you are late to everything and so
you don't get to say anything
when winter is early.
it is not all you've made it out to be, anyway;
all that has changed is that if you want to go outside,
you will have to do it on purpose,
and the view from over here is that
you could use some purpose.
what did you do all summer,
with those aimless privileges, anyway?
i never saw you use them,
except once or twice to smoke a cigarette in peace;
if summer really is your favorite season,
wouldn't you be able to explain why?
let's not get into where were you in autumn.
inside that body of yours, probably,
doing god knows what
for not even he knows why--
who the hell did you think you were fooling
in indian summer,
barely holding on?
what did you think the warmth was doing for you?
dig out your jacket and your father's gloves.
you get an early winter,
but not as a punishment, nor even as a wake up call, not even for shock value--
it's being scored as a second chance.
it's a common misconception, not every snowflake is unique,
but most of them don't last that long, anyway,
in these mid-november flurries.
Monday, November 17, 2014
Saturday, November 1, 2014
1 Nov 14
Halloween was won this year by the blond girl wearing a University of Michigan cheerleader outfit, except it had the word “sucks” written in cursive in the appropriate places, to express her displeasure with that academic institution. I didn’t like her handwriting. But the costume is not how she won. She won because she showed up to my old house, looked in at the party, and said, “I don’t know about any of these people, and I am leaving.” Then she left. I could have applauded.
It was a stunning victory, a real triumph, because so many of us could have said the same thing, but none of us did.
It’s not that I didn’t go for it. I had my best costume ever; what I did was I told people that this year I had my best costume ever and then I didn’t dress up at all. I went as “a disappointment.” I couldn’t decide whether to be self-satisfied or self-loathing about the whole thing; I guess I really was a disappointment. Every year I pick a dumb but kind of smart joke and tape it somewhere to my person, and I hope that people will think I am clever for it but understand when they do not. This year I didn’t even use a post-it.
Halloween does not tend to be a favorite time of year. My mask has shifted over the years, I’ve gone from confused to contemptuous, from cynical to indifferent, from slut-shaming to slut-shaming-shaming to just plain ashamed, but the constant has been “kind of sad.” I’ve never known what to do with the lawns full of Solo cups and the yells in the street and silhouetted orange glow of the parties on Gunson. It isn’t my scene, and the way all this fun hangs in cold October air makes me sick.
This year was better, or maybe it was worse. The party was at Hariet Brown, a place I used to call home but wisely weaseled my way out of this year. It’s a charming place, a dark red two story shithole with the bare minimum required for college student living, and from the right angle it looks like the cover of that American Football record and it feels like it, too. It has a two car garage that we use as a concert space and has been converted into memory, by way of globular mood lighting, hundreds of holdings of hands, and an out-of-tune piano in the corner. The number of people who truly matter to me who I haven’t seen in that garage during an emo set by too-loud assholes is not zero, but it’s probably less than I can count on my hands. Halloween was no different.
I sat on the couch and I loudly made jokes that made one of the blond boys laugh and made the other feel stupid. This was a feeling worth shaking off; I wanted attention, and that’s not a good sign. An ex-girlfriend walked in, and we did a pain-free version of our ritual, this time with podcast recommendations. It’s always hard to know what to say with someone that you used to be intimate with but haven’t been for years. You want your “How are you?” to count as more than it ever does. You want it to count as a hug, kind of, although even if it were a hug, it wouldn’t be enough. The idea is something warm and encompassing and brief, but better than a hug. Anyway, I never have the words for it, but I was happy to see that she had gotten herself a dog, and I contented myself to casual betrayals that once we knew each other very well. The music started.
The music was not the point. I walked inside, visited my old room, Andrew’s current room, which I was told was the VIP room, which turned out actually to be a place to hide from your feelings or at least from your friends’ feelings. There Andrew and Mike and Carly and my sister sat. Mike was drunk, and Carly was hungry, and we ditched the party for a minute and ended up at Woody’s. We discussed how good of a crew we were, we charged cell phones from a jangly pocket, we ordered too much hummus. I don’t know if you’re supposed to like the lighting at Woody’s, but I bet that you are. I don’t like it. We headed back, Andrew and I in a hurry. The show was over by then, but of course it lingered. Hariet loomed, well-guarded.
It was a confusing crowd to take in. There were so many friendly faces, a few of whom even meant it. There were people I didn't know intermingling with people I didn't recognize. There were old exiles regaining their sea legs; familiar faces missing that shouldn't have been. This does something to a man's heart. It goes without saying that the Spice Girls were there. My crew went inside, but I stuck around in this crowd. I showed off my costume to preemptive groans, and took candy from my former friends.
I was glad I stuck around: Faith’s mom got married and her joke about it was on point. It involved Ruffles. She had stopped by for a minute to see some but not all of us. We spent a few minutes talking about this; for once, I was listening well. I couldn’t avoid the strangeness of it, there was a time when this would have been an uninterrupted group of best friends, but now Faith and I are standing outside the shed while the girls inside avoid eye contact and the friend she’s with waits in line to pee. But I’m listening: Everything has gone to pieces, but Faith said that isn’t surprising. It’s senior year, everyone is anxious, and well, these things happen. This is undramatic and probably correct, but part of me still thinks there are a few particular king’s horses and men who I think are to blame for Humpty Dumpty’s state of disrepair. I suggested to Faith that she use a plotter printer to express her how over it she is, and this gets the laugh I was hoping for but that doesn’t necessarily mean I should have said it. Faith and Michael disappeared into the night, and I was thrust inside.
I stand surveying the party from my favorite place in the world, the threshold of my old room. I wonder what it is about leaning against a door jamb that makes me feel so safe. I don’t think it’s earthquake-related. I think it’s the idea of being able to leave, or rather, of never quite entering in the first place. Out there in the open, one hundred percent in the room, people are dancing and it almost looks normal. But there’s something sadder in it than there normally is, and this time I know it’s not me. There are missing faces and there are strange divisions and everyone can see this, and you can hear it even in shouts to Avril Lavigne. I think we were all haunted by ghosts of Halloween past, by former friends or more to the point by former friendships. You don’t owe anything to anyone, but you owe something to friendship, I think idly. I don’t know if I mean that.
I wrote a speech up in my head, enjoy a fantasy of shutting off the music and telling them all what I think. There are long-winded versions all the way down to haikus, but the gist of it, and the one I whispered in Andrew’s ear, is: “Remember that, at least sometimes, it is probably you in the wrong. Everyone has a moral code and no one lives up to it.” Then I would shut it off and leave. Instead I just stand there and frown, trying to figure out if it’s cowardice or just a healthy skepticism of my own damn self that’s keeping me from flipping the switch. There’s no rule that says it can’t be both.
I stood there leaning for a while, playing around with this in my head, watching things take a mercifully typical descent into the absurd. I’m interrupted only by the drunk girl whose face I know. Conversation is never quite possible in these situations; I am so far from knowing what to say I enter fight, flight, or freeze. Andrew deals by insisting she is dressed as a basketball player. I smile at this but mostly freeze for a while and get pawed at a little, get the buttons of my shirt undone, and stare blankly. 12:36, I made it longer than normal. It’s the part of the night where the music becomes intolerable, even the stuff I like, and it is time for me to leave.
I did not win Halloween. Right before she left, our hero the cheerleader pointed off in the distance and turned to me. “North!” she said, not asking so much as demanding. I complied with a nod and yep. Then she did the same for “South.” but more solemnly and, after a moment’s consideration, “East!” and “West!” We locked eyes and she laughed at whatever it was I said to her, but only as she walked away.
It was a stunning victory, a real triumph, because so many of us could have said the same thing, but none of us did.
It’s not that I didn’t go for it. I had my best costume ever; what I did was I told people that this year I had my best costume ever and then I didn’t dress up at all. I went as “a disappointment.” I couldn’t decide whether to be self-satisfied or self-loathing about the whole thing; I guess I really was a disappointment. Every year I pick a dumb but kind of smart joke and tape it somewhere to my person, and I hope that people will think I am clever for it but understand when they do not. This year I didn’t even use a post-it.
Halloween does not tend to be a favorite time of year. My mask has shifted over the years, I’ve gone from confused to contemptuous, from cynical to indifferent, from slut-shaming to slut-shaming-shaming to just plain ashamed, but the constant has been “kind of sad.” I’ve never known what to do with the lawns full of Solo cups and the yells in the street and silhouetted orange glow of the parties on Gunson. It isn’t my scene, and the way all this fun hangs in cold October air makes me sick.
This year was better, or maybe it was worse. The party was at Hariet Brown, a place I used to call home but wisely weaseled my way out of this year. It’s a charming place, a dark red two story shithole with the bare minimum required for college student living, and from the right angle it looks like the cover of that American Football record and it feels like it, too. It has a two car garage that we use as a concert space and has been converted into memory, by way of globular mood lighting, hundreds of holdings of hands, and an out-of-tune piano in the corner. The number of people who truly matter to me who I haven’t seen in that garage during an emo set by too-loud assholes is not zero, but it’s probably less than I can count on my hands. Halloween was no different.
I sat on the couch and I loudly made jokes that made one of the blond boys laugh and made the other feel stupid. This was a feeling worth shaking off; I wanted attention, and that’s not a good sign. An ex-girlfriend walked in, and we did a pain-free version of our ritual, this time with podcast recommendations. It’s always hard to know what to say with someone that you used to be intimate with but haven’t been for years. You want your “How are you?” to count as more than it ever does. You want it to count as a hug, kind of, although even if it were a hug, it wouldn’t be enough. The idea is something warm and encompassing and brief, but better than a hug. Anyway, I never have the words for it, but I was happy to see that she had gotten herself a dog, and I contented myself to casual betrayals that once we knew each other very well. The music started.
The music was not the point. I walked inside, visited my old room, Andrew’s current room, which I was told was the VIP room, which turned out actually to be a place to hide from your feelings or at least from your friends’ feelings. There Andrew and Mike and Carly and my sister sat. Mike was drunk, and Carly was hungry, and we ditched the party for a minute and ended up at Woody’s. We discussed how good of a crew we were, we charged cell phones from a jangly pocket, we ordered too much hummus. I don’t know if you’re supposed to like the lighting at Woody’s, but I bet that you are. I don’t like it. We headed back, Andrew and I in a hurry. The show was over by then, but of course it lingered. Hariet loomed, well-guarded.
It was a confusing crowd to take in. There were so many friendly faces, a few of whom even meant it. There were people I didn't know intermingling with people I didn't recognize. There were old exiles regaining their sea legs; familiar faces missing that shouldn't have been. This does something to a man's heart. It goes without saying that the Spice Girls were there. My crew went inside, but I stuck around in this crowd. I showed off my costume to preemptive groans, and took candy from my former friends.
I was glad I stuck around: Faith’s mom got married and her joke about it was on point. It involved Ruffles. She had stopped by for a minute to see some but not all of us. We spent a few minutes talking about this; for once, I was listening well. I couldn’t avoid the strangeness of it, there was a time when this would have been an uninterrupted group of best friends, but now Faith and I are standing outside the shed while the girls inside avoid eye contact and the friend she’s with waits in line to pee. But I’m listening: Everything has gone to pieces, but Faith said that isn’t surprising. It’s senior year, everyone is anxious, and well, these things happen. This is undramatic and probably correct, but part of me still thinks there are a few particular king’s horses and men who I think are to blame for Humpty Dumpty’s state of disrepair. I suggested to Faith that she use a plotter printer to express her how over it she is, and this gets the laugh I was hoping for but that doesn’t necessarily mean I should have said it. Faith and Michael disappeared into the night, and I was thrust inside.
I stand surveying the party from my favorite place in the world, the threshold of my old room. I wonder what it is about leaning against a door jamb that makes me feel so safe. I don’t think it’s earthquake-related. I think it’s the idea of being able to leave, or rather, of never quite entering in the first place. Out there in the open, one hundred percent in the room, people are dancing and it almost looks normal. But there’s something sadder in it than there normally is, and this time I know it’s not me. There are missing faces and there are strange divisions and everyone can see this, and you can hear it even in shouts to Avril Lavigne. I think we were all haunted by ghosts of Halloween past, by former friends or more to the point by former friendships. You don’t owe anything to anyone, but you owe something to friendship, I think idly. I don’t know if I mean that.
I wrote a speech up in my head, enjoy a fantasy of shutting off the music and telling them all what I think. There are long-winded versions all the way down to haikus, but the gist of it, and the one I whispered in Andrew’s ear, is: “Remember that, at least sometimes, it is probably you in the wrong. Everyone has a moral code and no one lives up to it.” Then I would shut it off and leave. Instead I just stand there and frown, trying to figure out if it’s cowardice or just a healthy skepticism of my own damn self that’s keeping me from flipping the switch. There’s no rule that says it can’t be both.
I stood there leaning for a while, playing around with this in my head, watching things take a mercifully typical descent into the absurd. I’m interrupted only by the drunk girl whose face I know. Conversation is never quite possible in these situations; I am so far from knowing what to say I enter fight, flight, or freeze. Andrew deals by insisting she is dressed as a basketball player. I smile at this but mostly freeze for a while and get pawed at a little, get the buttons of my shirt undone, and stare blankly. 12:36, I made it longer than normal. It’s the part of the night where the music becomes intolerable, even the stuff I like, and it is time for me to leave.
I did not win Halloween. Right before she left, our hero the cheerleader pointed off in the distance and turned to me. “North!” she said, not asking so much as demanding. I complied with a nod and yep. Then she did the same for “South.” but more solemnly and, after a moment’s consideration, “East!” and “West!” We locked eyes and she laughed at whatever it was I said to her, but only as she walked away.
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