MAY 2026
- Many days it makes no difference. I try to account for the lack of difference. I try to extinguish the days from each other, and in the process, I am extinguished. All the food we get rid of has to be accounted for.
- Poached ; Keep it Hidden ; Drop-Down Menu ; The gray in between ; Her beige espadrilles
- "As for the scrappy parking lot trees, you are full of tenderness for the feminine in them." - LR
- "Your concept is clear: to practice dreaming, then to dream, then to make a record" - LR (forever..)
- RED PAIL / BLUE BUCKET
- Universal Tray
- Dump No Waste
- Never → To → Shove → It → Never →
The manager of the visitor center points out his neighbor who has Alzheimer’s to us. He says, “It’s so sad, she has Alzheimer’s.” She’s walking a grey toy poodle along the gravel road. The whole area is devastated, and there’s lots of men in tactical gear fly fishing. We just want to find a place to swim. // The day before, the shopkeeper asks A to help him resituate himself in his wheelchair; he says we can pet his hen, and he tells me that I look like his granddaughter. // [REDACTED]. // The manager of the visitor center offers to give us a ride. He keeps talking about his photography and his award-winning photos of trout. He shows us landscape scenes, and I’m moved by this desire to be seen, to connect, to have one’s art reach another. On the drive, he spends most of the time pointing out the destruction from hurricane Helene. He tells us that in the early 20th century, a railroad ran through this town. He tells us that during a historic flood, one house was carried clear across town. // I want to be receptive to life and generous to the people I meet. // At some point during the drive, he unlocks his phone to show us more of his photography. He’s eager for us to see photos of his models, and they’re these cheap looking pictures of women wearing tight white sweaters against fall foliage, bikini tops and mermaid tails half-submerged in water. // I feel my body take on more of its shape, or I guess I mean I become more conscious of my body; I’m insecure and experience a diffuse fear. I’m not afraid of him but tired by the inevitably of this situation, its dull objectification. // Throughout the rest of the interaction, I’m preoccupied with confusion about the nature of these transactions with his models; in what way is money exchanging hands? Does this man pay these models, taking photos of them to build his portfolio? Or do the models pay him to take these photos, so that they can build their portfolios? He’s taken photos of his friend’s daughter. He shows us one girl who’s “fifteen but looks twentyfive.” I become more conscious of my body. He keeps mentioning that tonight he’s going to build a bonfire and watch a movie on the projector, and he invites us to join him. I politely sidestep the offer. This man has been kind to us. I want to be receptive to life and generous to the people I meet. I don’t want to be preoccupied by the photographs of these women, but holding his phone and swiping through these images, I feel my body take on more of its shape.
At the same time, I know I can be all drama and no fun on here. Materially, there’s not that much I actually want you to know, but if you’re curious: I strained my neck. I watched 14 movies. S and I ate Indian food. I parted ways with C. I read Robert Gluck's "About Ed." L and I tried to start filming a movie. A and I went camping in NC. P&L&I showed La Cienaga. We messed around on L’s DJ deck and played Mario Kart. J came to visit and I got sick. A stayed on a farm, and when I was there with him, I remembered Portland, “my old life,” anew. I’ve been reading Woolf’s Orlando over the past few weeks, and there’s this passage that feels really relevant, let me find it …
“Meanwhile she began turning and dipping and reading and skipping and thinking as she read, how very little she had changed all these years. She had been a gloomy boy, in love with death, as boys are; and then she had been amorous and florid; and then she had been sprightly and satirical; and sometimes she had tried prose and sometimes she had tried drama. Yet through all these changes she had remained, she reflected, fundamentally the same.”
Maybe I have an old life but it’s still the same one. Time accumulates, and everything I’ve lived is all still there, it has to be. In Portland, I was a gloomy boy. I’ve been florid and satirical too. I’m still trying with poetry, and sometimes prose now – I want one to feed the other. I’ve been thinking about dogs, negation, postal systems, travelogues, bisexuality, and fear – through these changes I suppose I remain fundamentally the same.
