a friend once told me that he hates costume parties, hates any time when he has to think about what he wears. i respect and even envy that stance, but i must say, if i ran this so-called country, costumes would be the american dream. it turns out they already are: we all put on the roles we are told to play, with the six thai trannies my chicago-born friend used to hang around with getting the better end of that stick. but i’m talking about costumes that re-imagine the sense of self, that think about what it means to be human and animal, what it did mean a thousand lifetimes ago and what i might mean in the next.
this sunday night at 9:30 pm on the back stoop it is spicy, meatless tacos and cricket hum. or cicada. one forgets the difference in the passing of winter. i am reading a book, finally. a book of poems, of one enormous poem, maybe: judy jordan’s 50-cent coffee and a quarter to dance. it comes rightly recommended by a friend, and i say rightly because i haven’t been able to read in weeks, but this one is dark and hungry and i can touch books again, at least for now.
guess where i do not have to go tomorrow: to my job with the federal government. guess why: on friday, i quit.
i am thinking of my cast list of men and the way the street lamp yellows my neighbor’s weathered fence. banjo man is out on his stoop now, actually keeping it down this time, and it’s a pleasant, tinny melody he brings to the night.
quote of the day from my brother, who lately sleeps on a folded wool blanket on my bedroom floor: “it’s like reading a dime-store western,” he said. and no matter what “it” refers to in that sentence. it’s enough that anything in his life, in mine, in ours, is like reading a dime-store western. can’t that please be enough?
