Those Three Days
apologies to Lucinda Williams*
A note about this post: Something I try to do when teaching is to do my own writing assignments. Obviously I don’t always succeed. Currently I’m teaching Introduction to Creative Writing and their first main assignment was to write a narrative (fiction or non) made up of three scenes, each in the first person, present tense, and unfolding in real time. They could be connected directly, implicitly, or not at all, except that even they would be, because everyone in the dream is you. I liked the results and they seemed to fit into my occasional series of journals from the current condition, so I thought I would share here.
Speaking of the current condition, I know everyone reading this is probably already donating and giving tons of time a lot to fight the ongoing horrors of this regime. If you’re like me, you may have felt overwhelmed by the end of year donation push, so it might be a good time to set some intentions on donating this year. One small but helpful thing if you want to make a difference is to set up recurring donations even if small so that those you support aren’t tied to the immediate news cycle. Speaking of which I just want to take a minute to uplift the ongoing needs in Gaza since the so-called “ceasefire.” You’ve probably read that an average of one child a day has been killed since the, and that winter is creating untenable conditions for those living in tents and vulnerable after two and a half years of displacement, untreated illness and malnutrition. This year I’m continuing to making regular donations to the Middle East Children’s Alliance, and this week am donating to Impossible Light. I had the honor of reading at a fundraiser for them last year and they are one of countless small organizations doing truly heroic work to sustain life in the face of the death machines.
A reminder that I will be reading from my book (!) at Lofty Pigeon with my poetry comrades Carrie and Arden in my neighborhood of Kensington Brooklyn Tuesday, January 27th at 6:30 PM and I’d love to see you there. It’s free but please do RSVP to support poetry and independent book stores! As of now (Sunday night), it looks like the subways and snow should be cleared enough that it’s a go, but if not, we’ll let you know!
On to the post.
(Image is self-portrait from certified genius Lynda Barry, my unofficial co-Professor this term. If you want a jolt of creativity in your life, I’d suggest ditching The Artist’s Way and getting you some Syllabus or What It Is. Thank me later.)**
Those Three Days
Wednesday: Rice and Beans
After my class, I go to the cafeteria. Since COVID, a lot of CUNY schools have closed theirs or they have more limited hours or selections, so I try to go. I don’t want it to go the way of our campus bookstore. There’s a guy who works there who always greets me, which is nice, and I try to get hot food, usually rice and beans. The radio usually plays Pat Benetar or Duran Duran, same as the Donut Diner where I go a lot of Wednesdays with A, after picking him up from his after school. We have a regular waitress there too, who knows A’s order and is playful with him in a way I really adore, that makes me susceptible to nostalgic fantasies about small town life in diners with tough-talking waitresses. The last time we were there we sat next to a couple with a toddler. A went up and hugged the little one as he tends to do. The toddler only wanted his Dad, and the waitress gave the mom a sympathetic look. “Mom does all the work and they just want Dad.”
Back in the cafeteria the friendly guy is talking about somewhere warm he went, I think either Puerto Rico or the DR. There were times that these interactions were all that kept me afloat, when I was, or thought myself to be a person who was just sliding through, who was no one to anybody who could be pulled under at anytime. Now for good or ill I am many things to many people and it’s not like that anymore, but still that Wednesday seemed like a day where it mattered very much what the guy in the cafeteria and the lady at the diner said, and that we were both there, saying those things to each other.
I had been thinking all that, but then I caught wind of what was coming in through the radio, and it wasn’t “Rio” or “Living on a Prayer.” It was some woman with a voice from a movie, saying that “illegal border crossings” were at an all time low. It wasn’t the news, even the propagandistic kind: it was an ad or more precisely a warning: the announcement lady had come on like an assistant principle to say they would catch you and you better beware. I suddenly wished I was that younger afloat person, much as I do not miss her, just to not have had to remember exactly what movie we are in.
A Saturday Night, Some Years Ago
It’s probably around 2009, at a party for a smart political/literary magazine that’s still around. I’m talking to a friend I either came with or met there, and he’s talking to or about someone who has a piece in the magazine, a lightly fictionalized take on her dating life. In principle I am a defender of this kind of writing (if done well of course, says my still-arrogant brain) but in practice I am annoyed by this writer, so much so that I’m glad when we are interrupted by the guy who has a big novel out, but whose real writing, he tells us, is about climate.
“The thing is,” he says, “the thing is we are really fucked.” I nod. “No” he says. “You don’t understand. We are really, really fucked.” I nod again. The girl with the sex story nods too, seemingly relieved. That’s good she says, meaning that it’s good we’re talking about it.
Obviously it wasn’t the first time I’d heard someone talk that way. I remember someone’s college boyfriend saying he wasn’t having kids, because this shit’s going down. But kids have always talked that way, and around then was around the time it started to feel different - that people were saying it who weren’t the kind you would expect. But there was something in common the guy with the big novel had with the nineteen-year-old boyfriend. The boyfriend had the roguish charm of the young who can afford hopelessness, the novelist had that charge of forbidden knowledge, the charge me and the sex girl got from him telling us we were fucked, that made him feel daring.
Today statements of despair come with no such charge. It’s another thing we’ve lost.
Thursday: The Cop in the McDonald’s Window
Outside the McDonald’s on First Avenue there’s an ad that says “1 in 8 Americans has worked at McDonald’s.” It seems unlikely, but who knows. I say “ad” but there’s nothing on it saying “start your career with us today!” It could just be a local variation on those kiosks with their possibly fake facts.
Inside, there’s a cop sitting at the table next to the window. He looks little and hunched over. He’s on his phone, of course, and looks tired, they way almost everyone does these days, but not most cops, who usually look more bored than tired and have the restless energy of naughty children. He has his phone propped in his hat which sits in front of him on the table. He is small and looks even smaller when I see him through the window. He looks like someone who, out of uniform, the storm troopers would be going after. He doesn’t seem to be eating anything.
Outside, a man is tapping on the window, trying to get his attention. “Get to work!” he shouts. “Get to work!” Cops on their phones is a well noted thing; people have opinions.
On the sidewalk, two young guys bounce off the weird energy of the interaction. Yeah, cops don’t do shit, one of them says. I think but don’t say, that’s the best case scenario. They’re talking about their relative states of inebriation. One of them says “I do sometimes get low-key white girl drunk”
Their slang and energy is charming to me, I can’t help it.
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Some things to read: “If anyone can pull off a general strike, it’s Minnesota”
“How October 7th Remade Jewish Politics in America”
“I’m the last Columbia protester still in ICE custody”
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*Did you know that song (one of my Lucinda favorites) is about Ryan freaking Adams? And so is this one? She has a nice dish about this and many other Men from the Songs in her memoir Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets, which I highly recommend even if you are less motivated by such base things than I am. Also, did you know Lucinda Williams owns a bar in the East Village now? She’s going to be there Sunday but it’s sold out which is a bummer since I was going to see her in October 2023 but decided to get arrested instead which was the right choice of course but damn.
** Relatedly, I loved this look back by my friend Bri Hopper about that other self-help/woo-woo/writing book Bird by Bird.