End of the Cold Front

Collected Agenda #29

WHAT I DID

Thursday, January 23

It was past midnight and there would be a morning tomorrow, an early one for once, I set an alarm. I was walking past KGB and it was still bitter cold. It hadn't gotten any warmer yet. No one milling on the steps so the place felt desolate but there was no way to really tell for sure without entering. You'd be out of your mind to loiter in this weather. The people were probably all inside. Everyone I know in New York, clustered in the Red Room like sardines.

The KGB sign was all red and lit up, frost and ice crystallizing around it at a slight distance from the letters. The letters themselves were clear - incandescent heat off their light melting the ice in direct contact before it could solidify.

Riley texted me when I was just too far from her apartment to turn back last night: "You left your Urbit hat. Do you want it?" "I do but later," I said. "lol," I said

I didn't even consider stopping. Not last night. The hat isn't even mine. Later, I'll retrieve it later.

Each day that the cold front continues, I am enjoying it more and more. The tundra is so visceral. I hope we can stay like this, for a while at least.

And so, it is morning. You're up early. David is still sick but you've continued to avoid whatever he’s come down with this time. Leftover cookies on the counter. Cold brew in the fridge. You call a car because you lost track of time. You would have taken the F to the L, but it's too late now. You aren't used to having to track your mornings. It's good, though, having some sense that the days progress linear-like.

Good things keep happening to me, and I'm very grateful and; I’m very happy too. I try not to quantify too much. If I choose this, then imagine I lose that. I don't want to do everything all at once. I've never possessed this desire. There is paralysis, though, sometimes, when I think about what I'm doing and therefore, by default, what I'm not.

First day of my internship today. I like it a lot. First day of the semester yesterday. Very good. I take the subway home. I run a few miles. Thawing in the steam inside, but I'm sick of talking about how cold I've been, and particularly of how much I've been enjoying it.

Writing a lot - maybe too much, honestly. Out of my head and into my body. I spend too much time alone and I become very dissociative. Vision blurring on the treadmill. Self indulgent. I yell a lot when I get home. It’s not important. There are worse things. Natasha and I go to Bar Veloce for drinks and a panini. “One second,” I say on the phone when we’re making plans, and then I hang up to yell, and then I am calm again and then I’m walking back through the frozen air, light and breastless in its dry frigidity.