baptism by fire

If he were smarter, he’d have found me already. My incredibly unique bicycle is locked up out front. Before cell phones, I used this as a method to find my friends. If I could find their bike, I could find my friend. I guess automobiles work like this to some degree (“his car was in her driveway!!!”) …but bikes are more personal, more personalized- especially for bike freaks (such as myself). I love the Cycle Cult, critical mass all around the planet…but today, I got a flat. I’m kinda sorta stuck here til my brother picks me up. I made it a few miles on a slow leak, stopping every few minutes to add air. Silly me, I have wrenches and shit with me, but no tube, no patch kit. Everytime the front tire rolls over the tiniest bump in the sidewalk, the bell on the handlebars rings, all by itself. It’s kinda beautiful. The roads here are really fucked up, so I quickly get used to it- Brrrriiiiing! Brrrriiiing! As I make my way up Woodward, I feel like an ice cream truck, filling the streets with music.

But yeh. How badly can this guy really want his weed pen back if he won’t get off his ass and walk two blocks from his house to the bar I’m at? What a lovely day to be lonely. Outside, it’s beautiful and sunny, warm for October. In my heart, a thunderstorm. Thank god, I know the bartender here, we used to work together, and we chit chat like best buds til the real drinkers show up (exactly 15:00). I move away from the bar to a spot where I can plug in my charger and negotiate with my ride via text. Also, unfortunately, I fall into a sort of hateful Khole, texting this idiot that can’t get his dick hard or make a woman cum, can’t barely have a polite conversation even, but desperately needs his $20 weed pen. I recognize it as being from the dispensary he visited in Mackinac, that time he went on a mini vacation with all his friends but didn’t invite me. Maybe it’s sentimental to him, a souvenir. Maybe he should’ve brought me a souvenir. Maybe that’s karma. My fucking souvenir now! Man makes me feel about five years old. 

Personal Rules:

1. Be Emotionally Available: to Everything, to Every Moment, to the Universe, as much as possible

2. Be Emotionally Stable: to Feel Everything and Respect the Feelings without allowing them to overwhelm you or cause destruction/imbalance

Freakishly, I have a great track record for accomplishing #1, it barely feels like a challenge. #2 is very very difficult for me. 

How interesting it would be to create an entire narrative through exchanged dialogues (text/email) that fill out all different sides of the story and highlight code switching (telling different people the same story different ways). With time signature, like a digital chat, so the readers can gleam information from the time of day/length of time between messages, etc. Missed calls. The call log. People say they don’t read, but they’re texting and using their phones allllllll day. It is reading, just of a different variety. 

Make the Narrative Manageable. 

A bit like Love Letters (look into the format of this play)

Burning Down the House comes on. I feel my soul singing along. How prophetic that I started building my own strange version of this song during covid, right before I met my last two fire sign lovers. And they destroyed me. So that I could rise again, stronger.

Baptism By Fire!