Hiroshima Mon Amour

Somehow we drifted off too far
Communicate like distant stars
Splintered voices down the ‘phone
The sunlit dust, the smell of roses drifts, oh no
Someone waits behind the door
Hiroshima mon amour

Riding inter-city trains
Dressed in European grey
Riding out to echo beach
A million memories in the trees and sands, oh no
How can I ever let them go?
Hiroshima mon amour

Meet beneath the autumn lake
Where only echoes penetrate
Walk through polaroids of the past
Future’s fused like shattered glass, the sun’s so low
Turns our silhouettes to gold
Hiroshima mon amour

Unemployment, Pt. XIV

In the latest fit of ennui, I ironically (adv., 2003) entered this contest in which the prize includes a 5-day stay in the new Cosmopolitan Las Vegas, $500 in spa treatments and dining, VIP access to the hotel’s opening events, and a “private musical performance from a major star.” In other words, everything I’ve ever wanted.

“In honor of our imminent launch, we want to hear about all your Vegas stories - the good, the bad, and the extraordinarily outrageous in less than 500 characters.”

My story:

“In retrospect, I should have deboarded the Virgin Airlines plane as soon as I saw the saggy-bellied bros in Ed Hardy tees throw their hands up at the reams of neon pink lights lining the aisles. Upon checking into the Paris hotel, Joe jokingly asked, “So, what’s the theme of this place?” The joke was tragically lost on the fake-titted orange receptionist, who replied “Like, Paris, ugh.” Later that night at 2am, I fled the plebeians and phillistines at PURE, paying $11 for a copy of The Economist in a self-repentant frenzy.”

Good luck to the other contestants, they’ll need it. 

Recent Indulgences

(not granted by the church)

- a shower in the Ritz Carlton under a stupidly enormous shower head surely catalogued under a rainforest-themed name, perhaps “The Amazonian Lush Rainfall, $660”

- an unparsable GChat conversation during working hours that lasted a protracted 326 lines in which the following were discussed: self-made zines commemorating one’s own death, Japanese salary men who live in 6’x3’ sleep capsules, cartography (lightly), lunch plans with the current matriarch in town

- 100mL of Club-Mate (Germany’s equivalent to Red Bull) for breakfast, taken in the office

- requesting that my mother share with me her opinions concerning the physiognomy of my peers

- then, chirognomy

- then, cafeteria food

This Is a Reminder

to update your Gmail theme. Just yesterday I disabled “Phantasea” in favor of “Mountains.” In the time since, I have received a bonus from work, found a new apartment, and lost five pounds. Only one of these things is true.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

You talk to an old friend and confuse Strasbourg for Stroudsburg, a city whose name you haven’t spoken in the years since you’ve been gone. You remember other words you’ve forgotten, put away behind you: turnpike, pierogie, Emmaus. None of them romantic. You read books. You read poetry. You look out the window at the lick of pink scalp on top of the man’s head as he walks. You remember fiction but don’t remember why it is that you read it. You watch television, split a kiwi and eat it with the skin on, indulgent in the unorthodoxy. Later you mistake something in your belly for shame but then feel relief instead, the chilly sweep, when you realize how much worse it would be to feel actual shame. Others also forgotten: vo-tech, homeroom, scrapple. You know, that mash of breakfast flesh usually sitting across the plate from the gelatinous scramble in Pennsylvania-Dutch culinary reservoirs.