WILD SWIMMING: AIR OF DESPAIR

 

Jules Smith: Melissa Maker lives here now.

me: GET OUT!!! that's me doing my best Elaine Benes.

Jules: after the divorce and everything.

Melissa lives on a sprawling estate bigger than the village.

Jules: so.........it's a delicate question. how are you doing? are you in doldrums distress or are you freer than you've ever been?

Melissa Maker: this is just another day where i can post memes. have you seen the new dishwasher detergent discs?

Jules: dear don't bury yourself in your work, that never works.

Melissa: do you think if i were a Triple D?...nevermind, the disc is light to the touch, GLIDES in the palm of your hand, SLINKS in and out like a fuzzy mustard-yellow caterpillar, slithers to the smell, not the hard rock of concentrate you're used to.

David Lynch: it's like my movie i never got to make: Slinkycat...

Melissa: so you know the tradition Chad and i had, Chad kept the first box of stale taco shells he ever bought us as a family in the deep corner of the cupboard. well it's time for new traditions, new life, new light.

Cyr: new lightwork.

Melissa: i'm trying taco rice for the first time.........i'm dating Pharrell...

Melissa Maker: i have a taco truck parked on the lawn inside my property...

at the log-cabin winter lodge.

Capp, crying: there is no cure for my depression. YOU are the cure for my depression.

Capp hugs Jen R.

Jen R: get that wind shit outta here, the two of us are having a moment.

Generator Rex: Invincible in 8th Grade...

Instagram: read 4 minutes ago...

Dirg: oh, so THAT's why you haven't been on Instagram in a long time.........you're in Ukraine...

Dirg: you seem to be better now on Instagram, FOR YEARS all you posted were videos of you crying...

Breezy Johnson: sorry but Breezy Johnson is a cooler name than Lindsey Vonn.

Lindsey Vonn: i'm still friends with Picabo Street so fuck you.

Jules Smith: Juelz Santana is my son.

Pat Sajak in a Tommy Bahama shirt, 10:30 AM: i mean being a gameshow host is dream enough, but when Wheel of Fortune goes on location to Hawaii...

Jules Smith and i are inside her house on her bed, clothed.

Jules Smith: cottage comforter, the blanket, which way should the tag face?

me: bottom left corner. when i'm lying in the bed. so top right corner.

Jules: it's like a shirts-and-skins game in ice hockey...

the 4 PM hour: trash, laundry, dinner...

Kent: can't.

acid pill: not dropping acid, a pill to control the acid in your stomach.

Alan Watts: ...

me: it's Valentine's Day, i left a surprise at your door.

Jen R floats along downstairs her one-storey colonial Maryland house in her Mrs. Roper toga to greet her stringy Baltimore welcome mat. there's a large pepperoni pizza box stuck in her mailslot.

Jen R: wow. this is a porn scene gone bad. no but it's sweet, and hopefully savory, no pineapple. i was thinking the surprise was the sort of surprise Bud Cort the Dog leaves for me at my doorstep in the cold mornings: hot poo. close but no cigar.

me: what do you mean?

Jen R: didn't i teach you anything while we dated? remember? no halfsies. no halfsies on anything you do, always go all out. if the pizza is heart-shaped, you might as well make the pepperoni heart-shaped...

Rosemary Gill: when i visited my mother after 30 years she had a chipped glass bottle of fossilized paprika dust stuck to her cabinet that was orange, not red.

Rosemary Gill's mom: why the fuck didn't you visit me for 30 years?!!!

Rosemary Gill: not now, ma.........i don't wanna talk about it, ma.........you never liked my girlfriend, ma...

Rosemary Gill's mom: why doesn't Campbell's Soup have a big red can of soup that's Goulash?

Rosemary Gill: .........you know, ma? that's not a bad suggestion.

hiss sound when the power goes out: worst sound on Earth. 

Luna Lovegood: i'm Cassie from Skins but with LESS magic...

carbonated lemonade: it's just lemonade, there's no fizz in it at all, no bubbles...

Rosemary Gill's mom: dinner at noon.

Billy Corgan "Raindrops + Sunshowers" keep falling on my head...

Billy Corgan: my songs are that middle feeling between falling in love and yearning for your love to come back.

Billy Corgan: "This Time" should have been the last song on the Machina album...

Michael German the doctor: i'll give you a free nursing home for your mom for life IF you work at that nursing home as a nurse who is not allowed to raise his voice.

me: ...

Honey: honey, i'll be long gone once i don't have to make my tongue blue anymore...

Alan Watts: how do people get by without mushrooms? how do people do it? how do they live? how do they survive? each and every day. forever. it's impossible. after the day ends, there's another day...

Jules Smith and i are alongside each other along the left side of the village bog, naked.

Jules Smith: this is as close as we're ever gonna get being naked together.

me: being naked with each other is a necessity, it shows vulnerability, it displays courage, sex is ONLY in the mind.

Jules: feel it?

me: yeah it's coming.

i black out. when i come to the wedge of my body is submerged in the lake as Jules furiously holds onto me by my stinky foot against her shoulder. 

Jules: you got a lot of calluses on your feet. have you ever been to a podiatrist in your whole life?

me: does my mom count?

me: what happened?

Jules: same old same old. your anger fused into another large janky wave of bad-vibe energy, i caught you right as you were drowning in your own mindless confused rage.

me: i'm lost at sea. i need a permanent buoy who's a girl.

Jules: THIS is the base of a sturdy relationship. trust. and swim skills. if you have no trust, you got nothing. trust allows you to have another day. trust lasts 'til Tuesday. next Tuesday. trust gives you another tomorrow.