Post pending

This post is pending as I work on my erotica pet project--I need those dollah' bills, ya feel? Instead, enjoy this poem by Robert Frost:

**I DID NOT WRITE THIS POEM**

The Road Not Taken
     --Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I'm a tauraus

"I'm a tauras" I say but I
Mean that personalities are
Nuanced and I happen to i-
Dentify with some traits often
Attributed to tauruses
Such as a desire to love
And nurture all living things
And a fundamental belief
That all life is sacred. "I'm a
Taurus" I say but I mean that
I want you to like me and I
Think it is likely that you buy
Into this astronomy bull-
I mean, maybe I don't believe
My destiny can be controlled
As easily as the pull of
Gravity on a bunch of orbs
Of gas uncontrollably on
Fire. "I'm a taurus" I say,
But I mean that I am more like
The stars in the elaborate
Constellation: that powerful
Sensation, that stuff that myths are
Based on. "I'm a taurus" I say,
But I mean that we're all made out
Of stardust but I'm trying to
Read the stories from veins of sky
Traced into skin, I'm pacing and
Restless in pursuit of endless
Nights of stories and a desire
To humanize those distant and
Fiery stars that compose the
Mighty bull, the very story
I refuse to let define me.
So I say instead: "I'm a taurus"

On missing you

"The opposite of love's indifference"
     --the Lumaniers in Stubborn Love

The opposite of this feeling of lying curled up next you you 
Is not being able to remember how it feels to be curled up next to you.
When I can no longer conjure the feeling of your hands on my skin.
When I've lost the taste of the nape of your neck somewhere to the unrelenting tide of memory.

You gave me a love poem
On a sheet of looseleaf paper
Crumpled from the worry of hands
Running over it again and again as you held it in your pocket.
And all I could say was "I think your meter is a little off."
But I put it in my glove compartment and saved it there alongside faded wildflowers.
It's still when I need reminding.

The opposite of the feeling of kissing you
Is the bitter wind in my face.
Stinging my eyes.

A story about her

An exercise in vanity:

The girl in the bar has dark hair like
Ripples of water and earth and joy.
Her lips are dark and pull up at the edges like a poorly kept secret.
Her eyes are covered in sparkles and wrinkle as she smiles at her friend.
They reflect the flashing multicolored club lights in chambered facets.

The girl in the club moves
In a way that is entierly in her body.
Her legs and arms hold barely contained power.
Like she could bust of her own skin in
A fit of sheer vitality at any second.
She throbs louder than the speakers and flashes brighter than the disco lights.

And in that moment she is perfect.

Learning Love

Written from the table of the physical therapists office:
My leg is tender.
Hurts to touch.
Hurts to soothe.
But today I walk and you can barely see my limp.
Soon I will run.
Soon I will dance.
The wide blue winter skies call me
They say "Fly with me!"
And soon I will be able to listen.

Not so great Gatsby

Soo I started the Great Gatsby. And so far I am absoloutely underwhelmed. I'm 79 pages through a less than 200 page book and so far almost nothing has happened. I understand that at some point Gatsby allegedly becomes a psychopathic murderer but if that's going to happen, F Scott motherfucking Fitzgerald better pick up the pace. This book is supposed to be about the roaring twenties? Right? Well, this glamorous imagery is lost on me as a citizen of the 21st century and it doesn't help that Fitzgerald writes as though he's trying to actively avoid a cohesive narritave. The big parties Gatsby throws sound like they involve more abused women than fun cocktails, Daisy Buccanan and Jordan I-don't-remember-her-last-name are flatter characters than the page they're written on and the narrator of the story reads as uncompelling and self-rigeous.
I think my dislike for the narrator is somewhat biased by the era and place I from where I hail. In the feminist part of the 21st century, a man introducing himself by preaching his virtues is not considered flattering. Especially when it's so obviously a crock of bullshit.
For those of you who haven't read the novel so widely taught across the country in high schools Nick spends about two pages bragging about how he and his father make it a policy not to judge anyone else. And they're better people than everyone else because their lack of judgement. Give it a second. Sit with that. Then, he procedes to judge Daisy, Tom, and Jordan in quick succession. He works in the stock market, goes to a few of Gatsby's ragers, gets involved in a middle school-esque plot of Gatsby likes Daisy and boom, there's act one.
I'm not saying good literature has to have a lot of goings on to classify as good.
But . . . If you don't have plot maybe you could have dialogue, which Fitzgerald actively avoids or at least vibrant writing. Fitzgerald's writing isn't bad, I'm sure, but so far the most decadent thing he's described in the book is a row of French windows . . . Which isn't incredibly sexy. There's been a lot of abuse towards women, people of color, and the lower class.
I'm sure as the book goes on I'll have more things to say but so far the Great Gatsby has been more like a great dissapointment.
Maybe we should occasionally reevaluate our classics and stop fetising this cis het white male version of what we know as the literary cannon. More to follow . . .

A self portrait in grays

A lists of my texts to you between three and four in the morning:
hey

u still up

probably not lol

i was just thinking
what was that movie we went to see in November?

u remember, it had that little boy who runs away with his grandad
or is it his uncle
the movie is filmed in New Zealand, i think
sometimes i want to run away to new Zealand

jk

but, like, i was also thinking about after the movie

u never said sorry

everyone in the theatre was looking at us
and then after u left they were all looking at me
crying

did i ever tell you that?
i did. i cried after u left.

for like a whole month, actually
but i don't think u knew
u never bothered to ask
u actually haven't talked to me since the movie

and, like i know it wasn't working for u
i keep going over in my head how i could've fixed it
maybe if i spent more time listening and less time talking
maybe if i spent less time with Justin and Dan
maybe if i had gone down in on u more
maybe if i had asked u to go down on me less

but u haven't even texted me ONCE since then

i don't know if i could have fixed it
i don't know if i would want to take u back
i dont know if i could say no if u asked for me back

do u want me back?

Things I sometimes stop myself from saying

If the door says pull,
Pushing is a silly thing to do

I don't owe you my time. Ever.

One on one conversations are a good way to affect personal change.

Telling people they're wrong only makes them think they're mire correct.

There's no such thing as reverse racism.

There's no such thing as reverse sexism.

All oak trees grow from a single acorn.

This too shall pass.

Being able to take a third party stance is a form of privilage.

Telling someone to calm down is a form of emotion policing.

You never know what someone's been through.

You don't owe anyone else your time or emotional energy.

Emotional work is still work and framing it as positive traits all women possess is a form of oppression.

Without explicit consent it's rape.

Benevolent sexism is still oppressive.

I'm not upset.

You're the defensive one.

Your masculinity is so fragile it might shatter if I breathed on it wrong.

FUCK YOU
I DON'T OWE YOU
ANYTHING

Missed connections

You were the cat curled in a geometric circle on the carpet next to still glowing of the woodstove.
I was the dog barking and straining her leash from the street outside.

You were that newspaper article on the table at my dentist's office with the dancing girls on the picture.
I was the goldfish trapped in the tank with my mouth hanging open.

You were the sweet and sticky smell of pine needles in the Adirondack summer.
I was the sun, stretching my rays towards you, slowing my path through the sky to spend just a few more minutes with you.

You were a single sparking grain of sand in the Sahara.
I was an innocent breeze turned hurricane, destroying villiages to find you.

Seasonal Depression

The sky gets dark at four and then night lingers on until seven
His greedy fingers grabbing at morning like the sunrise has promised him something.
The sun does not fight back.
Instead, the sun slinks across the sky,
Afraid of any unwanted attention
Hoping to go about her business unnoticed and make it home before dark.

The sun is distant, these days, and cold
She is afraid any heat, any semblance of warmth, might give the night the wrong idea.
The sun does not want anyone to think she was asking for it.
The sun is careful not to take up too much space in the winter time.

The night sprawls himself ever longer,
Reaching for space that never belonged to him.
Space that he assumes is his birthright
Because no one has ever told him it's not.
Because, hey, if it's not his, why does the sun give it up so easily?

The sun gives the night her space quietly,
Without a fight.
Wishing for spring.

Body series 7

Healing is watching water evaporate from a ten gallon bucket
Healing is twelve hours on the couch with an icepack on my knee
Healing is nails on a chalkboard
Healing is trying to piece together a broken ceramic vase. Spending hour after hour bent over a work bench until your fingers burn and your eyes ache.
Healing is waking up the next morning to find the vase shattered to pieces again.

Body(s) series 8

It's strange that we two dancers much sit together in stillness.
I want nothing more than to sway with you, eyes on your eyes.
I want to own the dance floor with you.
Or the starbucks, or keryoke lounge, or any ground we stand on.
For me, for us, dancing is liberation.
But now we sit in stillness.

Assorted

One half of a famous pair of lovers:

I never asked you to poison yourself
In my toumb. And yet here we are.  And your
Dagger with no place to rest. How tragic.


I live in a world where love means nothing
It's trivial to have nothing to lose.
All words are made up of such stuff of dreams.
So there's not much point in preserving the
Fiction of reality. This is not love.

A brief rant

M,

Perhaps I was unclear about the way in which I was amenable to my speech being changed. I thought that Thursday night, when I talked to you about my speech we both agreed that we wouldn’t change any of the parts of my speech about global climate change. In my speech, I had “Saving the planet is going to be a global effort” and conclude my speech with “we believe that we will be the ones to save the world.” In your edits you write “Taking care of the natural resources that surround us needs to be a global effort” and conclude with “we can help conserve all the natural wonders that surround us.” I know I didn’t get a chance to get back to you before the speech was read but I thought I was pretty clear about not wanting to change those passages and I was wondering why you did.

In anticipation of your reply,

Monya

My paragraph:

And ultimately, that is why I do this job, and why most of us do this job. It’s no secret that our planet is in trouble right now. Saving the planet is going to be a global effort and we’re going to need all hands on deck. And that’s what we’re doing on all of the crews. Because if a single one of those kids from the new camper program decides she wants to protect the woods, I will consider my role in this program a success. Because if a kid who I taught about tiny little insects living in the hudson river becomes interested in conservation somewhere down the line then to me, at least, these ten months will have been worth it. Change, in my short experience, happens from person to person. And we, as members of the Excelsior Corps, are the ones creating meaningful and tangible change. Rock by rock, shovel by shovel, person by person, day by day. We do it because we believe in the SCA and we believe that we will be the ones to save the world.

M’s Edits

And that, is why I do this job, why many of us do this job. Taking care of the natural resources that surround us needs to be a global effort- and we need everyone’s help. That’s what we’re doing on all of the crews. If a single kid from the new camper program decides they want to protect the woods, I will consider my role in this program a success. If any child that my crew has educated or has had an interaction with the other crews while they’re in the field becomes inspired by our work, then these ten months will have been worth it.  Change happens from person to person, and as members of the Excelsior Conservation Corps, we are creating meaningful and tangible change- rock by rock, shovel by shovel, person by person, and day by day. We believe in our work and that we can help conserve all the natural wonders that surround us.

Body series 6

The pain
Is a burning thing. A thing that twists at my insides whenever I move.
Fuck.
FUUUUUCCCK.
Fuck.
It comes in waves.

Eleven ten word stories

It first seemed like a story of boy meets girl.

It’s funny, life doesn’t always play out like a movie.

His improv comedy troupe oozed misogyny so I left him.

It turns out, I’m a lot gayer than he thought.

Friday night at the bar. Dim lighting and spilled beer.

I saw her across the room and my heart stopped.

Her hair was made of summertime, floating like butterfly wings.

Her eyes were why I stayed. But it wasn’t enough.

She was artistic, bold, and sad. She hid it well.

I still can’t eat oranges. They remind me of her.

I get high but I would rather get over her.

Monya does meter (for like the first time ever on this blog)

Petrarchan sonnet:

Follows: abba abba for the first eight lines and then either cdecde or cdccdc

Did you know Emily Lazarus's “Colossus” is a Petrarchan Sonnet? I didn’t. Turns out the entire poem reads:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Anyway. This needs editing but like, so do all of my posts. This is also for A. Turn out A inspires a lot of poetry in me.

a) The shameless ease with which she wears her body

b) Was matched only by her guiltless smile

b) Not naive, but laughing and free of guile

a) She wears gold, paints her lips scarlet, gaudy

a) On anyone else. But she earnestly

b) Embraces herself. Her charm tactile

b) Hanging in pregnant air, prehensile

a) Grabbing my attention, joy embodied.

c) I leave tomorrow, I must always go

c) Never before her, has leaving felt so

d) Bittersweet. Like all my joy has left me.

d) It's hanging off her form. She's sticky

c) Sweet syrup. I am the setting sun low

c) On day. I wish earth’s turning would slow.

An e-mail

My dearest H,

How are you? I’m doing well. My Americorps program ends on the 17th and it’s been pretty great. I just spent two days in the Adirondacks and it didn’t get above 20 degrees F, the whole time but we got to stay in an actual cabin so that was good. I’m missing my program graduation day to have ACL surgery (did I mention I tore my ACL? My right ACL, which is the opposite ACL to the left ACL which I tore in high school. It’s pretty common that when a person tears one ACL, they tear the other one. So anyway, I’m missing my program graduation but I’m glad I’m having the surgery I need. I’m still dating that boy T (remember him?) and I don’t know if I told you about the three way we had at Labor Day Dawn Dance but I had a three way at Labor day dawn dance with this lovely young lady named A. So A and I have been dating T and a throuple for two months and it’s been great. Lots of sex and three ways. And we had . . . an orgy, I guess? I mean, there were five of us, three of us being me, T, and A. And then T’s friends S and C kind of just invited the three of us to have sex with the two of them, and like the three of us are poly and just fuck whoever we want to (time permitting, there are only so many hours in a day) but they only fuck each other and other people with each other. So, like, for them, it was swinging and like, for us it was an orgy. I guess. It was fun though. And A and I went to this queer dance camp weekend in Western Massachusetts and it was pretty epic and there was a sweatlodge and then we went skinny dipping in the lake and the music was awesome and the dancing was awesome and I kind of . . . met myself? Like, there was this super queer masc-presenting dancer named Nate and he was super similar to me and then we had sex. . . which is something I always thought would happen if I ever met myself. It was pretty good, but he like, wasn’t that good at communication and also thought that because I hooked up with him, that meant he was like, then in a relationship with me and A, which is, obviously not how any of the poly thing that we’re doing works but, it resolved fine so I’m fine. After the program I’ll be home in Albany for a while while I recover. I’m not 100% sure what I’m going to be doing after my surgery but I have a few things lined up. I’m not really ready to go back to school but I applied to Hampshire College in Amherst for spring semester. I’m looking at a job with the SCA as an environmental educator down in NYC (which would be pretty fucking awesome!) and there’s actually a job opening at Five Rivers (you know, the Five Rivers down the road in Delmar) that I would really like. So, that might be a thing. Please write me back, even if it’s just a simple “hello”. You definately don’t need to return the essay. I miss you and I hope you’re on track to graduate and I think you’re a badass multi-talented lady. Let me know how your love life is, how you’re social life is, how your academic and professional life is. Or not. Just say hi. I’d love to talk sometime next week. Also, are you coming to Albany for thanksgiving. I’ll be on the couch on pain meds, so if that sounds like your idea of a good time, I’d love to see you. I miss you dearly and often think fondly of you.

Best regards,

Monya

A List

A list of things that bring me joy:

1. Any poetry by Walt Whitman, Ashe Vernon, or Maya Angelou. Also, “The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock”
2. Lesbians.
3. I ran a half marathon once
4. Horses. That video of the baby horse getting excited and falling over a ball
5. Firefly, Grace and Frankie, or Parks and Rec
6. Strong female friendship
7. Queer, intersectional feminist, or poly media, specifically the “Pansy” series and the “Body” series of the Heart radio
8. I’ve driven myself cross country
9. I worked on a dairy, in Vermont at a cool farm in Michigan, and at a cool farm in Tucson
10. That day we spent in Tucson on the citrus orchard
11. I rock at telling stories and shaggy dog stories
12. President Obama once went on “A Prairie Home Companion” and talked about how important stories are
13. The solar panel is technology that spread comparably fast to the cell phone
14. When a baby panda is born it’s small enough to fit into the palm of a human hand
15. Dark chocolate is good for you in small doses
16. That time I was farming in Kentucky and got snowed in and it was beautiful and that dog, Boxer, I think, would come on runs with me
17. The movies: The Princess Bride, Moonrise Kingdom, The Addams Family, and Moena (not necessarily in that order)
18. I once biked up mount Whiteface
19. My bare breasts scared off a bear
20. I fight the patriarchy every day by existing
21. Self care is a radical, political act
22. I am valid and my opinion is valid and deserved to be acknowledged
23. I am young and I have so much time to figure my shit out
24. I am going to be wildly successful
25. I am loved, and charming, and beautiful and funny
26. I deserve to be love
27. I am imperfect and make mistakes and I deserve forgiveness
28. More to come. . .

To A

To A

I could compare you to the sunrise
Or sunset
Or some other empty metaphor
I could weave the two of you a gossamer thing,
Verbose and glimm'ring

I know you would take it in your hands
Your powerful, competent hands
Hands that can reduce me to shuddering flesh
And treasure this

Because you treasure me.

I don't want empty words for you
I want to build you something out of brick and mortar
I want to build you something that won't tear or snap
Something you can wrap up and toss and into your backpack
And tote around Europe

I want to make you something to keep you safe
In a narrow alleyway in Prague
I want to make you something to keep you warm
On the snowy damp days in London
I want to make you something to keep you full
On the hungry days in Madrid

Instead I'll just spin my gossamer words
And hope that maybe I can keep you company.
Because I know you're strong enough, and smart enough, and capable enough
To build all those things for yourself.

It don't mean a thing/ If it ain't got that swing . . .

A swing lesson

The step to an east coast swing dace is actually a six beat count. If you know anything about music you would denote the step as "trip-pe-let, trip-pe-let, eight-note" or, if you dance swing, you know the step as "trip-ple-step, trip-ple-step, rock-step"

Swing dancing is kind of like you because it's fun and exhausting. Swing dancing is kind of like you because it refuses to fit into a four beat count. Swing dancing is kind of like you because it likes to screw with music students.

You can position yourself in relation to your partner in a variety of ways in swing dancing. One is "closed position":  a ballroom like hold, chests close, the lead's hand on the follow's shoulder blade, the follow's hand on the leads shoulder. The other two hands should be clasped loosely between the two bodies. Many swing instructors will describe this as a "heart" shape.

Swing dancing is kind of like you because every time I think I get a hold of it, I realize I've only scratched the surface. Swing dancing is kind of like you because there are cute, swirly skirts involved. Swing dancing is kind of like you because every person I dance with would describe you in a different way.

While east coast swing is a six beat count, lindy hop and the charleston, both iterations of swing, dance on an eight beat count. West coast swing is another six count but derives from lindy hop. You can dance to most social dancing music with just east coast as long as you don't mind too hard being on the third beat of every other measure.

Swing dancing isn't like you because you're a person, not a dance. You have likes, and dislikes, and a personality and a body. Swing dancing isn't like you because I can take lessons in swing dancing. I can put it into musical counts and study it on a paper. You're both more real and more ethereal than swing dancing. You're more beautiful and more falible.  The nights I spend dreaming about swing dancing, I don't wake up feeling vaguely lost and lonely.

Mythos of a road trip

Picture old world gods crammed with their whole life’s

possessions in a shabby Subaru

--three of them--the number of divinity.

They pass around a half eaten bag of

potato chips, like fate’s thread, the driver,

the navigator and one slumped against

a passenger side window, not sleeping,

Just resting her eyes. They are lovers, or

friends, or sisters, or all three. It matters

very little here in this parthenon.

What matters is the love, the closest the

gods would ever need to come to worship.

The moon slants through the driver's side window

and casts a blue shadow across the car.

The road is two parallel lines, meeting

at the infinity of the horizon

and every single rest stop they pass serves

as their own personal Mount Olympus.

There are neon lights flashing like lightning

and semi-trucks rolling like thunder. Each

new place filled with silver plated idols,

proclaiming the pilgrim’s forever

devotion to this place and this place only.

Before the girls leave the asylum of

the Subaru, one of them reapplies

her lipstick in the rear-view mirror, lines like

prayers she has said so many times she has

stopped hearing the words and only knows the

most primal sounds in the prayer. The most primal

Shapes in the tube of lipstick. The car is

filled with carboard french fry holders and used

up coffee cups, it is the place where rest stop

food goes to die, the cupholders in a

permanent state of purgatory,

the bottles of naked juice mourned by their

last drops solidifying into green

and orange mush along the bare edges

of clear bottle. And still spurred ever onward

by flaming gasoline and buzzing caffeine,

the chariot that is the subaru

flies at the horizon. It’s brights beating

the darkness back. Driven by old world gods.

--done in pentameter-ish

Femme as Weapon

(revison)

Picture a scene:
Two young women prepare to go out for an evening.
One sharpens her lips with the blood red whetstone of her lipstick
The other restraining straps of her black sandal armor.
The mirror watches the way one whips a scarf over her shoulder and bats her eyelashes
Like a master of a blade practicing drills before battle.
One lays out four pairs of earrings on the table, weighing each with merrits, deliberately and methodically, the other weighing in over her her shoulder, in between styles of scarf tying.
The scarf tied, the hair is next to move, one of the most vital allies in the night to come.
Out come a turtle shell clip, a hair tie, and an armada of bobby pins,
All ready and willing to assist the hair with a complicated up-do maneuver.
The women pray to the goddess of war, Aphrodite, with their rouged lips and their
Glittery eyelashes. They pray for victory.

Body series 4:

My back
Is the American midwest
Broad, smooth and featureless
You can get on the road at the base of my skull and see my spine,
The gentle curve of it reaching all the way down to my tailbone
Three days drive from here, and still nothing but silky corn and soybeans.

Body Series 3:

My biceps
Are curved wire
Studded plate mail
Chain mail wrapped around aluminium alloy bone.
I have titanium shoulders and copper triceps.
Heavy metals in my thighs and stone around my ankles.

Last Saturday I saw a red-tailed hawk in the sky
wings spread, floating upwards.
I knew my steel biceps would never float that light.

Body series 2:

My hands

Are as rough as the bark of the vines I pulled from the trees and bushes.

Oriental bittersweet, smothering trees and stifling the forest.

Hundreds and hundreds of pounds pulling the enormous cottonwoods and oaks to the ground.

Mighty giants, deep grooved bark and roots blanketed with leaves of years past,

Brought slowly and painfully down to the earth.

Body series 1:

My feet

Are as cracked and uneven as the dirt road I walked down at sunrise

One day in early June. That morning

The gravel rose up to meet my skin as the sun rose up to meet the day

The chilled morning air whisped, hello, to my skin through my thin t-shirt

And I wondered for a second if I am the only living human left on this empty planet

The grass nods along as I wonder, and the trees warm their thick green leaves

Against the cold morning, rubbing them together for meager warmth.

Bloodlust:

My eyes linger on his neck, only he’s

Looking away. To hold his jugular

In my teeth, to rake fingernails and tear

Tender flesh--pain, not as punishment but

As a declaration of sweet freedom.

If pleasure is my birthright, if pleasure

Has been denied of me so long, I will

Reclaim it with lipstick, claws and high heels.

I think the word for this feeling is bloodlust.

In the days before the end of the world

In the days before the end of the world, I enjoyed myself quite a bit. Even at that time, I had this idea, this inkling that the world was ending and instead of upsetting me, I think it acted rather as a fire under my ass. It was upsetting, of course, the environmental disasters, the war, the famine, and the death. But it all seemed rather distant. The worst part was that my grandparents in Florida were closer to the end of the world than me, and I did worry about them. But I had enough to eat every day and a house with four walls to live in and that was really all I thought I needed. I worked a lot, but I felt that work gave my life meaning. I had good food and good sex in large quantities and the autumn before the end of the world was warm and sunny, a light hearted mockery of the climate change to come. I found myself doing things like buying new dancing shoes, or booking tickets for a concert in February. I made plans to meet a friend in New York City over winter break, although we both knew full well the likelihood of either of us, let alone both of us, making it to the spring was slim at best. In the days before the end of the world, I called a partner, nearly frenzied. "The world is ending." I told him, "We can't just sit around and do nothing." I cried to him for a while, and then we got off topic and talked and laughed and I went and made dinner. As if I couldn't tell you that it was the end of the world.