Another thing I can do really well.
“Is that you with the bullshit on repeat?” — DM, from downstairs via text, circa 2006.
“Can’t repeat the past?…Why of course you can!”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
me: do you happen to know
of a psychological condition
or just some psych jargon way
to talk about someone who believes their life occurs in cycles
and all events are repeats or exact reverses of previous events in their life?
Thanksgiving prep casualties so far at the hand of forgotten salt: a spray of dried orange peel, a cup of sugar, an egg, a dang egg yolk, potentially an entire pie crust (I swear I put salt in it but IT’S BEEN THAT KIND OF DAY). Oh and the small fry of four entire cups of whole pecans. Which at Whole Foods on this Eve of All Grocery Stores Are Closed Because You All Need to Plan Better was 9.99/lb, a fiscal burden lifted by Dad-age produce guys being especially helpful about their being out of pearl onions but re-laden with the emotional encumbrance of overhearing Dad-age produce guys talk lasciviously about being especially helpful to me and still more so after realizing I won’t be cooking brussels sprouts for my dad or my mom or my brother or Jennie or their cool new dog. Cumulative day equals sign: I wish I was home (2 years in a row) but plane tickets are so expensive especially what with all the polar bears falling from … heaven?
NPR did a quick fact-check note on that video this afternoon (European flights do use a lot of fuel; so do cross-American-country flights), which annoyed me almost as much as having three people share that video on Reader. (Plane Stupid: I don’t give a fuck.) Then I had to go back to the grocery store to buy the second-to-last bottle of corn syrup and some Worchestershire sauce because last summer when I was moving karma I guess came around and stole all of my only-used-once-a-year condiments. You win, karma. Me at Stop&Shop, 8pm on Thanksgiving Eve with 350 other people all buying Karo. I always get a tiny thrill when the processed nature of my grocery list requires that I go to a grocery store besides Whole Foods. Tonight the thrill got topped when I came out to my car and found a 40-page flag catalog stuffed on my windshield. I saw the old guy doing the stuffing and assuming he was Jerry of Jerry’s Flag Shop, he really should have known better. Or maybe subconsciously, he should have at least felt some exceptionally strong aversion to placing huge catalogs of flags on windshields in the steady drizzle.
I walked across the yard with my groceries, flipping through the limp catalog, stunned. Who would buy a flag? Is there a market? Can you do enough business to own a physical shop? Is there a holiday spike in flag sales? Am I considering buying the Eritrea flag for a good friend?
I wish I was in Pennsylvania. Or eating some madeleines.
It’s a new goddamn old day.
This is my department chair of optimism. It’s by my window. It’s my method of contrapuntal living, allowing the surprising dynamics of human history to dramatize the latencies in a prior figure or form that suddenly illuminate the present.
It’s really difficult to take photos of your neighbor riding a horse if you’ve never done it before and if your camera is stubborn and if you didn’t wear a coat and also if you’re a member of the Facebook group “The Only Thing Worse Than Horses Are Horse-Lovers.”