“I grew up swearing I’d never live in New York,” the woman beside me explains.
We’re waiting for a reading to start at a bar in Crown Heights – two strangers somewhere in our 30s. She’s from New Jersey, the state just next door, has been here two years now.
“We’d say it was where…
Hope is radical, and New York City is full of it.
A blue light flashes on the automatic cat feeder as a disembodied woman’s voice fills the room. “Hey Lily! Come get your food Lily!” Kibble dispenses into the bowl. “Pspspsps!”
The cat doesn’t move from Mardi’s lap – doesn’t so much as flick an ear at what I can only assume are the familiar sounds…
We wake in a pile of butter-yellow blankets beside a dying fire: me and three dark heads of hair. The world outside is a snowglobe – a beautiful rarity in 逗子 / Zushi / the half-mile beach where the sun was born. In the morning light, there’s a smudge of blue on the inside glass…
The night I lost umbrella number one, I tried stingray for the first time – ordered for me by my enthusiastic dining companions: a group of women who all work full time, are married and have children. Also on the menu was horumon cuts of meat eaten to restore stamina and honour mottainai – avoiding…