1020

My dad has a bird clock. It’s not a clock in the shape of a bird. It’s a regular round clock but instead of numbers it has birds. Every number is a different breed of bird. I know birds don’t have ‘breeds’ that maybe they have ‘types’ or ‘species’ but ‘breed of bird’ sounds nice when I say it in my mind.

I got sick on the very first day of my vacation. I had the sorest of sore throats that gradually morphed into a sinus headache thing and then a chest congestion thing and now, when I cough, bits of phlegm jump into my mouth and the bits are warm and gooey and they feel kind of good when I feel them in my mouth like I am getting rid of the shit in my chest and if I just keep coughing them up, I will be well again. But then I swallow them again and I feel like failure. Actually, I feel like an old lady smoker gross ew.

The bird clock hangs in the kitchen and every hour on the hour it sings a different bird song depending on the ‘number’ of bird o’clock it is on. I am making this more confusing than it is. I think you guys know what I mean. Like if a mallard duck is sitting in the ‘four’ position and it is four o’clock, it makes a mallard duck noise four times or maybe just a few times. I never counted.

Overall, the vacation was as good as I thought it would be. There was little to no arguments, but not as much getting intoxicated as I was hoping for except for the first day when I somehow got my dad to let me know about his buttsex ‘tradition’ when he goes on cruises and somehow drunkenly convincing him to pay for some plastic surgery I want to get but probably won’t but still. Also, there was some sex that might’ve happened within hearing distance of my dad while he prattled around his enormous garden and due to the large amount of foliage, he may or may not have seen/watched. Bottom line, don’t get really drunk right away with your dad who you also confessed that you had a tradition too and it involves weddings and bathroom stalls and he goes, did you do it at my wedding and I said no which was true but he looked at me with waggly eyebrows which I took to mean he didn’t entirely believe me.

I also wrote the writings while on vacation. I notice I get a lot more done when I don’t have an internet connection. I finished a story I have been working on since my last vacation and I showed it to an awesome who said it was good enough for the new Yorker which made me ell oh ell and I said, oh fuckballs! I will send it to TNY because how funny is that!? So, I did and I will let you know if my expectations are met.

I also read three book things and I sat in the sun a lot, sweating. I am a lot browner on parts of me that used to be not brown. I almost caught a lizard the one time I tried and I saw a spider web that was big enough to catch a squirrel.

I missed participating in the nine a lot and I couldn’t wait to get back to add my (muted) trumpet to your sax and (brush stick) drums, because, there is something that Otto told me, something that Otto said, about the Niner being like jazz, like a jazz band and like, we are jamming with each other and riffing off one another and building this beautiful, changing thing that people feel somewhere inside them. And I can’t let go of that description because it is truth word life bless.