even numbers

yesterday was the one year anniversary in which I returned to Alaska. I stayed at the Seattle apartment on 17th until 3 am, sitting on the wood floor in an empty room, listening to the Beta Band on my tinny phone speakers. I called a cab to take us to seatac for our 6am flight. entropy meowed exactly once. it was dark and clear, one of the first warm nights of the year. I could tell the cab driver knew he was part of something climactic. I guess if you're a cab driver, everything you're involved in is rather climactic... I mean, really... 

we arrived in anchorage and dropped entropy off and went to Snow City for breakfast. there are photographs on the interwebs of me smiling widely at this moment. snow on the ground and grey skies and the ugly squat town of my entire youth... my closest friends and comforting, suffocating familiarity. 

I thought of all that yesterday. it was bumming me out. so I made a mental list of all the things, all the things I already consider mundane, that I did yesterday that I could not have ever fucking done in Alaska. and I felt much better. 

-awoke in a loft

-ate tortillas that cost 72/$2.39 at Safeway, not 72/$6.99 at Carrs. same exact brand. fuck that shit! 

-bought coffee from a place that was playing "psylla" by Glass Animals, which is one of the sexiest songs ever. the YouTube video is awful, though, so don't watch it. 

-knit an entire hat in the sunshine on the porch behind my work whilst I waited for my client...jeans rolled up and arms bare, almost uncomfortably hot on the first day of april. 

-bought weird organic soda at the co-op by my house because it was the closest grocery store open at 1035pm. the closest grocery store is a health-food co-op. (Zevia is vile, by the way.) 

-rode the prompt bus home from work late at night, and was accompanied by other humans in varying levels of normalcy who were doing the exact same thing. to be in a place where the bus is a vessel for the masses! god, that alone. 

-sang along to "we can work it out" by myself at the bus stop before realizing that the driver waiting for the light totally had his window down. 

-saw multiple parked cars covered with blossoms.

-went to a wholesale massage supply place and eavesdropped on people talking about ions. 

-ate a delicious scone. I did not know delicious scones even existed until Seattle.

-a guy in the supermarket said I was "cuuuuuute." 

-holly bushes, gerbera daisies, a citywide zingy restlessness, slanty sunset shadows. 

I felt better once I realized the reality of it all. 

April fools! have some toxoplasmosis! love, entropy. 

on a car in a respectable part of town. 

"some of us weren't being honest, and unless we got honest, we'd never recover... 'write it or don't' was a refrain I taught in my writing workshops... 'be more loyal to the art than to what created that art.'" 

Jill Talbot