My main goal in life is finding a way to eradicate the scent of mildew from the leather jacket that single handedly bankrupted me whilst in London.
Coffee grounds + vacuum sealed container = close, but no cigar
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
It Chooses You by Miranda July
Role Models by John Waters
Baby Geisha by Trinie Dalton
Cien años de soledad by Gabriel García Márquez
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Woolgathering by Patti Smith
The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Writing is the worst possible thing to base the rest of my life off of. Melanie [Safka] was spot on when she sang, “It was the only thing that I could do half right and it’s turning out all wrong,” somewhere in the folk clubs of Greenwich Village.
sonograms your mother leaves you in your twenty-first birthday card along with words meant to express love and the hope she has for your future
B,
I am writing this to you from a kitchen table that is not my own while Karen Dalton plucks all of her silly strings. First and foremost, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! (Now that’s out of the way…)
This summer once I have more than $1.25 in my bank account I am going to invest in skateboards for us since it is very difficult to have a skateboarding girl gang without aforementioned equipment. Maybe it is because we are turning twenty-one or because my constant fear that my knee bones are eroding in my sleep keeps me awake at night—but I want this to be the be our best summer to date. We are intrepid explorers of the big, bad world with late nights at the Great Swamp and early morning brunches at the cemetery. Clunky 35mm camera in hand I’ll be there to (poorly) document nightswimming, constellations of bruises, poor choices, unexplored caves, empty bottles of hair-dye, broken banjo strings, industrial DIY slip n’ slides, bonfires, John Waters marathons, failed attempts at knitting, faux-wood paneled basement parties and Velvet Underground dancing—for the sake of remembering: We Were Young Once Edition.
I find it incredibly difficult to fathom that we’ve known each other for seven years now. Thank you for being my best friend for a better portion of those years and saving teary voicemails detailing my disdain for haircuts and the acknowledgement that I’ll never look like Patti Smith.
I love you more than you know. You are my Robert Mapplethorpe.
Forever and Always,
D
xxxxx
Sometimes it’s ten o’ clock at night so you drive to Lowe’s for potting soil and flowering cacti because you’re not sure what you’re doing with your life—only that you’re consciously making the wrong choices and keeping your bedroom blinds closed all day.
In twenty years I have yet to figure out how to redirect my negative thoughts/actions into something other than chronic restlessness. At least I have a reason to open the blinds.
Cactus and lavender plants have to eat after all.
the body as personal document:
with the quiet hum of beehives, ninety degree heat in April, and my flowering cactus in a cracked terracotta pot, summer’s melancholia is arriving early. this weather means lying in bed fever dreaming of scraped knees, the sweet, sensuous scent of hibiscus, and orange pools of metled creamsicles, wanting to be alone—just with your body beside me, all the while never forgetting that I’ve given up on you.
