The apartment where I will be cat-sitting for the next few days is fabulous, too fabulous, such that now that the owner has left me and it for Paris, instead of exiting into greater Denmark I am hanging out, eating whatever meal-like arrangements I can make from the contents of her larder and being soothed by the Scandinavian design and unimpeachable blondness in every one of the portraits and watching “Friends” with Danish subtitles, trying to pick up a pronoun or two.
Iʼve been thinking a lot about this thing you said that night back in Brooklyn when I went off to maybe have sex with Redford (I didnʼt, by the way — he just stretched my hamstrings for me and showed me several drawings heʼd done of different breeds of dog pooping), the thing about desiring some alternative category of togetherness for us
Because I feel that, too
And I was thinking that we could slit our wrists together
She said,
A suicide pact. I never even thought of that and here I thought I was more involved in the dark arts than you.
I said,
Well
Iʼm trying to be psyched about continuing to live this life so maybe thatʼs not quite the one I want
Itʼs just, like, this is all so BURDENSOME
But
I guess Iʼm choosing to gamble on the premise that thereʼs an answer
If only one in the form of some formula for survival
She said,
I donʼt feel very close to death. Let’s keep at it; we can do better.
I said,
Iʼm sorry living is so much work
I wish I could magic it away for you
Although I guess if you were someone who could be fooled by magic I wouldnʼt have nearly as much use for you
Use, admiration, appetite
Need.
She said,
Thank you for offering a vague sense of possibility that doesnʼt feel dumb or like lies.
I said,
I guess Iʼm going to keep trying to pack
Iʼm petrified of Berlin
I canʼt even figure out how to say “Iʼm sorry, I donʼt speak German” in German.
She said,
Berlin is amazing and everyone speaks English, they are ashamed of everything too. You will love it there I suspect.
I said,
Iʼm looking forward to some public toplessness, I think.
And Iʼm not sure if Iʼm not finishing it because I donʼt feel like reading it or because I donʼt feel like reading at all or because I do feel like reading, and badly, and Iʼm afraid of what will happen when I finish it
She said,
Donʼt donʼt donʼt read it right now
The world is falling apart
I said,
But is it?
I’m trying to imagine a future in which our capacity for happiness is less than it currently is
Are we standing in a bread line?
Am I dead of infection from a coat-hangering?
Lice?
Is everyone we know and don’t drowned in the rising sea?
It’s easy for me—with my sunburn and sack of discount bruised apricots and only a vague uneasiness at how the friendly fisherman affirm, to each other, “Juif” after I introduce myself—to be like, Everything is fiiiiine
But, like, everything is not fine
It’s terrible
It always will be, in various ways, and as things change, we will make changes, and we will go on
I don’t know what else to say
I’m not saying don’t care
But, like, run for office
OR find a way to keep enjoying the new and increasingly horrific world orders
As much as you’re capable of enjoying anything
I am the engineer of a small-scale sea snail Holocaust
My knapsack is soaked in their seawater, which leaked from the olive box while, presumably, I biked home, but my journal is dry
Yesterday Sylka told me that her mother — 90 or 95 years old, I guess — had a dream about telling me, Rachel, remember me
