I feel sort of far away, but I'm not sure what from.

Last night was so easy. I just wandered over to that strange courtyard and weaved through the tables until I found the right one. I made jokes and faces across the table, and then it was time to go. I didn't have to decide or plan anything, I was just handed a ticket, and when did they stop tearing them? How long has it been since I've gone to something with an actual ticket? Everything happened so early and there was wild dancing with teenage boys and Irish men, and there were careful hands. Bees and I did a lot of whispering, because Bees and I are whisperers. I made up rollerskating stories and we giggled in the bathroom, and then outside afterwards while we were waiting for everyone we'd lost. I got home early because it was either that or Brooklyn, and some nights just don't feel like triborough nights.

Today is like a day that doesn't exist, a day that got sucked into a black hole somehow. The phone rings and the phone rings and the phone rings, and I don't like the look of the caller ID. I couldn't even listen to the radio today. My parents are more than too much. Sometimes they don't even seem like real people to me, but more like characters in a play where everything went wrong. I went to see my mother and she asked me for an impossible favor. My voice got sort of creaky and I had to leave. It's not such a big deal, it's just that my mother can turn anything into a huge, sweeping dilemma. That seems like a rotten thing to say, but it's worse that it's true.

Anyway, I had a fantastic dream in which someone gave me a cage full of tiny pink birds with red beaks. They got out of the cage and then out through the window, but somehow I called them back, and they just sat in my hands, being perfect. There were other dreams, but I can't remember them well enough for words, and the birds are enough, aren't they?