I wish I was going back to school this week, lugging a new binder which I’d soon customize with images and words cut from magazines, much more (we hope) much more interesting when out of context and placed against something new. A fresh schedule (something about being able to glance at a dot-matrix’d piece of paper and know what’s going to happen, a solid, unshakeable plan for what was going to happen the next day, always so crucial then and so sorely lacking now), a reunion with unliked people, a shared glance of misery with liked people. Back again, awful but not so awful. Ultra-expensive untainted books, weighing down a backpack hanging from a single shoulder. The year unfolding at a glacial pace.

I wrote this today: “It was nice to be reminded that there are some people out there who have known me longer than a year, who have a vague memory of when I was young and potent.” See, I spent a weekend with people I like very much, but they don’t know me, and I’m not going to make it easy for anyone, not when I know there are people out there who don’t need an explanation, who understand the shorthand, who can, for example, and this is true, guess what word I’m trying to convey while playing Taboo without me saying anything, just through the tiniest gesture. This actually happened, the word being facelift.