Today's writing

He cocked his head and touched the small of my back. Follow me. We wound our way past political theory and gender studies, ending up at a small sign that said SEXUALITY. 

 “I like to look here,” he said. 

That strange wriggling feeling I already had at the back of my neck got more frenzied. I felt hot at the pulse points. 

Was he – 

 “I’m not gay,” he said, “just in case you’re wondering.” 

 “No.” The response came out as if I had automated it. “Of course not.” 

 “I’m just curious.” 

“I get it,” I said. “I – I –” 

Did I really get it? 

I’d had a few flickers of thinking I was into women, but they’d passed quickly. The bigger issue was that I was still a virgin and I was starting to think that I’d fuck an alligator if it would have me. Virgins felt like an endangered species around these parts, something to be put under the microscope and studied. Here we have it, the American species of hymen. Here’s how it differs from other species. 

Jesus fucking Christ.

Are they not adorable?

 

St. Louis Arch, 2011

 

Recent writing

Café Bajer emerges from the fog like a friendly stranger, the kind you might consider engaging in conversation. Ve devore the sign reads. Later I will learn this means of the courtyard and indeed there is one, marked by a trendy-looking mannequin wearing a jaunty hat and a blank stare. Further down I see a bird in a cage. Polly want a cappuccino? 

I have found my Czech home. 

How to describe the indescribable? Bajer feels like a weird treasure trove, an antique store on acid – an ancient cash register, a bust of – someone. A fish tank, even. I’m confused and captivated. It feels like such a difference between the resolutely buttoned-up countenances on the street and – this. Where Green Gate Tower didn’t capture my imagination for more than a minute, this is my kind of place. “Hullo!” a voice calls from the counter. 

Americký, the act of being American. In these post-9/11 days, we seem to wring more empathy than enmity from others, Hard gazes soften; judgment finds itself suspended. Even the conductor who sneers at my passport on the train (“United States of Amereeeeeeca”) does it with something resembling a heart. 

But there is no hiding who we are.

Friends of Berkeley Animal Care Services -- Giving Tuesday

 

Today's writing

Everyone looks like they’re with someone else. I try to reason with myself: you’re new in town, do you expect a posse straight out of the box? The answer, of course, is yes. I press on through Pernstyn Square toward Třída Míru, the town’s main drag. To my left is a theatre; to my right a bus stop. Above me is an archway and for a minute my imagination takes me in all sorts of directions. Who has passed under here before me? What were their dreams their thoughts? What brought them here? Then I decide I genuinely don’t give a fuck, and turn up Credence on my headphones.

 

Today's writing

 Come on, Landa. What’s with the self-defeating talk? 

I’m good at it, that’s what. We train our brains, that’s what we do, and I’ve conditioned mine to think some really shitty things. Like the smoking, I enjoy it. There’s something liberating about bathing in the negative. It basically means you’ve got very little to lose. 

 I ruminate on this for the 20 minutes it takes to hit the town center, Pernstyn Square. Here’s where the photographs are made, the memories cemented. Of the very few who travel to Pardubice, none go to my end of town, nor do they explore the edge where the school lies. They come here to explore Green Gate Tower, to sit in the shadow of wedding-cake roofs, to clamor down into caves and hoist a glass.