I want more money than I'd know what to do with, because I would know what to do with it. And sure, ok, I'd also buy some stuff –– a Max Mara coat, for example. It's not a huge void to fill, just say, seven or eight million dollars tucked away here and there, and a fully paid-off apartment, and I'd feel a bit of stability. In the fall, I kept seeing dead snakes. Following me as I circumnavigated one patch of streets every day. They were new ones each time –– fresh kills, I could tell. I'd never seen one before this. Birds, sure, and deer. Skunks, opossum, once a porcupine half-pulverized in the middle of the double yellows, a handful of smushed turtles. A fox so intact I wanted to stroke it. They inspired only dispassion. The snakes, however: a flattened, dusty mirror. 

2022

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What's the worst part? Someone asked me. That's tough, I said, What's the worst part of loneliness? They gave me a very blank look back. The loneliness, they said, as though that was obvious. I was in Denmark, in a food hall, when suddenly the only thing I could feel was doom. There was a front coming through and, once I realized, everything passed with merciful explanation. You're in a car on the way to the airport with a friend and nothing in your life is going right. You're in a car with a man who says that the Blood Brothers are borderline unlistenable and the sad thing is you'd almost forgive it because he let you dj uninterrupted for 25 minutes. I don't want to talk. I don't point out the cows on the side of the road. I put on a soft yellow sweater at a thrift store and let myself be picked up from behind. I buy a book on the history of zippers, or rather, he did. I have been not-joking the last few years that every book I see is part of my job, but then the next week I do bring the book on the history of zippers up at work. I am at a bar getting a mere schooner of craft beer because I'm broke and don't want to spring for the pint and I am talking inexpertly about something I read about how people navigate the seas and the person I'm there with says, you really like books, huh? but it's not a question of liking, it's more like my relationship with the sky. 

2023, 2022, 2023
 

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When I saw her, my voice went high and soft, like I was talking to a dog. I touched her arm and deduced her blazer was wool. I wanted all of her attention, and I got it. I had ordered a G&T and it came in a highball glass, which I wasn't expecting, and it was starting to drip onto the floor. Or, we were drinking champagne in a very exclusive place, a place almost nobody is allowed to go, sitting next to each other. Someone opened a door at the back of the room to let a breeze in and I caught sight of two people smoking and laughing at a picnic table. We left at the same time. I went to a matinee alone to stare at the screen and let a whole slew of professionals take me away. During an overlong sex scene, the man sitting to my right put his hand high up on his partner's leg. I found the scene, and then the movie, to be somewhat ineffectual and started focusing on the props. I realized the bedside tables were suspiciously free of detritus –– as if! While leaving the theater, a man waiting outside the exit did a double take when he saw me. Perhaps I was a doppleganger for him, but I chose to believe it was because I am very, very beautiful. 

2019, 2023, 2019, 2023

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It was a Sunday in Britain; everyone was hungover. For a while, I was supine on the couch, feet kicked up over the arm. And then I got up. I started fingering some Schubert, confidently crossed out a suggested "4" in the left hand and wrote in a "5". It made sense in abstract; there was a perfect sequence to go up 5, 4, 3 without moving one's hand, so I learned it like that. And when the learning was done and I started to listen, I fixated on this opening, the RH using 4 on the pickup, so soft, barely pedaled –– imperceptible or so light there is no actual damper movement, just a crutch. And the LH pinky, the bottom of so many octaves, the base of every waltz and mazurka, shushed. The approach, though quiet, lacked subtlety. I see, I said, and flipped my pencil over to rub out the slash and the 5. I lined my ring fingers up and started the piece again. 

2023

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Somewhere along the line I became a worm savior, lifting wriggling bodies off of hot tarmac and flinging them back onto the lawn. Eventually, I became a worm palliative care doctor. I was seeing worms I didn't think would make it, already partially baked but clearly still alive. I began picking those up, too, putting them in the grass, maybe even putting a leaf on top to give them some shade. This was because I thought, if I had accidentally ended up burning half to death in the middle of the dessert I would prefer the hand of god fling me onto some cool grass and give me some shade. Then, I started to question myself: I assumed they felt pain, I assumed they understood time passing, I assumed they would prefer a slower but marginally more comfortable death than the hotter and faster one. But when it comes down to it, I just don't know if any of that is right. Someone is talking into my ear at a baseball game. I think they're being a bit too loud and I want to turn around and say could you be a little quieter, but I want them to keep talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking. 

2023

Hello everyone and welcome to s5e9! This is something I wrote ages and ages ago (Hello? You think I’m writing during the Tour? No!) and therefore I’m going to leave the bottom text from way back when, with some annotations because I thought that could be fun.

This will be the last episode of s5. Nine is too many. It must be stopped! Thank you, see you whenever, season six who knows what that will be. I’m not rereading this, it’s probably riddled with errors and you couldn’t pay me to care! It don’t even know if I like it enough to send but you couldn’t pay me to care!

Like a dance teacher, clapping my hands, and one, two, three, four…

From the past:

You know how sometimes life is not actually a narrative? Please therefore enjoy these scrambled vignettes.
 

Music:

• Flyte is preparing for a new album and I think it will be good. I'm listening to all the singles. From the future: the album slaps.

• I've been getting into Klô Pelgag's sophomore effort L'étoile thoracique

• Other than that, still on Animorphs and pretty much nothing else. You know when you only want to feel the emotion "LOUD" when you are listening to music? They just came out with a new single, I like that as well.

Movies/TV:

• The Innocents I don’t remember what this is and none of the things that came up when I googled rang a bell. So, I guess I can’t officially recommend this because it clearly didn’t make an impression.

• War Sailor –– Some people who are bad at pacing and can't seem to cut a narrative out of its own way should study this miniseries closely. Those people, however, probably don't know they have this problem and absolutely don't subscribe to this newsletter, but I had to put it out there just in case. 

• Bodies I also don’t remember what this is. Nice!

La Vuelta:

• GC Kuss! GC Kuss! If you get me started on this you won't get me to stop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I stand by this 100%

• Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrremco!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I stand by this 100% if not more

Cycling races:

• Giro d'Emilia is worth watching, especially the last 20ks. Rogla appears, hungry for vengeance.... and mortadella. Is this season the most relaxed Primož has ever been? I don't know, but maybe?! Too bad Lidl-Trek is apparently out of the Rogla Race or maybe they could draw some more of it out of him, eh? Hello from the future, happy to report that Bora seems to be giving Primož a good time. However, his crashing out of the Tour has wounded me deeply.

• I will be watching Lombardia, I will be watching gravel world champs should one WvA actually appear in it. I did watch Lombardia 2023 and so should you. I did not watch gravel world champs and who cares!

Books:

• It won't be any surprise to anyone who has taken a stroll down How To Succeed In Reading Without Really Trying but Just Thieves by Gregory Galloway is good. Bring it on an airplane and forget about in-flight entertainment. Take the KFZ book charts seriously or you go forward at your own peril!!!

Written and Directed By: Lauren Christiansen