i'm starting to read women as lovers, which is the english translation of die liebhaberinnen by elfriede jelinek.

it's pink, and the front cover has, in simple huge white text, WOMEN AS LOVERS.

i'm only on page 16, because it's been hard to get started during the holidays. but already i have had strangers talk to me about it 3 times. it gets attention. a waitress in cleveland saw me reading it and said, "may i ask what that book is about?" i said i was on page 3. then, a week later, i was back in that same place, reading a different book. the same waitress came up and said, "so how was that other book?"

this morning on the train a guy was talking loudly to someone across the car. "and jesus will be coming back soon. it's gonna happen, a time like this. when it's eight o'clock and the sun ain't come up on the 2nd, you know that's gonna be on the news. it's gonna happen, mark my words."

he noticed me standing and reading. after staring for a second (i had no idea why), he laughed a huge laugh and said, "you just think you be reading that book! oh yeaahhh! that's the book! oh yeah, ha ha heh heh heh!"

i might have to put a post-it over the cover.

i'm in ohio, playing with otis. otis is a dog. i call him otie. it's a mac i'm typing this on, sitting at a desk with a nice blond finished top. there is bad christmas music playing, but that's okay.

otie was ignoring me, because there are too many people here. so i gave him a piece of peanut butter cookie. and now we're best friends again.

yesterday i was reading on a downtown train at rush hour, not paying attention to anything. suddenly a woman screamed at the top of her lungs, an uncontrolled terrifying scream. more people started screaming, and about fifteen people in the middle of the car all scattered in a circle away from a bag on the ground.

we're all going to die, i thought.

i was leaning on the door to the next car. a very professional woman went to go past. she said to me, informing me, "there's a rat on the train."

i went into the next car. the next stop was my transfer anyway. i find myself worrying about the rat. i wonder if he managed to get off.

from the writings of josh gallaway, age 23.


journal, 1997

"everyone in seattle has the same beard as me. since seattle is the poster city of our generation, does that mean that joe is correct when he calls me the poster child of our generation? blech ..."

things were different ten years ago. long hair, bill clinton, internet money. a sliver of punk still left on the radio.

my favorite record that came out his year was boxer, by the national. but obviously i didn't listen to them all.

what was yours?

ada, the national

i checked my temperature and it was almost 103. i decided i had to do something, so i took two extra-strength tylenol. over the next hour, i was suddenly drenched with sweat, and my temperature dropped 2.5 degrees. i could actually feel myself coming out of a fog into a really hot room. and my senses returned.

i am a scientist, i guess, but i have no faith. i don't believe in medicine's ability to do anything, or an airplane's ability to fly, or anything like that. all sounds a little too incredible to me. the moon landing, holy shit, never.

but sometimes i need a reminder. i'm just perennial doubter.

sexuality, billy bragg

life has always been confusing, but less so lately. when i was younger, nothing made sense, and it didn’t bother me a lot.

today it’s cold, and walking on broadway i thought of shuffling along in a line, on a day of the same temperature, on a covered sidewalk in elementary school. you could see your breath.

a line of older kids was going the other way, and one towered over me. “what grade you in boy?” he said.

kindergarten, was the strangely sweet and quiet response i gave him. he didn’t even stop. why had he wanted to know? i wondered for years.

this morning shaving, i cut my top lip with the trimmer i use for my beard. it bled a little red line across my slightly-less-red lip. all through showering, i could taste it. i could taste it on the crowded 2 train this morning. i could taste it during lunch. it's only a tiny little cut.

it is time for the first snow, this fine grey sunday in new york city, as seen from my queens fire escape.


it's snowing in queens, u.s.a.

after a summer that couldn't let go, when it was off and on 90 degrees well into september, i welcome our ghost of normalness, purring over all of us in the sky. december 2nd is the statistically most averagely perfect day for the winter's first lovely dusting of white.