Tell Me on a Friday #21: Panopticon City Mall

Hi-ho readers,

So, where were we?

I guess the better question is – where was I?

I was never consistent with writing biweekly, but two weeks became three, then four, and now it’s been a year and a half since my last letter. Maybe the name should not contain a weekday (or a regular posting schedule). Anyway.

Since I wrote you: 

  • I applied to, was accepted to, and started and completed my first year of graduate school
  • I moved into my first solo apartment
  • I turned 27, and 28
  • I cycled through hard and easy times with my family
  • I bought a lot of clothing; I got rid of a lot of clothing
  • I became less allergic to trees, nuts, and cats
  • I survived two more New York winters
  • I was triply-vaccinated
  • I went to the movies in theaters more times than in the preceding five years
  • I took up running and completed my first race
  • I became a prolific and paid church musician

So I am doing well. However.

Sometimes, I feel like I am moving very quickly on a unicycle – shocked that I have the hang of it, going faster than I’d like, unable to comfortably turn around and look at what’s behind me without falling. Who let me ride this thing, anyway? Who gave it to me?

After a recent visit to St. Luke’s, where I felt like I was playing a video game speedrun, but the objective was small talk with my high school teachers, I ran into my high school boyfriend. He was in context. I was not. He teaches there, but I’d forgotten, and it served as a jumpscare. It was nice to see him, of course – it just brought about the feeling that any frayed threads tying me to my past are on their last fiber.

I no longer have boyfriends¹. I just found my first gray hair(s); my body is settling. I wonder who forgets me and who I forget. I don’t think I yearn for the things I no longer have; I yearn to recall how I felt. Everything used to matter more – I remember the ache in my chest and questioning if I would ever feel differently. I did; I do. None of it is terrible. It is, and it was. I wonder about the “was.” I imagine the older I get, the less weird this is. Or is it weirder? What do you think?

I have recently been re-reading my poems, both published and unpublished; the yearning is palpable. I have not written a new piece in almost three years. I am considering releasing a chapbook. Pamphlet? Glad to Be Unhappy. Anything new I might write wouldn’t feel right in that era of my work. I figure I might as well commemorate the chapter. 

(for the record, the ones I think are most sick with yearning are as follows: Venus in Aries; Another Thing Coming; Gratitude; Coyote. Okay, Coyote is just about sex. Which is a different type of yearning².)

16, 26. Woof.

Media Diet³

Songs in My Heart (with playlist)

  • Lonely Women – Laura Nyro⁵
  • Smokin Out The Window – Silk Sonic⁶
  • Tried To Understand – SASAMI
  • Paprika – Japanese Breakfast
  • Tone Pome – Macie Stewart
  • To Be American – Gabriel Kahane
  • Pink Pony Club – Chappell Roan
  • Black Cow – Steely Dan
  • La Bicicleta – Carlos Vives and Shakira
  • The Chain – Fleetwood Mac
  • Concerto for Recorder and Viola da Gamba in A Minor TWV 52a1: I. Grave – George Philipp Telemann
  • Run Me Through – Perfume Genius
  • Hit Me Where It Hurts – Caroline Polachek
  • Loro – Esperanza Spalding
  • Solsbury Hill – Peter Gabriel
  • Seven Words – Weyes Blood
  • Hammer – Tune-Yards

As penance for my long absence, here are the things I recommend from last year and some from this year.

Letters of Recommendation (2021)

  • Film: Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar / Minari / Together Together
  • Television: Abbott Elementary / the entire Poirot series
  • Live performance: Larry Owens’ Sondheimia / Natalie Walker’s Mad Scenes / Caroline, or Change
  • Fine art: Simie Maryles Gallery (Provincetown)
  • Poem: Toad, by Norman MacCaig
  • Food (out): Caribbean seafood stew at Helltown Kitchen (Provincetown) / bronzini at Deux Amis / anniversary dinner at Sofreh 
  • Food (in): homemade ramp pesto / tomato sandwiches for lunch every day for two weeks⁷
  • Attraction: New York Aquarium⁸ / dinner al fresco at Wagner Park in FiDi
  • Activity: staring at a kind cow for 15 minutes / floating in the ocean at the Rockaways / solo-wandering The Container Store
  • Greenspace: Inwood Hill Park⁹
  • Investment: a good bed pillow / real headshots
  • Trip: southern Vermont for a family wedding / annual girls’ trip to Salem, MA (before the busy season)
  • Moment: my best friend’s engagement party

Letters of Recommendation (2022, so far)

I missed writing these, and I missed you. Also, future letters will NOT be this long. If you’re a new subscriber, welcome, and enjoy these emails that I could probably just text to my friends. Reply if you’d like!

See you in two (and I MEAN IT),
Emily

P.S. For the uninitiated, the issue’s title is usually something funny that I either said or overheard. I invite you to guess for #21.

P.P.S. Footnotes! Or endnotes? Anyway, there are usually several of them. I recommend opening the email in a tab from the Letter Archive and scrolling to them there. They are my one parenthetical allowance, despite now being on medical-grade stimulants. No, I have never completed Infinite Jest.

¹Although I still Google them quarterly. “Boyfriends” is very loose. If I so much as kissed you on the cheek in college or went on one date with you in my early twenties, congrats; I still check in on you online. Yeah, even you, random soft butches from Cubbyhole.
²Or is this hunger? Desire? Want?
³If you hit any paywalls, let me know, and I will try to find you a PDF copy!
⁴I can’t find my old iPod. It is wild that I only had immediate access to ~1,000 songs, with painstakingly updated metadata, fixed by yours truly. This tweet hurt. Also, news to me that there is a reporter for the Times whose whole beat is Apple?
⁵I want to cover and record this song. I am obsessed with the idea of making a short EP: Nyro/Mitchell/King (Joni and Carole, that is). Do you play piano and want to assist? I promise I am a good singer and game musician.
⁶Tracks 2-6 were released since I last wrote in 2020. Yikes!
⁷Harriet the Spy-style, natch.
⁸Specifically, the sea lion that did tricks to “Everybody Dance Now.“
⁹The answer is always Prospect Park, but I am letting some underdogs have their day.
¹⁰This show has affected me more significantly than any other media I’ve consumed in the past few years, maybe even more than Killing Eve (well, I’m pretty bitter about how KE ended, no, I do not want to talk about it). 
¹¹I am seeing the Encores production of Into the Woods tonight, so this might change.
¹²This piece moved me when I saw it on the wall at SAAM in their Artist to Artist exhibition. The curators paired it with a Grace Hartigan painting, Frank O’Hara (1926-1966). From the section and object labels, I learned that they were close friends, closer maybe to platonic lovers (I know, but it feels correct), but became estranged and hadn’t fully reconciled when O’Hara died in an accident.
¹³Are you sensing a pattern?
¹⁴They remind me of those dark benches lining Peacock Pond at Wheaton, where I held others’ hands most tenderly and disclosed my most painful feelings.