We can't be beat.

Daydreaming about three days from now, when I'll be with Q, listening to the new Walkmen record, talking hearts and riding bikes. Sometimes you know people, and it is always good. First, though, passing the ever-heating days at work with stories and stolen glances down the street:



"I was the Duke of Earl
The Duke of Earl
But it couldn't last
I was the Pony Express
But I ran out of gas
Oh golden dreams
Golden dreams, all lose their glow

I don't need perfection, I love the whole
Oh give me a life, that needs correction
Nobody loves, loves perfection
Loneliness, loneliness will run you through
All the kids are laughing, I'm laughing too

If you want my eyes, take my eyes, they're always true
If you want my heart, take my heart, it's right here for you
Its been so long, been so long, but I made it through"

- The Walkmen, "We Can't Be Beat"

One minute there was road beneath us; and the next, just sky

Sunday at the beach:

Falling is like this

'can't fight gravity on a planet that insists'

How does it feel?

All night, screens pointed to the sky:

This is a promise with a catch

And I know you are waiting.
And I know that it is not for me.
But I'm here, and I'm ready.
And I saved you the passenger seat.
- Josh Ritter, "Kathleen"

You can throw your voice all you like

Shake off your doubt, grab ahold
Sometimes the hardest part is letting you go

(I left the light on)
- damien jurado

I was flat on my back with my feet in the thorns

traded all the innocence I ever had for hesitation

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne

Sunday was a three-dessert kind of day. Thankfully I also biked quite a few miles.

Tome of memory, its random blank pages

"You can get there from here, though
there's no going home."

- Natasha Tretheway, "Theories of Time and Space"

Left hook: You've got dead aim.

Over-exposed in San Francisco:

Your shadow weighs a ton

light years and love lost

"I think now that I understand
the things some women make their happiness of—
the water that waits in seashells, questions that silence themselves—"

-- Alane Rollings

settling a bit each day, the way all things do

Where water moves on its way to you:





"... left me to wonder that I too might lift
my voice, sure of someone out there,
send it over the lines stitching here
to there, certain that the sounds I make
are enough to call someone home."

- Natasha Trethewey, "At Dusk"

What the living do

Recent scenes from in and around my apartment:







What the Living Do by Marie Howe

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:
I am living. I remember you.

If you don't know me by now

Notes on Spring's recidivism:

1. Usher - Climax
2. Jai Paul - BTSTU
3. Smokey Robinson - The Tracks of My Tears
4. The Cranberries - Linger
5. Laurie Anderson - O Superman
6. Purse Candy - Fire Fight
7. Harold Melvin - If You Don't Know Me By Now

Left for the lights always in season

Sunday was Worldwide Pinhole Day. For the past couple of weeks, my new friend Tim has been teaching me how to make a pinhole camera, measure light and calculate F-stops and shutter speeds and then how to develop the film. Here are some scenes from Sunday. I also took another ghostly rugged self-portrait, but I don't have a digital copy. Maybe some other time.