19

One time Domenic was visiting us in Paris and because we were so caught up in Lincroft reunion reminiscing we got on the wrong train, which Taylor and I proceeded to get off of without apparently sufficiently warning Domenic. Which meant we had to get back on the next train after telling Domenic to get off at the next stop, but by that point it didn't make sense to get back off any more so we grabbed him and made him get back on the same train all over again. We are terrible hosts.
-M

18

One time it was about a million degrees in Manchester, Tennessee, when we crawled out of our tent at 6am to go get another hour of sleep outside, on the grass, by the side of the car. Next to the devil's own timepiece.
-M

17

One time we were driving around Toronto, GPS-less and beginning to freak out, before finally remembering what people "back in the day" (1994) used to do and pulled over to ask for directions in what had rapidly become a shittier and shittier part of town. Fortunately we were both correctly directed and generally in the right place already, so after parking in a weird residential area we followed our noses/looked towards the giant tour bus right in front of the venue.
-M

16

One time we went to go hang out with my friend Emily and noticed on her neighbor's door that he'd marked Middletown, NJ as his hometown. And who should it be but a certain lard-cooking juicer completely uninterested in the fact that we shared such a deep and meaningful common bond.
-M

15

One time we were in London and trying to get ourselves to the right theater to see the Hobbit. We made it, after an embarrassingly long journey involving asking no less than three strangers where to go. Not to mention a phonecall to the wrong place to cancel a ticket reservation I accidentally made for like two towns away. We ended up having to kill a ton of time before the showing, hung out in a supermarket, had to purchase 3D glasses, and then met up with two girls from our hostel and an English-American ex-ex-pat in the theater.
-M

14

One time we talked to the stupidest human in existence in Montclair, while freaking out about making our train home, after a really productive college visit. One of the standouts from that trip for me was driving around in the twins' crazy friend's LeBaron while she sang along to something really obnoxious on repeat...Journey maybe, or a musical soundtrack. And me simultaneously hating and loving it, arm out the window, at night.
-M

13

One time we went to watch the twins and Ryan graduate, and we drove to South afterwards, and while Taylor went to go hang out with all the graduates in the band room I reclined the seat in the parking lot and took a nap...one of my many high school moments that might be interpreted as either socially oblivious, pointedly obnoxious, or maybe just sleepy.
-M

12

One time we drove to Philly and were denied by a Decemberists fan/castle gatekeeper at one of our meticulously-chosen alternative tourist destinations. We did get to go to jail though.
-M

11

One time we decided to go to London and after I had a major freakout about the tickets et cetera, I slept through my alarms for the early-morning flight. If Taylor didn't call me to wake me up I probably would have missed the flight, leaving Taylor stranded at CDG, and I was so out of it that morning that I don't think I realized it until much later. I remember Taylor asked me if the call woke me up and I answered either "no" or that I didn't know...Sleep deprivation I guess. Kids stay in school.
-M

10

One time when we decided we needed to profiter we successfully navigated the Paris bus system, not before belatedly realizing that the tram we really wanted wasn't actually in service. Then we went and sat on the grass next to the Geode, watching all the little french picnickers out in the sun.
-M

9

One time we went over to Paige and Claire's house after school and spent the afternoon painting pumpkins in their driveway. I think Erin Hussey was there as well, and I remember some incident calling one of the the twins by the wrong name. And then we left all of these little pumpkins to dry on newspaper in Paige and Claire's garage.
-M

8

One time we spent a weekend under an awning in Taylor's driveway selling a ridiculous amount of ugly lamps and fake plants to the good people of Lincroft, including our weird substitute teacher who bought a shell wreath and one man who haggled over 2-dollar knives. At some point we accidentally left Nicole's table out in the rain.
-M

7

One time we drove to Sandy Hook towards the end of August in the evening. After one of the last days of the 2012 Prentice Cup we'd changed into bathing suits and gone to kill time in the Dunkin Donuts parking lot. We kept trying to get Ryan on the phone to come meet us but that didn't end up working out. Turns out we didn't kill enough time, though, and when we got to the hook gatekeeper he asked us to fork over like 15 bucks or whatever it was. "Going to the beach?" "...we used to go to school here?" And despite my bathing suit straps and sleeveless shirt he let us in for free.
-M

// this week

// laundry

Love and Soup: A Correlation // snow ii

Love and Soup: A Correlation

Blue-fingered darling, come inside.
It’s cold, and the snow will keep.
And I’ve got a mug of thaw-us-out soup,
ratatouille-good, just to share
with you.

Unicycle Boy // doing

Unicycle Boy

As soon as the snow melts,
Unicycle Boy will be at it again,
wobbling up the ramp outside my window,
clinging to quadrangle clock,
which doesn’t well tell time,
with all four faces different.

I would I was like Unicycle Boy,
despite bruised-ass/scraped-palms;
even with winter’s healing,
and newfound un-scraped knees,
he’ll get back up and teeter again
(and I’ve always wanted to try).

Empire Line; or: Old Money // snow

Foolishness was the prerogative of youth, mused Annette, thus named after her grandmother, great-grandmother, great-great-grandmother, and countless further generations of Bentley women before that. Her mother, with the given appellation Claudia, had never quite recovered from being passed over for the family name, had made a point of illustrating her displeasure in thus naming Annie. The Annettes were nicknamed for convenience; only the eldest living of them had the privilege, at least within personal and familial circles, of using her full title. Annette the current was the great-grandmother of the youngest; grandmother had claimed the more sophisticated Anne, leaving Annie, at twenty-three, with the implicature of six-years-old and pigtails every time she wanted to introduce herself.

All this pomp and nonsense might have been irrelevant were not the Bentley women considered something of a power force, something of a staple in Annie's Connecticut hometown. The town itself was certainly not so small as to be nonexistent, but nor was it any sort of metropolis; it sat firmly in the realm of inconsequential; thus, the women Bentley, therein installed (and quite proudly) since 1654, managed their queendom with ease. Their ambitions continually led them to aspire, their senses of perseverance to achieve, and their thought of hometown loyalty and tradition to believe that there was nowhere further up to go.

Throughout the years, this formidable triad had caused the name Annette Bentley to become the stuff of legend. Exploring the annals of the town yielded a barrage of Annettes: one had been mayor, another congresswoman, yet a third a senator. There had been a Bentley superintendent of schools; Anne Bentley had been the principal of the high school until Annie's sophomore year. Somewhere along the line, someone (Annie suspected the reigning Annette) had gotten the idea in her head that Annie would become the District Attorney. Annie would have preferred to be a chemistry lab rat.

All this overbearing pressure Annie might have surmounted--after all, the Annettes meant well, and for all their regal commanding they listened to Annie's opinion when she managed to convince them that she really was serious--were it not for Claudia. The name "Annie Bentley" was close enough to the family appellation to ensure that Annie was constantly asked, "Are you Annette Bentley's daughter/granddaughter/great-granddaughter?" Annie had always found these questions mildly irritating (she would have liked to be her own person every once in a while, though she admitted it was convenient in that nobody ever forgot her name), while Claudia would have thrived on them. She had never quite forgiven her mother's attempt at convenience, thinking Anne had been trying to cut Claudia out of a dynasty. Claudia desperately wanted to be an Annette, never caring that she still carried Bentley force. There were other Claudias. (Annie was never quite sure whether the reason there were no other Annettes in town was coincidence, out of deference, or because the name itself was a bit outdated.)

At the butt of Claudia's righteous anger at being denied what she felt was her birthright was her daughter, the umpteenth Annette Bentley, whose name was never spoken by her mother without a note of disdain. Claudia had thought that this move would either make Anne collapse with remorse over the disservice she had done to her daughter, or at least fall on her knees and beg Claudia's forgiveness and shower her with assurances of love and favor. But Anne, who had never not loved Claudia, did not collapse, though it did nearly break her noble heart when Annie, through her childhood and teenage years, came crying to the Annettes over why her mother did not love her. Thus Claudia, who never realized she had been offered individuality as well as membership, merely strengthened the alliance she had been looking to destroy, for though Annie lacked any visions of grandeur, she was not unimpressive. But after two decades Annie could feel herself cracking, not under the high expectations of her grandmothers, but under the sheer pressure of her mother's loathing.

And so maybe her scheme wasn't so foolish, Annie mused as what she considered to be true America whizzed past the train window--though she felt the fool. Imagine running away at her age! But this plan was hatched at the hands of all three unified Annettes, the elder two sacrificing their love of tradition on the altar of youth and sanity. Only Claudia was uninvolved, and Annie supposed the only real reason she felt unease was the fear of her mother's formidable wrath. Nonetheless, Annie was not uninspired, and unlike every other Annette Bentley before her, she did not fear that which was different.

One

10/5/10

Sometimes I remember our childhoods exist and don't know whether to laugh or cry. I never loved you when we were near, but now, scattered by wind and time and inclination, I wonder if I should have. If I could have.

I think of my existence here, of my reality now, and try to remember or pretend that it's something that is happening. I am not a stranger in this place and each moment and breath it becomes more of me.

If I returned de-spectacled and happy, would you even recognize me? This life sees no difference. I am what I am in a six-week static and to be any different is I-didn't-know-you-well-enough-before.

I'm not even certain I remember how to write in a way that isn't wordvomit. I don't know comment exige polished. I scarcely express myself in English entirely. I'm losing my talent, my touch.

And yet and yet and yet here I am happy and I feel sonnets for someone new and I scarcely commit them to paper. Here I laugh as in "your entire body shakes when you" and I let old words of past poets sink from my memory into my skin and admire the look of my own handwriting on paper and remember how it feels to be a writer, talent or none be damned.

I exist with the desire to label things beautiful and to make things beautiful and feel my heart swell and break and swell again when I think of how he said, "This feels beautiful." And that boy over there is reading the same email I got earlier today and if that's not community, I don't know what is.

We share this place and there's something magical about that and if I can't make anyone understand--if the best I can do it justice is this emotional outpouring on paper with shifting yous and constant mes--then I will scribble to my heart's content, until I have used up the Pokemon pencil I love you for giving to me.

I look at pictures of who I used to be and cannot believe (perhaps this is a reincarnation I could trust?), literally cannot believe, that I evern loved him. And if that eve- looks like two letter that make two words with two meanings, so be it, for they both apply.

and my mind more calls up recollections of lunchtime reflections on religion and righteousness and I wonder how I'm really supposed to feel. You heart (your mind?) can, and perhaps will, get the best of you in a way you can never expect and I begin (and continue) to wonder if "goodbye" means "not now" or "not you". And I hope in vain and in vain and in vain. And maybe someday it will be true. And you.

I don't know when this should end of if this should end, but you make me laugh and my hand continues to move across the page in a simple, easy wordflow that I haven't felt for long before. And a deep, glorious satisfaction at that mixes and mingles with this quiet and the joy I feel at being here and the tremors I feel at seeing you, and eventually I begin to feel as though the world has righted itself. As though the right choices have been made. And all this which I feel in my head (and in an ache somewhere in my lower back, where such feelings as must manifest themselves as discomfort come my way) competes with a nagging desire for a chocolate muffin and an increasing need to take a piss for the nine millionth time today.

And I don't know if I can ever stop writing and I don't know if I can ever love in a way that's right, and I twitch my hand into words in a way that fears your precious Pokemon lead is going to break. Some things are not acceptable and so I shy away from proper nouns.

My hands have started to shake, to ache. I cannot stop. I cannot continue. I'm flashing back to a wedding of my youth with no particular stimulus. I begin to shiver, to quiver, my head a hot mess of pain, and think perhaps it's time to go and let sound reawaken me, so things can be real encore.

Twenty-Eight