bajin580

30

In New York in the futuristic year 2024, Springtime is coming early: the sudden jump from freezing temps to 14 degrees C has led to subtropical days and high-energy rainstorms at night.

There’s a restaurant on Fourth Avenue that had a grilled salmon salad that was actually kind of disappointing. A little window was cut into the wall for delivery app workers. By my outdoor table the curbside trash bin overflowed with cigarette packs. I remember this because, a couple tables away, a woman said on her phone, in an apologetic tone, “I didn’t think about it like that.”

Preoccupied with Nietzsche discourse online today, causing unfortunate disturbances in my daily tasks…postmodernism delenda est.

29

We couldn’t hear the speeches of the vigil for Aaron Bushnell above the downpour, couldn’t see the speakers past the sea of umbrellas. Occasionally a flashbang from the Times Square ads for beach bars and electronics. Fortunately, my books didn’t get wet.

In my dream I watched TV with my dad and my sister. On the screen a woman’s damaged face wreathed with wriggling worms, her eyes cloudy and caked with scum, and the mouth way, way too big, with scraggly teeth in all directions. “Uh oh,” said Dad.

How do I proceed with breakfast when I haven’t finished digesting dinner yet.

28

Three PKDs: Solar Lottery, The World Jones Made, The Simulacra.

Self-immolation protests: Aaron Bushnell (2024), Mohamed Bouazizi (2011), Norman Morrison (1965), Thich Quang Duc (1963), Unnamed Woman (2023).

A narrow grayish blue door; a heavy black door that swings all the way open and stays in place.

27

Trying to cook again: omelets: melting the pad of butter in the pan till it’s foamy, whisking the egg in a cereal bowl with chopsticks, adding almond milk, sometimes water from the tap, a perfect sheet on the pan, despite the incline from the stove, two slices of American cheese, lightly toasted hearty white bread.

Trying to get better at pour-over coffee, even though I don’t have one of those gooseneck spouts: pour the boiling water from the kettle to the carafe, and pour from the carafe over the funnel, gently, just barely tipped, making slow clockwise circles, between ten and fourteen revolutions — most of the time it’s “oversteeped” and tastes too bitter.

Three memoirs: Black Butler’s Molly (2023), Robert Gluck’s About Ed (2023), Bill Berkson’s Since When (2018).