My dear friend Violet called me the other evening to let me know she was in the park across the street from my apartment. She asked if I'd join her and I said no, that I was comfortable on my couch, drinking wine, watching the news. She decided that sounded nice too. When she walked in, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a little yellow plastic creature and tossed it across my living room. Here, take this she said. A bunch of people have been passing it around, it's a good luck charm. I put it in my pocket, excited for its powers.
I had heard through the grapevine that an Italian man I have known for a few years is now single and interested in me. I got his phone number and texted him. He responded some hours later and we planned to have a drink the following evening. It just so happened to be his birthday the day I reached out. The evening of our planned meeting, I texted him around 6pm and he never texted back. I wasn't hurt more than I was annoyed.
I decided that I'd go see Midsommar, the movie that literally everyone is talking about this week. "How are you?" has been replaced by, "Have you seen Midsommar?" All that I've been saying to people regarding the film is that it's not a good movie but that they should go see it.
Going to Montreal a week from today for a long weekend. My friend R. and I are visiting her friend, H. We don't really have much of a plan other than to just relax, maybe find a place to swim. I'm secretly most excited about the train ride there and back. I heard online that it's a very beautiful ride. I went to Montreal once in high school with my friend Sophie. We went for our senior year spring break while the rest of the class went to Florida. We drove from Ohio to New York so we could see Bjork play at Carnegie Hall. We then drove up to Maine to drink coffee and look at the ocean. The water was much too cold to swim. Our last big stop was in Montreal, where we visited my friend Kathryn, who was studying at McGill. I don't remember much of what the city looked like. It was snowy and I got pulled over for turning right on a red light. We ate sushi, I think. One night, in Kathryn's large and charming apartment, we fell asleep with the windows open. The sounds of yelling college students and drunk escapades lulled me to sleep in the living room. Between asleep and awake, a scream had caught my attention and gradually lifted me into awareness. Kathryn came out of her bedroom and she looked at me with an intense silence. The scream wasn't outside, it was in fact in her stairwell. An unforgettable, paralyzing scream. A scream I had in that moment realized I had never heard. A horror movie-in-real-life scream. The screaming woman was yelling at someone but we heard no other voice. Fists banging on a glass paned door, screaming, screaming screaming. Kathryn called the cops and in the meantime, the screaming kept up. 2 minutes later - dead silence. We looked out Kathryn's window which faced the street. The cop car was empty and into our frame of view came the woman, shaking, talking to a police officer. One of the two cops opened the car door and the screaming woman who was no longer screaming gently entered the car, hands free with her head up. That's most of what I remember of Montreal.
I just finished reading Joan Didion's White Album. Many people over the years have persisted that I read it. I didn't like Slouching Towards Bethlehem all that much but I would consider The Year of Magical Thinking one of the best books I've read. I didn't care much for White Album once it was over. I don't care much for the 60's or the 70's. People back then, especially men, seemed really stupid based on the little I have read and watched and learned. It really bothers me. I also hate the imagery of that time. I had a brief moment where the clothing was inspiring to me but now that regurgitated fad is irrelevant and it repulses me. While reading White Album, I found myself squirming a lot. I liked the last essay, however, about the orchids and Malibu.
This Summer is not so good so far. It feels as though the energy has been sucked out of just about everyone that I know. Not in the usual post-beach exhausted-ness that is actually rather comforting, but as if everyone's motivation and excitement has been sucked out of them entirely. There is a dull-ness to this Summer that I don't think has much potential to shift or change or evolve before Autumn comes. My friends are blue, the air is thick, no one seems to want to eat. The parties feel more like chores and doing laundry feels like a punishment. It's simply this Summer's mood. This Summer's identity. It's the theme that when remembered will be the antithesis of the decade's final Summer: Dead.
That being said, there is one thing I do like about this Summer. I like the way that everyone seems the be extremely sick of one another. It's in many ways entertaining compared the companionship and camaraderie I witnessed last Summer. The dreadfulness of everyone's presence is actually keeping drama at bay because no one wants to even sour their time interacting with one another. I can only imagine how things will look when Autumn comes around. I'm daydreaming of putting on my coat and stockings, reading outside without beads of sweat dripping onto the pages. Food tasting good again and hangovers not being as bad. I can't wait for the sun to go down at a reasonable hour and for it to rise when I like to wake up. To walk into my living room in the morning and not be hit by a wave of heat from keeping the air conditioners off. To take warm baths again and for my skin to be cleared of all the humid dirt that rests on my face. I long for the not-so-far days of normalcy. Summer feels like one long weekend.
The party ended this year before it started.
Need to get ready for work tonight at the movie theater. I hope my crush comes in and says hi. I tried to convince him the other night to go watch Takashi Miike's, Audition but I don't believe he did.
-m.
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