tuesday april 24 2001 | 12:56 a.m.
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this space reserved exclusively for you.
i got the books today. the new carl phillips, the tether, and newish john ashbery, your name here. and they completely brightened my day. it was unusually warm and breezy, and i sat on the lawn outside ascension hall with the books in my lap, reading from one, then another, then back again.
thank you so much. you rock.
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i've got static in my head
the reflected sound of everything
tried to go to where it led
but it didn't lead to anything
a voicemail message from human resources told me today that i didn't get the job. so sorry, but we don't think your interests lie particularly in publishing. so new york is farther away now. but that's a considerable weight off my shoulders.
but wait, add another one back on. my parents reacted surprisingly i suppose, but like i was telling julie, at this point i shouldn't have been surprised. my father shrugged it off and then started talking about practical matters: how now that i am going back home i should get rid of the friends that "bring me down" (read: all of them, back home) and build a new set of contacts. contacts. something along those lines. my mother i think was annoyed that she would not be able to go apartment shopping in new york, and pay me all-too-frequent visits. one vacation destination down. then she agreed with my father, and proceeded to recommend that i figure out once and for all what it is i want to do. then she asked whether we should start looking for jobs in new york. we. this is not cute, this is scary. i said maybe, i said first i need to make enough money to move away -- she resented "move away" -- and then maybe new york, maybe miami, maybe the west coast? she said no, definitely not the west coast, it's too far away.
sorry this is incredibly bitter. but i realized today that i'm still trapped. in my own little cage. more months. back to zero.
the good news. it was warm today, and mostly sunny. i got books in the mail. i watched eat drink man woman, laughed and cried my eyes out and felt much better. i sold some of my things to underclasspeople. natalie e-mailed. you e-mailed. you e-mailed and will be here on saturday. fritz's boy is coming on wednesday. julie is going to bulgaria. i am free again from the lure of corporate america. i will be able to get into record label things in miami. i will have patrick around. my uncles are coming to visit. the debauchery of summer sendoff this weekend. believe it or not, the michael palmer paper. and, i suppose, in a way, starting over.
. . . If I have
described us
as a reasonable but flawed kind
of proof of
some fact that I keep
forgetting, I might have
added that not
only do I respect, I
require mystery.
: Carl Phillips :
