here are some complaints
four years ago my mother came to visit me in Paris; I sent her back with the absentee ballot for my first election. a few weeks later I was in an underground bar, staying up until six in the morning to see who would win, surrounded by expats and natives and people from various countries. there was one drunk asshole who kept taking my glasses off of my face, but we were all really excited (and exhausted, and drunk) when they finally said that anything left to count wouldn’t change the outcome. it was an exciting first time to vote.
this year I went on the first day of early voting. the whole process took about fifteen minutes and didn’t feel nearly as momentous. this sticker is a little garish for my tastes, and i’m a little more jaded than i was four years ago. i’m voting more out of fear for the alternative than conviction, and i’ve never really felt attached to an identity as an American (just a victim of circumstance, as far as that’s concerned), but you have to hold on to something, i guess.
anyway, if you can vote, do. you heard it here last.
"It’s cool with me that you take the road less traveled - it’s part of what makes you special."
my mom, in an email about a middle-school acquaintance of mine having a baby, leaving me really puzzled about the world she lives in where she thinks that a) i am on the ‘road less traveled’ by not having a baby by now, and b) that i would need comforting because of it
- me: [wah wah sad bullshit]
- harrison: if it makes you feel any better
- h: you know how you can get drunk quicker by putting alcohol in your butt?
- h: and that's a thing?
- h: well there's a name for it, and it's called butt chugging
inventory
My skin looks great. I just got a replacement tube for my bike today, so I’ve spent most of my ten days here staying indoors, drinking water, and rubbing olive oil into my face before I go to bed. I drink water with the scowling determination I used to devote to smoking. My nose is no longer gross and red and scaly like it usually is, but I pee so often that my hands are really dry from washing them so much.
I learned how to put my hair up in a new and cute (? ha) way that mostly disguises how shaggy and shapeless it’s become. I’m (trying to start) running again because I figure if this is the year I finally get my diploma it should also be the year I stop looking like a swamp hag. I never leave dishes in the sink overnight and I consider the day a failure if I don’t put down at least 100,000 bells toward my house payment in Animal Crossing.
Deflating the air mattress on someone else’s living room floor because only one of you is there anymore so you can just sleep on the couch seems as apt a metaphor as any for relationship dissolution.
I am the Enola Gay of drama bombers right now.
