Bread and Bandages
5/14/2005
Over the Hills and Gone Away
Dear X,
You have no idea how far away you seem sometimes. Like right now, for instance, when all my friends and everyone I know seems terribly faraway. Jay is at his lover’s house tonight, which is farther than Malaysia, just now. Ayden is farther away than a letter can reach. Which is pretty goddamn far. My roommate, Shane, is sleeping, though to be honest with you, Shane never feels that close when he's awake. Alice is in Phoenix and anyways Alice is a person who comes over to put a disk in the computer and not smoke. And my parents are my father who calls me once a week on Shabbes to say goodbye and my mother who does not call at all, but sends a letter I cannot bring myself to read. Yesterday was Mother's Day and I spent it mostly at home, mute and drunk. And I am just now engaged in reading Pastoralia, by George Saunders, the man who wrote Civil War Land in Bad Decline which I liked wonderfully well, but Pastoralia less so. I am liking the fact that I am reading a new adult book far more than I am enjoying the book itself. Which is sort of like wearing a hair-shirt because you got it on sale. Anyways, it's a stale depressing book and reading it feels like eating a tin of old saltine crackers all at once in a single sitting and you look up and the sky's gray with dawn and there's
crumbs all down your front but your tummy growls. It's the kind of book that sort of seals you away in a clear little bubble and the air runs out and all your friends are on the other side. It's the sort of book that could ruin the taste of steak. The sort of book that makes being lonely dull. A make-work book. But I'm a good ways through and going to go back and finish it anyways. Who knows--maybe it's one of your favorites. Maybe some day I’ll give you this and you'll put it down half-way
through in amazement and say 'Girl, you didn't like Pastoralia? Are you crazy?' And we'll argue back and forth fussy/joking for ten minutes and maybe it'll end with us throwing popcorn at each other and laughing and maybe it'll end with one of us going up stiffly to bed and the other just nodding off alone on the couch, but either way I'm looking forward to that just now.
Optomessedicly Yours,
Shoshana Meigh ¶ 11:45 PM 0 comments
You have no idea how far away you seem sometimes. Like right now, for instance, when all my friends and everyone I know seems terribly faraway. Jay is at his lover’s house tonight, which is farther than Malaysia, just now. Ayden is farther away than a letter can reach. Which is pretty goddamn far. My roommate, Shane, is sleeping, though to be honest with you, Shane never feels that close when he's awake. Alice is in Phoenix and anyways Alice is a person who comes over to put a disk in the computer and not smoke. And my parents are my father who calls me once a week on Shabbes to say goodbye and my mother who does not call at all, but sends a letter I cannot bring myself to read. Yesterday was Mother's Day and I spent it mostly at home, mute and drunk. And I am just now engaged in reading Pastoralia, by George Saunders, the man who wrote Civil War Land in Bad Decline which I liked wonderfully well, but Pastoralia less so. I am liking the fact that I am reading a new adult book far more than I am enjoying the book itself. Which is sort of like wearing a hair-shirt because you got it on sale. Anyways, it's a stale depressing book and reading it feels like eating a tin of old saltine crackers all at once in a single sitting and you look up and the sky's gray with dawn and there's
crumbs all down your front but your tummy growls. It's the kind of book that sort of seals you away in a clear little bubble and the air runs out and all your friends are on the other side. It's the sort of book that could ruin the taste of steak. The sort of book that makes being lonely dull. A make-work book. But I'm a good ways through and going to go back and finish it anyways. Who knows--maybe it's one of your favorites. Maybe some day I’ll give you this and you'll put it down half-way
through in amazement and say 'Girl, you didn't like Pastoralia? Are you crazy?' And we'll argue back and forth fussy/joking for ten minutes and maybe it'll end with us throwing popcorn at each other and laughing and maybe it'll end with one of us going up stiffly to bed and the other just nodding off alone on the couch, but either way I'm looking forward to that just now.
Optomessedicly Yours,
Shoshana Meigh ¶ 11:45 PM 0 comments
