ilya glazunov
coffee twins 🥺
(this happens all the time actually . . . laura and i are in sync with each’s coffee cycle which is cute)
happy bicycle day 😉
when i first moved to the bay area nearly a decade ago, i met a lot of different kinds of people and had a lot of strange experiences with them. it was a good time. one of those experiences i have never written about, but for some reason i recalled it just now on my drive from asheville back to tennessee.
many years ago now i met this woman in san francisco. i remember her face but not her name, which leads me to believe she never told me what it was, since i never ever forget someone’s face and name, no matter how briefly i knew them. she had me meet her at this abandoned pier somewhere near the dogpatch . . . i am certain this place doesn’t exist anymore. the pier was small and derelict and had not been used in a long time. it was locked behind a rusted barbed wire fence. she said, “are you down to climb over it?” it was dusk and there was no one else around. i said: “of course i am.” and so we clambered over, avoiding the barbed wire, and hopped down unscathed onto the concrete below. we walked out onto the rotted pier, which was full of treacherous holes leading to the icy san francisco bay, and got to the end where the wood was still relatively intact. it was cold as hell with all the wind. we sat crosslegged and she took out some wine and food from her bag and we drank and ate together.
she said: “i had to know whether or not you would agree to jump over the fence with me. if you had said no, i would have left.”
that did not sound draconian to me. i knew what she was getting at. it was a sort of personality litmus test. had i chickened out, she would have known i was a certain kind of person, meaning the wrong kind of person (as far as she was concerned). she wanted to hang out with someone who was down to go places you weren’t supposed to go, which of course are the best places to go. and there on the end of the pier we were just two dark shapes and we didn’t know each other at all, but had done this small thing together for the sake of doing anything at all. we wanted to talk to each other, to someone we had never met before, because really that’s the most fun you can ever have. in jumping over the fence to be alone and away from other people, we at least knew we had that in common.
we spoke for a long time . . . it was hours. we only left because of how cold it had become. and once we got back to the other side she tightened her backpack over her shoulders and stood there with arms akimbo. she hugged me and kissed me on the cheek and told me good-night, and then walked off into the dark. it was the only time i ever saw her. for some reason it seemed like enough. i guess we both figured that what we had experienced together was all it ever needed to be. i still remember everything we talked about and i’m glad we met, but it’s ok that that was the extent of it. what i got out of it was a little story. i can’t really explain it any better than that.
maybe i just had one of those nights again . . . it had been a while! i don’t think i’ll ever get tired of it. or anyway i hope i don’t. it is such a special thing to gaze through a tiny window into another world that is not yours, and to meet friendly strangers with whom you instantly befriend but know for only a few hours. whenever i tell laura or tracey about these sort of nights, they say something like, “that’s such a ryan story.” well, that’s fine. it’s just too much fun is all. i can’t help it . . . i just dig that sort of thing, you know . . . driving through the night out of some strange town reeking of cheap coffee and a cigarette i bummed from someone at the bar to get back to wherever it is i came from, knowing i’ll probably be sleeping in the back of the car when i get there, all fried and worn down and rattled in that good way. i know it doesn’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things, but it’s just a thing i like to do. and of course i’ll remember all of it, and think about it sometimes, and it becomes a part of the tapestry of my life . . . or whatever (lol)~
anyway. . . .
today i met my dad’s new dog. he’s real small and only has three working legs but he’s super fast! this is us waiting in the car earlier today, when my dad had me drive him to this weird log cabin so he could buy a shotgun with cash.
i accidentally found a secret path through the forest
it rules
Well: It is spring now, which is just a prelude to summer. And so I have begun listening to SUMMER MUSIC, what with it being warm and breezy and all that. Here are two of The Good Ones, in my opinion . . . and I have been listening to both a lot recently!
NUMBER GIRL is one my favorite bands. They put out four excellent albums, and then Shutoku Mukai went on and formed ZAZEN BOYS, who also rule. Though yeah, SCHOOL GIRL BYE BYE is their first album, and I reckon it’s my favorite one. It’s just honest stuff is all . . . kinda sloppy and jangly in that good way. Also it is a steady ride the whole way though. If you’re driving a car and you put this on, you’re gonna have a real good time. I’ve played this album on every Oakland to LA drive I’ve ever done, which is a lot! Though yeah: roll down the windows and let it rip!!
REMEMBER SPORTS (formally just SPORTS (which is a better name (sad face))) is another honest and unpretentious band. Their songs are usually about hangin out and being in love or falling out of love, and so on. And even when they’re singing about something kinda heavy . . . it’s still bright and beautiful and feels summery in a high school sort of way. And as far as their first album SUNCHOKES goes, there isn’t a bad song on the whole album. There are certain albums that are real Time and Place for me, and this one right here reminds me of fleeing Portland and triumphantly returning to Oakland a few years ago. It was this time of year, and the weather was so pretty in Oakland as it always is, and I drove around listening to this album probably every day for months. I love it!!
• • •
AND ON THE TOPIC
OF SUMMER. . . .
Yesterday I visited a small city I like. I won’t say which one, because if I do it might vanish altogether. I have been going there every other week for a month I reckon, and every time I do it feels like gazing into an episode of the TWILIGHT ZONE . . . like it’s this dreamy thing I can only observe from afar behind glass. I can’t really interact with in any meaningful way, being an outsider and all. When I visit, I just see this laidback utopia like Austin used to be for me, and I envision myself subletting a small studio apartment and buying a bicycle and just hanging out there for the summer. I would read and write all day, and take long baths, and then get spooked up and ride my bicycle around all night. Maybe I’d even have a summer fling . . . who knows!
In my mind it is an idea built out of spiderwebs. It is so delicate I’m afraid to look at it dead on. I don’t actually know if that thing exists the way I think it does, and even if it did, how could I get my hands on it? I feel like anytime I ever get a hold of something, I ruin it, or else it is ruined for me. I don’t know. But the idea of rolling into this place and having a strange stretch of months and then slipping out sounds so nice to me. And maybe this is the only point in time when I could pull something like that off. It is a strange time, after all. I knew summers like that long ago. To have one like that again would make me feel a lot better about everything. Well . . . I’m still thinking about it. The barriers are low at any angle, and there is hardly any risk, so why not. . . .
Anyway . . . I’m going to read a few chapters from this Yukio Mishima novel I got, and then I’m going to eat a bunch of flower capsules and pray I end up in a nice quadrant of my brain. Otherwise it’s another trip down to Nightmareland. Hain’t like I got a choice. What can you do, really, except go to sleep and see where you end up??
☆彡
benvenuto disertori
imagine being a multi-billionaire and using absolutely none of your money to help eradicate human misery and abject poverty lol
