let's reminisce! this is where we'll go: when. I was fourteen years old, inserted assertively into a life I found inscrutable, into a salty summer in corfu. but, six months prior in a related incident, I was balanced precariously on the ledge of a wind-whipped second story window, counting to ten. On the count of ten, I jumped, landed on the grass, sprained my ankle. I had to go to the hospital. I told my parents I had fallen down the stairs. my life was not at an end.

I had decided to run away to brazil, a place I loved. we were summering in corfu. my plan was to leisurely swim through the atlantic, surprising boats, befriending whales, eating plants and fish. equated with the equator, I would enter the yawning mouth of the amazon, drift down, and live in the rainforest for the rest of my life. I sat beside my parents for awhile and watched my sandy siblings run to and fro. I told my parents that I loved them, and hugged them and kissed them. "go play," my mother said, pulling the brim of her floppy sunhat over her eyes. I tried to catch my squirmy sisters to say goodbye, and I slushed through the shallow water and started to swim. I remembered that I had said to christopher, 'if you were the oldest, you shouldn't beat up the kids so much.' the kids being our younger siblings. but how grand it would be when I was accepted as part of a whale pod, perpetuating myths of mermaids, hanging onto fins and flippers when I tired of swimming.

I looked back, finally, as the chopped emerald waves slapped me in the face. in the distance, my family was tiny, dots of movement and motion. up close they weilded a larger-than-life character that was exhausting, but now their personality seemed to shrink with their diminuative size. I cried a little, I was tired a little, but distracted suddenly by the sonic choppiness of a helicopter overhead. I found it strange until the helicopter loudly addressed me in harsh Greek. It was the coast guard. The helicopter lowered, a vested man leaped out beside me and firmly grasped me round the waist. I was caught.

I was grounded from anything and everything for the rest of the summer. I spent my time in bed, counting the cracks on the ceilings, thinking about the rainforest. for years I had saved up all of my allowance for a rainforest protection fund and sent a shoebox of change and dollars off in the mail. I didn't try to swim to the amazon again. I didn't try to end my life again.

Today, I spent my afternoon downtown. what a place: downtown! brave downtown, that has such people in it, etc etc. playful people, rustling newspapers, foreheads creased with cognitive concentration, noisily slurping coffee, confidently conferring with other members of the board. I was walking downtown this afternoon, in the summer-scented sun and through lachrymose breezes, crags and jags of metal, glass, and copper spiking into the sky. ghostly images of buildings superimposed on other buildings, light bouncing, refracting, reflecting. the asphalt was glassy. something building up inside of me. I saw a girl with legs like upturned muskets walk delicately into a salon with small, sturdy steps; a deer-lilted walk. she stepped over a homeless man with a deeply pockmarked face, scooping lasagna into his mouth, asking me for advil. when one flies over austin, you see a handful of scattered skyscrapers, and miles and miles of homes in neat rows, prim cul-de-sacs, dots of pools, cars whirring like ants far below. yet in the air I feel almost less removed than I do when I'm firmly planted on the ground. Yesterday I read that someone dies every thirty minutes in rio de janeiro, ninety percent of those deaths caused by assault weapons. and I have to get there, where things are haphazard and unplanned, not in this place of shining, whirring technological isolation. in America, honesty is valued, truth is adored, and socially we are supposed to do things that are right regardless of whether it is difficult. but, but. but in actuality, we learn that we should only do what is right when it is easy or convenient, and never when it is difficult, never when it requires effort. we know that our natural resources are dissapearing, yet we enthusiastically use them with self-satisfied aplomb. we know that we should eat healthily, exercise regularly, show kindness, compassion, and respect. yet we are fibrously hypocritical. we are religious and vicious. we're in it for us. I have to get out of here, and I guess it's the way I've always been. and I guess it's the way I'm going to stay.* tomorrow Holly and I are roadtripping to Dallas to visit some friends. and I wish I knew a reliable, trusty drug dealer. I have two connections and it drives me to distraction when neither has anything anywhere at all. word to DFW.

*lyrics to the Ice Cream Creatures song brian may.

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