in the afternoon, i found the perfect perfume for a long sunny walk and a cool crisp apple. my parents came to the city to visit, i dashed into their car while they were hung up in traffic and we crawled to montgomery for brendan so we could all get drinks. after one beer, mom is so toasty that she is giggling and telling me family secrets, she is making the unnecessary fidgets that seem all important: check cell phone, exclaim over this, whisper about that, ladies room, dart glance at the door, the next wall, laugh because you are alive and not listening, smooth hair, repeat. i know these mannerisms well because i must have learned them from her, they are almost exactly the same ones i make and they shock me on someone else. i'm unsure if i even like them. this is also how i feel when i look in mirrors.

we go to eat dinner at coi, at max's behest, but also because after their anniversary, mom and dad are fine dining converts. we do have a great time: paul and i are uncomfortable in the way that it has been so long that we have all sat around a table together like this. we share bites of this and that, max keeps the surprise dishes pouring out of the kitchen, everything is nice. and yet: i am not a convert. i do not like fine dining in restaurants. i don't like fancy hotels or matching luggage or the tailored clothes everyone seems to wear. the whole dinner i realize that i was much happier to enjoy a plate or morsel that max slipped out the back door while i waited for them all to finish work in the alley, prefer the dark red and amber lights of romolo and the melting glass windows, prefer hot fried food from the algerian man on broadway, prefer my apples on the sidewalk and my feet on the ground. it's good to try it to know.

after dinner, max takes off early so that we can go see andrew headlining at the red devil club. after the show and a few drink, we have to run to get me on bart. my heels sound like wooden hammers on the pavement down polk street to market and then down all those stairs. i slip onto the train as the doors close, breathless and heaving, and all the fried egg eyes of the half-life midnight voyagers yolk through me, glassy and exhausted