Whenever I'm walking the dog or mowing the lawn these days, I sometimes imagine a future Wattpad where I'm writing to you from South Korea as an English-as-a-second-language teacher. I imagine being more eloquently sardonic in them, that my wit at this point in my life (I imagine being in my late 20s) has been sharpened into a surgical edge. I couldn't tell you how that would look, but I think I'd use it on everything I could: myself, other expats, the North, China, K-pop, manhwa, Korean consumer culture, "the West", etc. I imagine writing about how lonely I'd inevitably feel out there. I'd talk about walking and eating a lot; all the advertisements I'd stare at; glancing at families through windowsills; used cellphones in street markets; house shows that I'd make weekend quests to find; bumbling through ordering food in broken Korean; feeling like a sore white thumb in crowds. I'd be sure to send you a lot of pictures. I imagine missing Canada more than I thought I liked it living here. I still imagine bitching about it though. For some reason in this fantasy, I'm post-break up of some kind, whether it be just a relationship or full on marriage. I usually imagine it being the latter. I imagine it being one of those shotgun marriages that are so youthful and recklessly set up that they were bound to fall apart from the start. Enough time has passed in the Super Future for this to have happened without you being all that present. I imagine we drift apart for a few years only to rekindle after we put a few miles on our lives, maybe after the NAWT or something. I never give the students or the classrooms - the sole reason I'd even be out there - all that much detail with all that I've thought about this. I imagine that I would give a lot of detail if I had any to you. I'd write little profiles on everyone like I do for all those weirdo internet people I parasocially fixate on. I imagine churning out a month, coming to it nightly to write and cut and write again until I'd piled up something I think is worthwhile to send off. I imagine explaining to you that I might be doing it more for myself than for you, like I'm writing a diary that I have to publish. I imagine we'd be very different people by then. I wonder how when it finally comes time.
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At dinner, my dad held up a can of almonds and told my mom and I that it took 700 gallons of water to make that one can. He told us about the illegal marijuana crops in northern California. He said that's why my aunt went houseboating in a lake that was nearly dried up. I mentioned the gang wars in Mexico and Chile over avocados. Doom nestled itself stiff into our words, but we carried them anyway, not caring as they would be out of our hands soon. We'd forget about it after we finished eating.
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"I'll see you in Portland."
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I saw and briefly went through a huge house party the other day. It still scares the shit out of me.
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I want to write something unflinchingly cruel and heartbroken. I don't know what, but it's in me somewhere. The reasons as to why are obvious.
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My dad had this photographer friend from England who got to photograph Henry Kissinger. I've definitely told you that before. I've been reading a lot about all the millions of people he killed. The thought that there's only two degrees of seperation between him and I blows my mind more than it seems it should.
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Bill Callahan seems like a surprisingly normal guy for someone who wrote Teenage Spaceship.
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I have this horribly pessimistic perception of the time M-- and I did drugs over the summer even though it just felt like dumb kid shit in the moment. "Hope vs. Rome", or "Oblivion-Seeking in a World Seeking Oblivion" as I started calling it, was going to culminate in me going into detail about it. I'll get into it somewhere eventually.
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I don't know if you've noticed, but I seem to really like to name-drop places a lot.
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Everything is immoral and no one is innocent.
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I like the way my jawline looks in the mirror.
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Things seem like they're the best they've ever been and the worst they've always been for you. You could do without the bad shit, but I'm so glad there is a flip side to it and that it's been wonderful for you. I really like all your new friends. I like how you're doing so much with them and that they all seem like cool people to do anything with. I like who they are and how they treat you. I've been missing you more than usual these days. Sometimes I don't know what to do with myself, but it's completely worth I when I know you got them around. You're now in the coolest days of high school. I hope nothing stops it. I love you :)
