radical acceptance is cool if you can swing it
The Honeydrippers - Impeach the President
"Don't brood over how you may have behaved last night. If you"
Hello:
Yesterday I smoked weed indoors and then immediately felt guilty about it, so I opened the window really wide, put on the diffuser with a few drops of sandalwood oil, closed the door and went downstairs for half an hour. When I came back in it smelled like a dream - like spring, comfort, hope, sunshine. If you have the resources to re-create this recipe, I cannot recommend it enough.
I have been biking up and down the railpath every morning for half an hour, 45 minutes, however long it takes for my legs to start singing. There are a lot of good things about this: everyone is out walking their beautiful dogs, the one fluffy tuxedo cat who comes out to bask in the sunshine, all the other human beings in the world, keeping a respectful distance from each other but happy to still be out.
The gesture also connects me to the past in a way few other things do right now. When I was concussed this time last year and also the year before that, I would go out in the mornings and do the same route - up, down, up, down - until I could feel the buzz in the back of my skull and my vision started to blur. I was scared to ride my bike and also I was scared to let the fear keep me away from it. It was hard. I remember being acutely aware of how little information my brain was capable of processing at once as I pedalled; the visual input of everything blurring past me on all sides, the physical effort of keeping my legs moving and my breath flowing in and out, all the sounds around and past me. I would come home feeling like a rung bell, have to sit on the couch in silence for an hour or two to recover, just staring at the wall. Now I listen to podcasts while I bike, am easily distracted by my own thoughts, barely even notice what my body is doing on its own. It does not feel like I have changed that much, but gradually, slowly, I came back to myself and became a whole new person in the process. I was scared that I was immune to the passage of time, but turns out it works on me the same way it works on everything else: slowly, but still. Things change, have changed, keep changing, will bring you back to where you were again, but new.
Something longer:
Chessy Normile: "I'm The Boneless Nighttime Dog" and a few other poems
"I'm crying suddenly. Why did I come to this museum alone? I remember the world outside, a big window in the sculpture hall gives it to me. It's always at the same hour in this city, with light the dashed colour of my crown, when I receive the world like this - as space for you to saturate."
Pets, Interiors:
Visit @apartment_poem on instagram for more, or to submit your own.
Roommates:
(submit petty gripes about the people you share space with anonymously to apartmentpoem@gmail.com)
My roommate's dog barks incessantly, particularly if my roommate is paying attention to anyone other than her (the dog). This is particularly bad when my roommate spends time with her boyfriend, who I guess has decided to weather this coronavirus storm with us. Every time they have sex, the dog stays in the room and yaps endlessly at them. And for some reason they don't seem to mind? The fact that my roommate has had multiple boyfriends who don't seem to care that there's a dog yapping in their ear while they bone makes me worried about straight men. Also, fuck the Vancouver housing market.
Dreams:
(submit dreams anonymously to apartmentpoem@gmail.com)
i had a dream i was supposed to be hosting this vampire movie night, i didn't know anything about vampires and i was really stressed about having to do it. i went up onstage and was trying to explain to the audience that they should all go home, partially because i didn't know what i was talking about and partially because they really shouldn't be out at the movies anyway. everyone took a vote on whether i knew enough about vampires and vampire movies to host the evening but before i could find out the verdict i woke up.
I had a really crazy and intense dream last night but the only detail I can remember now is that there was lots of salt???
Gentle reminder:
You don’t have to go on Twitter. It's not bad if you do, but you don't have to.
&&&:
Glad Day emergency survival fund for LGBTQ2S artists, performers & tip-based workers
Type Books is offering deliveries and curbside pickup in Toronto if you need something to read
(if you have links to a fund, initiative or anything else you think I should include here, email them to
apartmentpoem@gmail.com)
Carlo's basketball corner:
Darryl "Chocolate Thunder" Dawkins breaks two backboards in three weeks