noun.

empty talk. nonsense.

Something like ten months ago I stood in a small forest of trees overrun by screaming crickets. It was reaching midnight, my senses were sharp, and I was unstrung to the point of what felt like lunacy. The only answer then, as ever when things got intense, was to stand alone in a dark place. Nothing happened; no wild animal ate or attacked me (unfortunately, I thought, at the time), and in the morning I had to eat eggs and yogurt in a cafeteria. I sat next to my friend and wanted to put my arms around him. He smelled like pipe smoke, he gave me a poem about Oklahoma as a woman, he told me about her arms and lying down in them, in wheat fields. I’ve never known anyone my age who loved the earth so much. While I listened to him I had the strong sense that I was falling and I forgot that he was a man.

Some of that stuff is coming full circle. I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say part of my has been dead for the past year, but it’s definitely been a period of Nazi-like focus and fear. I spoke with my buddy last night, who’s visiting Austin, and he told me about licking acid lollipops in college: “It was always somewhat of a letdown; I just felt really tall. I’d sit in class and look over everyone’s heads and think, ‘I can see all yooooour paperrrrzz!”

Then I got a little message from the other one—“J bird I drank too much beers last night”—which sent me hurdling back to the trees.

Damn! I cannot believe I get to experience all this stuff again being a woman is so crazzzzy!!!