Open (Open (Close)

Last night we sat on Tom’s floor and listened to records. The room was economically cold but had a sweet dimwarm tungsten glow, and cans of PBR slowly crowded the coffee table like subway passengers. As usual I became effortlessly drunk. “Is that a 50mm?” I squealed at Madeleine. “Do you know how long I’ve been meaning to buy a 50mm?”

“You want to try it? Check it out.”

Thick Maine accents from questionably comedic duo “Burt and I” wandered out of the speakers and we reveled in them. “And the next morning . . . his trousers were so full of fish . . . a button popped off, and killed a partridge.” Long pause. “Wait,” J asked hesitantly, “so was that . . . the punch line?” Throughout the night we’d repeat this, over and over, attempting to master its timbre, the deliberate tempo. “And the next morning . . . his trousers were so full of fish . . . a button popped off, and killed a partridge.” “And the next morning . . . his trousers were so full of fish . . . a button popped off, and killed a partridge.” Madeleine’s 50mm made the rounds around the room, from radio producer to writer to photographer to radio producer (there are so many of them), so that underpinning everything, even the occasional soft metallic click of a popped beer tab, was the shutter, always the shutter, click click click click click.

“These will be the best documented four months of our lives,” I said. “We’ll never forget, even if we want to.”

At the end of the night, we all bundled into our coats and hugged goodbye: the first physical contact I’d had with anyone in weeks. I struggled to contain merry chirps. “Hugs!” I said, still somewhat intoxicated. “Hugs!”

“Strip club tomorrow? Yeah? Who’s in?”

Nothing sketchy. This is schoolwork. We raised our hands.

Peer: Whoa. I’m sorry, how old did you say you were?
Adrianne: Oh, just that I’m about to turn 27.
Peer: Oh my God!
Adrianne: Uhhh . . . so, how old are you?
Peer: I’m 19.

I am officially of the age that causes 19-year-olds to say “oh my God.”

I put my head in my hands, and she added  – “but you don’t look it!”

The defining mark of literary journalism is the personality of the writer, the individual and intimate voice of a whole, candid person not representing, defending, or speaking on behalf of any institution, not a newspaper, corporation, government, ideology, field of study, chamber of commerce, or travel destination. It is the voice of someone naked, without bureaucratic shelter, speaking simply in his or her own right, someone who has illuminated experience with private reflection, but who has not transcended crankiness, wryness, doubtfulness, and who doesn’t blank out emotional realities of sadness, glee, excitement, fury, love. The genre’s power is the strength of this voice.

– Mark Kramer, “Breakable Rules for Literary Journalists“

Returning to school my second semester of college, I took the train from Minneapolis to Poughkeepsie. I took the train a lot that year; visiting / occasionally kissing friends in New York City, wailing at concerts, stalking the streets all night to pass the time until the first morning departure from Central Station. Back then, every trip changed you. It was perpetually exciting; but it also tended to make one feel transparent, stretched out, uncomfortably impressionable. What’s next? I’d sit alone on the Metro North on the way up, looking out the window at the passing Hudson, cheap foam Discman headphones crooning Thom Yorke or Frank Black or Tori Amos into my ears, because I liked Tori Amos once. I wore a lot of my mother’s old clothes then; I’d put her tapestry bag on my lap, tie a worry-stone around my neck, feel the wooden buttons on her pigskin coat. It was comforting to look like her in photographs. I needed to feel predestined in some way to a certain future, tied to some tangible past.

The train ride from Boston to Portland, I realized the only previously-owned-by-a-loved-one article of clothing I had was my ex-boyfriend’s belt. And I didn’t wear it, because — completely unsymbolically — it didn’t happen to go with the rest of my outfit that day. I sat and looked out the window, and when the meaningful music became too much, I put on La Bouche’s “Another Night Another Dream” and closed my eyes.

It took us a while to get around to it, but The Slutcracker cast party finally exploded on the Oberon dance floor last Thursday. Ammon DJ’d for us; there was improvisational pole dancing, a slutty award ceremony, pink panther/cop burlesque, and I finally got to wear that mustache I’ve had laying around forever (alas, unpictured).

Erik licks my boot (Larger)

I love you (Larger)

Full album: (somewhat unsafe-for-work, especially if you’ve got your Flickr preferences set correctly) here.