There were three, I think. Perhaps a fourth escapes me. 

A hallway built through them, like a needle stuck straight through. 

The giant’s hands at work. 

Yes, maybe. I don’t know.

It ran right through. It made bridges between them, and under the bridges and along the sides were empty lots that filled up by mid-morning. More would come, the lots spilled over, the excess a slow circle back into itself.

The piercing was the common thing. The structures stood without regard to the other. Other than the piercing, and the movement.

I’ve been where you are. I can tell you some things.

Like,

On a certain floor on a certain day, separate yourself from the current. The door under the north staircase opens into a concrete courtyard, suspended below one parking lot and above another, concrete steps in a double helix through the center. Sit down on a step. Light a cigarette. The step will be cold.

There’s a photograph on each step. Her hair, when she appears, isn’t quite the same.

It’s close enough. Until it isn’t.

Don’t stay outside too long.

I CONFESS: it's tuesday

I’ve been listening to Christmas music since the end of August. Part of me is afraid I’m going to burn out by the time Christmas actually gets here, but the other part of me just wants to start lighting the Christmas candles I’ve been hoarding since last year. And the pro-Christmas part of me is bigger because it eats more cookies, so guess who wins. Also, if I were the sort of person who could use the word “juxtaposition” without sounding dumb, I would tell you that I’m quite enjoying the juxtaposition of my morning commute from Queens to Harlem against the tune of “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” (see: Children laughing, people pushing each other over to get a spot on the first M60 that comes even though everybody knows another one is thirty seconds away, children laughing some more and grinding potato chips into the floor with the toes of their light-up sneakers).

Don’t worry though, I’m not trying to skip fall. I sat near some hay bales outside Gansevoort Market the other day:

Now all I want to do is go to an orchard and pick things and drink cider, even though I know it’ll either be too cold or too hot for my liking and then I’ll complain about how heavy the pumpkin is and how it got dirt on my coat. It’ll still be fun though. I’m so fun!

The gym I “go” to was merged with one of its sister locations two blocks away. So now that it’s not directly across the street from my bus stop, which I need not point out is the greatest burden to ever be endured by mankind, I am feeling extra smug and accomplished about actually going. I confess, though, that I still wouldn’t have known the stupid gym had moved if Diego hadn’t gotten out of work early last night and picked me up so we could go together. (Monster. Actual monster.) Because if we hadn’t gone together I wouldn’t have gone at all. As it was, all I did was run a half-hearted mile and then walk on a .00001 incline while watching thirty minutes’ worth of Amberlynn Reid’s Youtube videos. (SUCH A COMPELLING CHARACTER.) See, the issue I have with working out is that once you start you do not immediately fit into size-two bikini bottoms. Which is enough of an issue for me that I don’t want to bother with it at all. Me and my pajamajeans are doing just fine without you, abs. Wherever you are. 

I can’t remember how many days it’s been since I washed my hair. 

I wrote most of this at work today. It’s amazing how much less time everything takes when someone isn’t making a series of increasingly-uncomfortable-to-listen-to personal phone calls at the desk behind you, or forcing you to mentally construct a detailed plan to launch yourself into the sun because they won’t stop tapping their desk and sighing or typing aggressively loudly (the reason their fingers are free for all this noise-making is because they are making the personal phone calls on a hands-free device, so don’t worry, at least they don’t look as douche-y as they’re acting. Don’t. Worry.)

c u r r e n t l y

Wanting to tell you that if you think my eyebrows are bad in the above selfie that I have shared apropos of nothing, you should see them now. I took that picture two weeks ago and have groomed them zero times. They're getting to a point where I sort of admire their audacity. That they're at a point where they can accurately be described as audacious and that I spent a full minute in the bathroom mirror at work today in actual awe of the way so many hairs grow a centimeter away from any spaces where it would be helpful for them to grow - that, friends, speaks to something. It does. I've just lost track of what since I started to tell you about it. 

Reading the piles and piles of forty-eight cent books I've accumulated from The Strand since Diego started working near there. Or trying to. I keep just re-reading books I've already read, like, I visited my mom recently:

and grabbed a Chuck Palahniuk I forgot I had there off the shelf and read it again. (Speaking of whom, she keeps saying things like, "Maybe one weekend we'll drive some boxes of your stuff to your apartment!" which I feel like is rude because I don't see what's wrong with my plan of just taking one book home every time I visit for the next forty years. It's cool though. I thought you loved seeing me, Mom, but it's cool. Message received.) Or I'm carefully sifting through the duct-taped pages of Margaret Atwoods that have somehow survived a decade's worth of beatings via the inside of a series of tote bags. Or I'm being salty that I let a friend borrow my copy of Down and Out in Paris and London a few years ago and haven't gotten it back yet because I REALLY WANT TO READ IT FOR THE TENTH TIME. THE TENTH TIME IS THE BEST TIME EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT.

Anyway, so, Reading something by Alice Hoffman that I forgot the name of because it's all the way in the other room. Illumination Night! So far a lady has jumped out of a window. But something about Alice Hoffman stories make me feel all autumn-y inside so I feel like I'll probably finish this one tonight provided I ever finish telling you about all of the things that are current.

Watching myself type this, obviously. But Alice Hoffman reminded me of Practical Magic (which is on Netflix now!!) which reminded me of the last movie I watched which was Face Off which is my favorite movie of all time since I watched it on Sunday night.  I saw it when it came out on VHS, but most of the time if a movie like that was on I was watching it with my brother and my mom's BFF's two sons. Which meant that what I was really doing was reading a book and/or writing in my diary with gel pen about the wretchedness of being surrounded by boys, while in front of the television three or more male children hopped around excitedly shouting "THIS IS MY FAVORITE PART! READY? READY? WATCH! THIS IS THE BEST PART!" So on Sunday when Adult Lindsay watched Face Off, she realized that it has everything she's ever wanted in a Lifetime movie PLUS Nicholas Cage's facial expressions.

Planning to count how many times I've said "which" since I started this. Seems like a lot of times. Whiches, witches, Halloween! Costumes! Planning costumes. I'm so good at this. I accidentally already picked mine while trying to get ready a few weeks ago:

If I can get Diego to be Rizzo I'm going as Sandy. You're the one that I love most, plastic shiny pants I bought online for reasons I cannot recall or comprehend. 

Anticipating:

And, like, I don't know, carving jack-o-lanterns and picking apples and stuff. But mostly the five-dollar box of commercials and tiny shampoos. 

“Our grand tapestry depicts the handwritten poem ‘Le Temps a Laissé Son Manteau,’ expertly printed on canvas.”

“Borrowing the intricate rococo flourish from an antique mirror, this grand pinboard elegantly frames a rotating display of photos, notes and treasured mementos.”

Who are these infants who have treasured mementos to display on thousand dollar pinboards whilst I, an adult lady, is scouring Amazon for the best deal on chalk so I can write YOU’RE OUT OF COFFEE JERKS on the square of chalkboard paint the tenants before us put there (and by “put” I mean “spun around in a circle with their eyes closed while holding a wet paintbrush, stumbling toward whatever wall they happened to be facing, and then moving the paintbrush-wielding arm in a rough approximation of a rectangle”)?  A “distressed canvas play tent” for three hundred dollars? THAT IS A TEEPEE. And for three hundred dollars I hope it comes with a bedtime story about how all the real teepees were burned down. Or ruined with scalp blood. Or however history went, I don’t know, I just feel like little Harlow or Max or whoever ought to know that there used to be zero dollar teepees to play in before SOMEBODY rubbed smallpox on everything.

I was waiting in line to give the nice admissions people at the MoNH laughably, laughably less than the suggested admission the other day when the mom standing behind me with her child spotted an outlet in a far corner. The speed and force at which she sent that kid toward that corner was such that I honestly, honestly thought that she could see the Virgin Mother floating above it. It was truly as though we were twelve weeks into an Odysseyen trek toward a tree bed and that outlet was a sexy, sexy siren. And then when the outlet didn't work - my brothers and sisters, I kid thee not when I tell you: There was actual anguish on the mother's face. Real, unadulterated anguish. Anyway it's moments like that I try to keep in mind when it feels like everyone has more money than me for distressed toy boxes full of iPads for each of their five kids' separate bedrooms in the apartments that they are somehow owners of while I live in near-constant fear that my converted-from-a-boarding-house one-bedroom over the bridge will be taken away from me because why would I be allowed to stay somewhere I love so much?

("Oh, that Lindsay. She really flew too close to the sun with her middling admin job and those windows that don't fit any of the standard-sized curtains sold in the tri-state area. She should have known it was all too good to be true when the desk people at Urgent Care were shocked into whispered conversations by how high her copay was. It was only a matter of time before the universe said it was just kidding and set everything on fire and exposed how terrible everything actually was supposed to be. She was 100% right to be so constantly worried.")

Someday soon I ought to actually read one of those emails from the cringe-y rotund woman at work about 401Ks, and perhaps funnel some of my amazon-cat-art-and-cigarette money into one. Someday less soon I would like to make a tiny Mexican-Lindsay hybrid. I'll keep it away from outlets as a general rule, I think, at least for a while, but I might distress a dresser drawer or two. For now though, what I want is to sit by this open window and watch the people walk by and listen to Nick Drake for as many hours as I want to, because nobody needs me to wipe their butt just yet.

How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,

my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.

So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,

and over our heads the grey light unwinds in turning fans

Pablo Neruda

[I was dreaming of you but]
just then
Dawn, in her golden sandals
                               [woke me]
Sappho

Last Saturday (the one where it was approximately 1059857 degrees in the shade AKA too hot to be a person AND we didn’t have internet) (if it seems like I’m obsessed with the weather lately it’s because I am, THE HUMANITY, honestly) I was watching It (because it’s the only DVD we own) while folding the hot clothes that had just come out of the dryer (whilst softly sobbing at my lot in life) and I realized that we have the exact same sink as Beverly Marsh. You know. This one:

Source: Me. I took it on set. Definitely not Google Images.

If you can tear your eyes away from baby Seth Green, that’s mine and Beverly’s BFF sink. (My heart burns there too, gurrl.) Except that mine is covered in hair instead of blood. Usually.

Our last apartment’s shower had what I lovingly referred to as the “Scary ‘It’ Drain.” Before that, the foyer of the building I lived in reminded me of the scene in the movie where Richie goes into the school basement to get a mop and Mr. Marsh is DRUNK AS A SKUNK and then a werewolf comes. I’ve sussed out similarities to It scenes in every place I’ve lived since I saw most of the movie from my hiding place next to our couch while I was supposed to be napping. I also still have nightmares starring Tim Curry, which are terrifying but also impressive re: the caliber of Dream Tim Curry’s performances.

It’s so cute how our Reptar brains are sometimes like, “GAH SABER-TOOTHED TIGER ['Or scary clown,' I later edit in because I realize that I made zero connection between Pennywise and the tiger in my head or in this blog]” even though we keep telling them there aren’t any of those left. I keep forgetting to tell mine, actually, which maybe is why it seems to think that there’s one crouching behind everybody who says “hi” weird. Or that there’s one hiding in the middle of all those people over there, and as soon as I go over and stand with them it’s going to knock me over and poke me in the eye with its tooth. Or that one saber-toothed tiger that follows me around all the time, like, no big deal, everyone, this tiger just follows me around all the time, I’m fine though, this is fine. Everything’s fine. Except that it might bite my legs off at any moment and there’s no way to tell when it’s going to happen and there’s nothing I’ll be able to do about it anyway, so. Thanks! Thanks for asking! Her name's Maude! Anyway, by “it’s so cute” I mean cute as in how babies are cute, by which I mean exhausting and I get a headache after a while.

Here's what my brain did this week:

My days have been too long and too quiet, is maybe why. It's Friday now, I'm leaving work in twenty minutes and I'm going to eat my body weight in sushi and wash it all down with beers and by the time Monday rolls around I will have had a mental refresh (I'm saying that in my head like RE!fresh) and I'll have that tiger on a daisy chain like the lady in the cards.