming five times in my life. The last of those occurred a month ago. I screamed (for five minutes or more) over the phone at one of my very best friends.

After we hung up, I felt terrible.

But then, later, I realized my screaming may have been the very thing that saved a life.

 

…“All my soul within me burning…” Edgar Allan Poe

 

…“My favorite sex toy? That mind of yours.” Vagabond

 

…There’s a certain kind of girl

That you care about so much

I don’t care what you guys do to me

But her, don’t touch. 

 

   —The Modern Lovers, Someone I Care About

 

…I saw some graffiti the other day that said, “STAY CLOSE TO PEOPLE WHO FEEL LIKE SUNSHINE,” and thought, that’s so true. 

 

…Subtly, without even knowing exactly when, I lost my sense of smell a couple of years ago. It was pre-COVID, and unrelated.

There’s very little research about loss of smell, but the best studies suggest sniffing potent oils for fifteen seconds, in each nostril, several times a day.

So, I’ve been doing that. Every once in a while, I’ll actually smell the peppermint or lavender. Sometimes—with a wide-mouthed glass of cabernet nearly stuffed in my nose—I’ll get a tiny whiff.

But mostly, I get nothing.

It’s not so much frustrating, as it is sad. I miss the smell of citrus and lilacs, and even mown grass or gasoline.

It makes eating less enjoyable. Flavors don’t zing the way they should.

It’s easy to take things for granted. As humans, we just expect everything to always be the same, to enjoy the same benefits/gifts we’ve had since birth.

It’s only when we lose them that we realize how lucky we were, how precious those things were.

So, for a favor to me, go outside and smell the flowers and grass. Smell the rain, if you have it. Just smell something.