You could touch my skin.
My back, my neck, my forearms.
But they can't touch you back.
Can't trace your worry lines
Or mirror the path of your affection,
Knotting closer when you smile
So I'll always carry lotion
Make my hands softer than my forearms,
My neck, my back.
If it means you'll reach for them more.
Current Status: Aimless Betterment If egg salad (which is ostensible) weren’t already a thing, would we perhaps call it a warm egg salad when we make up some scrambled eggs with tomatoes and sautéed kale or spinach? I guess we still could call it that, if the thought of warming up a bowl of egg salad wasn’t so gut wrenching. Cooking chicken is like playing chess - easy to do, difficult to master. Just something I've noticed. It's 9:57pm, and my neighbor is belting (no other word for it) Son of Man by Phil Collins. She is adding riffs that Phil had not imagined riffing. Do I respect the boldness or resent the deviation? I think I'd respect it if she'd knocked it outta the park, but (like Frances McDormand all too often), she did not sing (act) the fuck out of that - she simply did not. Is it that the work has to get done or the people have to stay busy? What is it to think you're both supremely loveable and destined never to be satisfactorily loved? Is that not narcissism? Is it not melancholic self-deification? Who the fuck do I think I am, flaunting my expectations at such a height like an impoppible balloon. It's 11:02pm, and my neighbor is practicing her Phantom of the Opera repertoire. Honestly she's not bad. I read my first graphic novel, and let me say - you can expect to see me again, graphic-novel-world. Brilliant. Nick? At night? Forget about it!
Updated: Mar 18, 2023
There's a blanket ladder rack on the wall. Stacked rows, some columns filled, some margined by blank space. Would it be better if they were all the same texture? Or maybe the same color, different textures, like the ensemble costumes of Chicago? Maybe I could just observe and not critique, that could be cute?
Checkerboard, images on the mid-toned squares. I imagine its ancestor was in the Parisian scene of Little Women when Amy does her final sketch of Laurie before he (feebly) professes his love for her. You know the one.
Second row down, middle of the road, somewhere between a t-shirt my brother would wear and the raw fabric used to clothe a village of Monty Python village people.
A rung below: a black knit comforter - its either been folded carefully to look mysterious and supple, or it was flung like a corpse into Lake Michigan. Rest in Peace.
Last but not least (unless you're against blankets that look like they're only kept around as supplemental layers for an unexpected Cabin guest), a tan one - the color of our sweet deceased Cheddar. Rest also in Peace.