a shoutout to the following things, in order as they occur to me

Nights on 5th Street, watching the 1985 Green Bay, WI, Christmas Around the World parade on tape, The Killers' "Read My Mind" - seriously go download that song right now - the brownies we are going to make in twelve minutes, as soon as America's Next Top Model ends, Top Chef, my brother, who bought me a ticket to Atlanta for late February and sent me tons of music, super chunky bleu cheese dressing, the band Hard Fi, sleeping in, and you.

*

Team McBestler! I want to call you, but I don't have your number. And I would also like to move into your loft, because it looks fucking amazing. The photo of the bed with the wings on the wall? Made me catch my breath.

*

It's been a weird couple of days, but I think I'm better now. I spent most of the last four days reading this:

Tony Hoagland
Reasons to Survive November

November like a train wreck—
as if a locomotive made of cold
had hurtled out of Canada
and crashed into a million trees,
flaming the leaves, setting the woods on fire.

The sky is a thick, cold gauze—
but there's a soup special at the Waffle House downtown,
and the Jack Parsons show is up at the museum,
full of luminous red barns.

—Or maybe I'll visit beautiful Donna,
the kickboxing queen from Santa Fe,
and roll around in her foldout bed.

I know there are some people out there
who think I am supposed to end up
in a room by myself

with a gun and a bottle full of hate,
a locked door and my slack mouth open
like a disconnected phone.

But I hate those people back
from the core of my donkey soul
and the hatred makes me strong
and my survival is their failure,

and my happiness would kill them
so I shove joy like a knife
into my own heart over and over

and I force myself toward pleasure
and I love this November life
where I run like a train
deeper and deeper
into the land of my enemies.


but now I'm feeling better and will leave you with this one.


Kim Addonizio
Dear Reader

Tonight I am amazed by all the people making love
while I sit alone in my pajamas in a foreign country
with my dinner of cookies and vodka. And I am amazed
that my own country still exists, though I am not in it
to speak its language or break its drug laws. How astonishing

to realize that I am not the glass being shattered
on the street below, or the laughter that follows it;
I’m not even one of the congregation on my small TV,
getting the Lord’s good news, though I can reach
the screen by leaning forward, and touch

the wavering lines of each transfigured face. I tell you
I can’t get over it sometimes, I still have trouble
believing that an egg deep inside my own body
went and turned into someone else, who right now
is on a tour boat on the river, having forgotten

how she used to hold on to my legs whenever I tried
to leave the room. Right now, somewhere I am not,
the history of the world is being decided,
and the terrible things I’d rather not think of
go on and on without stopping, while I separate

the two halves of another cookie and lick
the cream filling, and pour myself one more
and drink to you, dear reader, amazed
that you are somewhere in the world without me,
listening, trying to hold me in your hands.