first days of summer

"self-portrait at 28"

HOUSEKEEPING: We’re doing a version of Bookbear Express matchmaking that pairs people based on their three favorite Substacks and closing it in a couple of days. We need more girls!! If you are interested you can fill it out here (if you are any other gender you will be waitlisted for the next round).

Nabokov to Vera: “It’s pouring, the trees are getting greener before my eyes, I love you. I’m almost afraid of the intensity of this happiness.” In a dream I showed you the poem I wrote for you and I was embarrassed. It’s been so many years since I last wrote poetry, and the writing felt like an opening. I don’t understand how I could possibly be wrong about the feeling I had when I met you, which was calm like still water. Like the soles of my feet touching the deepest part of the pool on the first days of summer. Green and white tiles and chlorinated water burning in my nostrils.

Early afternoon: the sun pours aqueous through my skylight. I light the carrot-shaped candle at my dinner table. For years now, this is how I hypnotize myself into writing. It occurs to me that loving you feels remarkably similar to working on the novel, which is to say it requires extreme patience, and at times has induced despair. In fact, I hate talking about you in the exact same way I used to hate talking about the book, and am carefully optimistic to others in the exact same manner. Turns out that’s the way I sound when I’m in the middle of an extended project.

Sometimes I feel like you punish me for my abject romanticism by methodically demonstrating how different your values are. And then I’m not allowed to be annoyed at you because it feels like kicking a dog in the face. You’re so well-intentioned, so ardent, so sweet. I know I deserve to suffer because I made you fall in love with me.

I threw out all the decaying flowers and kept the two bright yellow chrysanthemums in the vase. My friend told me love is supposed to be easy, feel easy. At Pearl Spa one time the Korean lady pushed down so hard on my back I started crying, and then laughing because I liked the pain so much. David Berman:

I walked out to the hill behind our house
which looks positively Alaskan today,
and it would be easier to explain this
if I had a picture to show you,
but I was with our young dog
and he was running through the tall grass
like running through the tall grass
is all of life together,
until a bird calls or he finds a beer can
and that thing fills all the space in his head.
You see,
his mind can only hold one thought at a time
and when he finally hears me call his name
he looks up and cocks his head.
For a single moment
my voice is everything:
Self-portrait at 28.

I watched The Materialists last week and enjoyed it. I found Pedro Pascal charmless, but I suppose that’s who he’s playing. It’s a shame that I’ll never be the character that represents safety in a movie. It seemed implausible that Dakota Johnson lives on a salary of 80k in New York City and wears that particular Doen dress to the wedding. I see why she ended up with Chris Evans (very charming), despite him proposing to her over halal cart food. The movie made me think about how being a matchmaker is a very romantic and very cynical job at once. “Math and magic,” like a reader said.