I wish he’d get a clue.

Black Kids – I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance

Collision Course

I may be a collision course of a woman, all mud and broken ribs.

After you’ve been tossed off the monster truck of my emotions, that trip in the fuel-efficient hybrid feels good, doesn’t it?

Perhaps I am reading far too into these figures, but there is a noticeable trend. With the exception of the British boy I left behind my semester abroad, my former boyfriends all ran as far away from me as possible and straight into the arms of another, calmer, woman.

Here are the numbers:

The first is happily married in Chicago.
The second is engaged in Hawaii.
The third is still yearning in England.
The fourth is in a serious relationship in Ukraine.

And that leaves me a warpath of a whirlwind in New York – all broken bones, black and blues, and bloody noses. Come back soon. Wish you were here.

Williamsburg

On every single New York message board and every single blog, in every crowded car of the L train you hear it: that whiney, smug self-proclaimed artist complaining about Williamsburg.

It’s not just Williamsburg; it’s a product of massive fast paced gentrification that has spread around New York and oozed its way into Brooklyn. New Yorkers become loyal to a neighborhood in a vain, self-important way not unlike sophomores in high school thumbing the freshmen.

The complainers, the ones who put up the most fuss and noise, are the ones who moved in over the past five years. They are the finger-pointers, the screachers, the writers making fabulous claims of the value of their worth. They clog the internet with their shit. They react to rent hikes the way my parents’ generation reacted to the Vietnam war.

I have news for these so-called protesters:

Real estate is a mercurial enterprise. And neighborhoods in New York are all starting to bleed together — even, dare I say, humble Brooklyn. If you want to claim a bit of land as your own, a few streets to your people, I suggest you move to Wyoming and form a compound. Better yet, develop the poor land way upstate that young people are fleeing, leaving behind a wounded economy with little to show for it but acres of snow and blue collar contempt.

Unless you’re a Native American who has left the casino for a life of literary torment and low-brow astheticism, shut the fuck up about Williamsburg. Seriously. Shut the fuck up. It was never yours to begin with.

Fuck Me Like Fried Potatoes

Fuck Me Like Fried Potatoes
by Richard Brautigan

Fuck me like fried potatoes
on the most beautifully hungry
morning of my God-damn life.

At Last Our Bodies Coincide

At Last Our Bodies Coincide
by Richard Brautigan

At last our bodies coincide.
I’ll bet you thought this
would never happen. Neither
did I. It’s a pleasant
surprise.

Love Poem

Love Poem
by Richard Brautigan

It’s so nice
to wake up in the morning
all alone
and not have to tell somebody
you love them
when you don’t love them
any more.

Ironic Fortune Cookie

“When both feet are planted firmly, nothing can shake you.”

Lucky numbers: 6, 21, 31, 40, 41

Stuck

The summer might be passing me by. I have very little to show for it but a laundry-list of complaints.

I have been overcompensating for the tendinitis in my right foot by placing more weight on my left. Now both feet are throbbing.

I know what I need to do — keep popping pain killers, icing it down when I can, taking Epsom salt baths, and keeping off my feet. Which is virtually impossible! Just to walk out of my apartment complex to get to signs of life I need to walk about five blocks. Yesterday I stuck to my neighborhood: I had brunch, ran errands, cut my hair, shopped, and returned home. It’s not like I can take a cab fifty yards. All together I probably walked fifty blocks around the East Village. Later that night I had to walk about 20 blocks in Brooklyn, and another 20 to get home from the F train.

Here I am today: popping pain killers, listening to music and watching the rain fall from my desk. The view from my bedroom (below) is beautiful, at least. But I had big plans, which have taken a back seat to the grogginess of pain killers and the inability to walk.

If I sound stuck, it’s because I am.