Actual Air

Imagining Defeat

She woke me up at dawn,
her suitcase like a little brown dog at her heels.

I sat up and looked out the window
at the snow falling in the stand of blackjack trees.

A bus ticket in her hand.

Then she brought something black up to her mouth,
a plum I thought, but it was an asthma inhaler.

I reached under the bed for my menthols
and she asked if I ever thought of cancer.

Yes, I said, but always as a tree way up ahead
in the distance where it doesn't matter

And I suppose a dead soul must look back at that tree,
so far behind his wagon where it also doesn't matter.

except as a memory of rest or water.

Though to believe any of that, I thought,
you have to accept the premise

that she woke me up at all.

- David Berman

the catastrophe of my personality

Don Draper reads Frank O'Hara, the very definition of heaven?

click through to listen

my life in boxes

Easter long weekend and I'm in a sea of packing. I'm not in love with moving house.

You'll never be young again

Just another Friday night at the Chauvel, watching Benjamin Braddock deal with his post-college ennui by drifting in his parent's pool and into the arms of two generations of serious foxes. If you had a young Dustin Hoffman wouldn't you do the same?

best pull up my skirt

the song is problematic in all kinds of ways (why don't you love me? really B?) and I know the Betty Page homage has been done to death but goddamn, Beyonce looks incredible in this video.

then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name

I have a serious weakness for mid-century design. It has this perfect retro-futuristic look, where you can tell absolutely what time it's from and it still looks modern. Neat trick.