We went to that woman's house, to make sure the cat hadn't knocked over any Christmas decorations or set anything ablaze. I put on the fur coat that lives on the back of her dining room chair. Her bed had too many pillows, and her television too many remotes. I quietly realized that there are indeed times when the first thought that finds itself in my mouth is not something I should say, for I suppose it is true that some people cannot "pull off hats."

Today is the day my grandfather died, and two days before was the day he was born. I don't think anyone in my family's remembered. These two days in between I've wept, gazed, sat stock still at the window, worried over blackbirds crowding the street, and played odd board games with J even though he's a rampant rule-bender. We sat outside, and he talked into a glass bottle as he took meek sips from it, which made him sound as though he was speaking in tongues. It was so cold that Angelhead's eyes had become frostbitten, small and too precise. Before that, I was all prepared to write him a Christmas letter about pink evenings and well-made apologies, but it's clean gone now.

My birthday is in nearly no time, and it will solely be spent in drafty corridors with cheap coffee and Angelhead. His family will disapprove and my family will huddle around us as though we're a pile of broken glass. I'll wake up far too early on my birthday, as I always do, and lie in bed next to the thin window with my cold shoulders exposed, feeling quite queasy and irritable.

For Christmas, I've given back to my hair it's natural color. Though despite its inherency, I am still shocked when I pass a window or mirror and am not met with a deadening flaxen burst.

A mediocre Christmas song because I don't know of any good ones.

Christmas and birthday wishes:
An end to the replacement of letters with apostrophes
An end to asymmetry
J (circa 1994-6)


(I've forgotten from where this photograph came.)