i am here at your house, to take away your guns.

i am wearing a uniform that could be nebulously FBI-adjacent, maybe an off-shoot of the NSA, maybe i bought it at a halloween costume store, you don't know. you can't tell. my badge has an agency listed on it but it's blurred, slightly, so you can't read what the letters are. but there are five of me, all identical, all scowling in that way that says I've Seen It All, Kid, And Your Posturing Doesn't Mean Shit To Me. Your Tears Mean Dick To Me, Just So You Know. 

listen. i know i eat a lot of takeout. maybe, arguably, i eat "too much" takeout. maybe i need to "reign in" my "problem." maybe "most people aren't on a first-name basis with the delivery people at their favorite indian restaurant," and maybe "most restaurants don't automatically take the bell peppers out of your panang curry even when you forget to add it as a special request because they know you like the bell peppers on the side". maybe all that's true, i don't know, i'm not a scientist!!!!! i don't have the data!!!!! i can't prove these things!!!!!

There is a spot on my running route where I lose sight of the city. I am surrounded by the lake, blue, blue, so blue I can taste it. This must be what it is like to be a fish: the sweet tang of water, and infinity.

The Most Beautiful Man In The World lives in my building. i don’t know his name. we met on a bus, when i smiled WAY too brightly at him for strangers because, honest to god, my whole heart lit up in a way that made me think, “oh, i must know that guy!!” no. i didn’t. he’s just The Most Beautiful Man In The World.

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what does The Most Beautiful Man In The World look like? i will tell you.

there are things i always forget about transcontinental travel one of which is that TIME GETS ALL FRICKED UP what time is it where even am i am i drunk or just very very tired and jacked up on the gluten free cookies they fed me on the plane????

today i was REMINDED OF SOMETHING THAT I’M STILL FURIOUS ABOUT AND WILL ALWAYS BE FURIOUS ABOUT, which is this kid in my high school named JAMES B who i took driver’s ed with who used to do this THING where he would ONE UP the  INSTRUCTOR every time he told a story meant to horrify us into being good drivers.

and like the THING IS, okay, the tHING IS, I GET IT. we ALL EXAGGERATE for DRAMATIC EFFECT. that’s fINE. but you have to be COOL ABOUT IT, JAMES B. YOU HAVE TO STAY PLAUSIBLE. OTHERWISE WHAT YOU ARE TELLING IS A LIE.

WELCOME TO NEW YORK: 

• WHEN: an hour before dinner, when you have plans to go out after. listen while applying lipstick, while elongating your eyelashes, while raising one foot and then the other in front of the mirror trying to pick a pair of boots. i don’t know how people who don’t do these things get dressed when they’re trying to keep their energy up and avoid texting their friends or dates or long-term boy/girl friends to be like, “jUST KIDDING I JUST REALIZED I HAVE THE FLU,” and climbing back into their beds to burrito up and watch 16 hours of netflix, but whatever it is, listen to this song while doing that.
   

• WHY: welcome to new york is not a ~lyrics heavy~ jam. WELCOME TO NEW YORK is the kind of thing you shout out a taxi window in a movie, your hair fluttering behind you in the breeze because your future!!!! is so bright!!!! you don’t even know yet how subway cars smell, or that walking in high heels over grates is like an episode of american ninja warrior, or that grocery stores charge you $17.50 for a single bottle of diet coke, or that there are places that are STILL CASH ONLY. you don’t know these things yet, so you’re still hyped to Go Out And Live Like You’re Dying because maybe you’re one of those people who likes parties (???) or maybe you just… haven’t yet been told about netflix.