sometimes you sit next to a cold cold window and smoke a semi-stale cigarette with pavement on in the background and you crack a beer and maybe really this living alone thing isn't so bad isn't so bad isn't so

heatwAvEs

i'm sitting in a room that's full of leftover heat from another sunny sunny summertime summer day in brooklyn, with a bag full of laundry that came out of a dryer like an inferno, zippers burning skin

i'm trying to think about where i'm going to live in 3 weeks time and i'm not having much luck so far, but i'm listening to some music and i feel a fan at my back and my desk is full of shit and i guess it'll be okay one way or the other or maybe i can just

i went to maine and my friend's brother had a yurt in a wooded yard for his own living space. i'm thinking about that a lot

stuff:
1)yup
2)maybe
3)yup

work-a-day freewrite

pick up the doorknob from the ground and lay it by the side. pick up the pieces of that and this and that and this but don't forget where you put them or you might be found out. take a part of a thing and place it next to a part of another thing and watch as small motors whir with a whirring that might wake up a neighbor. things might take to the air or stroll low across the ground as it were but you'll get to find out if anything can move, anything at all. because if it can't then what's the point really? what's the point if nothing can move?

sometimes things just feel like they are standing still. I guess that is something we should remedy

a day goes

sometimes a day goes by quickly

you walk onto a ninth floor and you make a right a left a right to the end of a row and sit in a box

if you rub your eyes for five and a half minutes you can get the same sensation you get staring at a screen for two hours, line line line line number line line message message dot

you drink an occasional coffee and you load up on caffeine and hope it keeps your motor functions motoring and if not you can always nod off for a second because nobody will notice i promise because well

you stare out a window that looks at a wall full of brick brick brick and maybe just maybe you see a feather and wonder what happened to the bird that shed it and what it feels like to be touching sky right this very now

you watch a clock and when it arrives at an appointed moment in time you can lace up your sneakers with the holes in the side and push a button and flip a switch and say goodbye and step outside and enter a tunnel and walk moving stairs and ride a train and be a part of

written

this is the first in a [long, long] while and thus fairly short

built with his hands

James stood watching the short trees shake small drops from their boughs. It was night and dim but clear and he brought his right hand up and he took a pull from his lit cigarette. He flicked the end into the damp grass and watched it go out.

The dog quietly sidled up to him and pushed his head into his palm and put his ears back. James patted his head and pulled his palm back along his neck and the run of his spine. The night was quiet bar their breathing and the occasional noise of the man’s hand patting the dog’s bare ribs.

They walked through the grass back to the house, the dog occasionally pricking his ears to a distant noise, a squirrel or a bird or just some acorns falling in the woods loosed by the wind. The back door was still cracked open as they’d left it and the small house was dark and quiet.

James entered the main room first and put some small bits of wood on top of the still-hot embers in the fireplace and stood seeing if they’d catch and they did. The dog stretched low to the ground and lay in front of the flame and James sat in the wooden rocker and thought of her and her face and her strong sharp features and how sometimes a woman is so pretty it makes you go cold inside. He picked up his glass of warm whiskey lying on the floor beside him and took a sip and took out another cigarette but didn’t light it and just held it between his index and middle digits.

He heard the phone ring and got up while the dog stayed stiff and still. “Hello?”
It was his mother and given the time of day he was confused only a second until he realized from her tone that it was something bad and his father was in the hospital again and it seemed okay but maybe he should come by and would he be able to make it tomorrow?

He finished the whiskey and had a cigarette and prepared to sleep while the dog shifted to the foot of his low bed and he slept without dreaming and woke with the air cold and the dog making noise and looking like he was running in his dreams. When he’d risen from the bed he called for a taxi and drank fresh coffee and called the dog outside and stood in the fresh sun and breathed and smoked and exhaled.

The taxi arrived shortly after he’d finished dressing and idled in front of his home while he spoke softly to the dog and locked the doors for the hours he’d be gone. He paid the cab fare at the train station and bought a ticket and stood smoking quietly on the platform trying to discern the smoke coming out of his lungs from the fog of his breath in the cold air.

He boarded the train and found a seat and left the ticket out for the passing conductor. He sat back and closed his eyes and thought of times when his father was a strong man and built with his hands and had a heart that worked.

some time passes

it's been a little bit since i last posted, maybe a little too long. some factual things that have transpired:
[] i got a haircut
[] soccer saturdays in prospect park have begun
[] my 27th birthday came and passed
[] heatwaves happened
[] i don't know what i'm doing
[] friends and i made pasta from scratch
[] i wanted a dog around to walk at night
[] fruit sorbet was ate
[] i slept once a day on average
[] []

it's weird because having set the goal of this not being a place to simply jot things down as they happen, well, i struggle to find myself knowing what to write all of the time. i guess that's a symptom of a more general problem, but i don't want to just write about my daily routine

i've taken the camera out a bit more and i think i'm sort of getting a better understanding of it. i'm still trying to avoid doing processing on images partly because of a lack of knowledge, partly because i want images to look like what they looked like. i've been keeping busy, sometimes more so than i would've expected. but i'm not sure what it's leading to



i do feel like i've been avoiding taking advantage of creative outlets for quite some time. using the camera helps alleviate that, but not as much as needed. on that point, i am going to try to rekindle my website and start writing / drawing / something again. i honestly don't know what i'm doing. i just know that i'm feeling like instead of just being lost that i'm really doing nothing. and that's not a good thing

so, i spent a brief while kind of "reloading" things and will have to go from there. i will try - seriously, i will

i have had for the past month, months, moons this sentiment that i have stopped doing things that i was doing years ago that were healthy for me, whether they be physical, mental, whatever kind of things. i think not doing them has affected me to a point and it's weird to think that maybe i had things more right then than i do now. scary to think that, too

the world is still a scary place. offices are still closing and people are still reeling in parts, but i guess at the end of the day what i'm really left wondering is how many people get to do what they want to do? one of my biggest problems has always been not knowing what to focus on. it persists

rather than rant on i will withhold in the hopes of updating this again soon, let's say within a week. i have a few interesting things coming up and maybe one or more will inspire some smiles or tears or frowns or giggles. but at least something

the website to be reopened gradual-like is www.optimismitself.com

below i'm posting one of the views i like most from around here. not really for the sight, if that makes sense, but for the calm associated with it; i took the shot from a little slip that juts out into the water and is so incredibly quiet for brooklyn. it just is the kind of place that makes you sense peace