Sean Lennon + My Ethereal Hairy Muscle Legs
Don't worry I only spend about 3 sentences talking about Sean Lennon.
My cat hears all kinds of uncommon bird sounds, one dog barking, too many flies, probably the church bells too. I’m Sitting Down to Write™ here for the first time in months, so it has to be an aesthetically momentous occasion. Thank god, I tell myself, there’s tea left in this pot. Hot tea and a window wide open because it rained last night. It will reach 78 (seventy eight, sev-en-ty EIGHT) degrees today. I had my time outside already, early, because I know this whole cabin fevered city will not allow for peace at the heat’s peak. Not that I can blame them—nearly 2 months stuck indoors in closet-sized apartments with roommates that were supposed to be nod-in-the-hallway-temporary, partners we now know too much about, or parents who now know too much about us make any opportunity of escape necessary.
I leave the house for about 2 aggregate hours each week—in fact, I have so little fluctuation in my routine that I’ve hesitated in writing something like this for weeks now. I mean, if I divulge my actual routine, what mystery, what allure will be left to draw readers in? Well…too late. And now you will know that I too drink coffee every morning out of the same mug, run on the weekends like all the other white people in this city, and eat hot chip and lie.
The deeper, yet deeper truth is that leftover tea heated up in the microwave never stays hot as long as fresh tea, the air really does smell cleaner here now, and I am truly now willing to spend $15 in shipping fees for boxes of pastries.
In my two hours outside of the house, I follow this same routine of: run, post about my run, and slowly walk around my neighborhood to take obnoxious pictures of things I’ve been looking at since I was a toddler. The urge to “look at everyday things in a new lens” is unbelievably overwhelming. I mean, I literally cried at the sight of a redbud tree the other week because I realized I hadn’t left my room in six days.
Every day my incubated brain finds a new memory to vividly replay or subject to hyper-fixate on. I woke up Tuesday morning thinking about Sean Lennon and what it must be like to be Sean Lennon. I sat in my bed for too long, too long in this case being 5 minutes when it is regarding the subject of Sean Lennon, thinking about my least favorite Beatle being my father, Yoko Ono, the crushing expectations of family legacy, and the utter privileges allowed to me, Sean, yes, Sean. Yikes.
Wednesday morning I wake up to the smell of the upstate New York State Park bathrooms—one more such olfactory flashback (hello returning readers!) and again, spend too long (in this case, 10 such minutes) thinking about summers upstate. How dirt always caked my ankles above the ugliest sneakers imaginable, my equally offensive bermuda shorts, the humidity, and the toll booths made of the same stacked stone as the stone walls. That soap is so pink, so distinct, I can taste it. It’s usually experienced with dim horror movie lighting and hanging spiders and moth pods from the outdoor bathroom’s ceiling, so it’s truly a wonder this soap is not a mark of trauma. I think so much about the picnics my parents would take upstate, a solid 2 hours of Good Childhood Memory™, the spread, on a tablecloth made of leftover Joann’s fabric ream, usually of The Peanuts pattern variety: burgers, kielbasa, Polish pickles, pierogi, cole slaw, corn, a NY Times recipe pasta salad, blueberry cobbler, and three flavors of seltzer. The pink soap was either an appetizer or post-dessert dessert.
Thursday morning I wake up to nothing, and proceed to live to nothing. It is what it is. I listen to some select Bowie, eat the last remaining pastry from my weekend box, and feel better.
Friday is my “rest day” from piano practice, and thus, is the day I want to play it the most. My parents leave the house for a total of 45 minutes and in that, I sing. The next song I’m learning is ultra-favorite “Killer Queen” and I enjoy the way my operatically trained voice can sound startlingly like Freddie’s…up to a point. I Google “how to sing rock female” and read one article about tips I already know and give up. Well, kind of. By the time my voice warms up (to a few runs of “Border Song”) my parents return home. That practice session, you hear, will be our little secret. Even though I’ve almost entirely recovered from home piano practice performance anxiety, singing has not yet caught up. I’ll get there.
And then on the weekends I get out for an hour each day. I know now that the cutoff point for the fitness floodgates is 8AM so I get out of bed even earlier than I do on workdays to breathe like Darth Vader through my late capitalistic running medical mask (I wish I was lying) in sweat for my mental health. Run, post about it, take pictures of things I’ve known forever. Everything looks extraterrestrial and derealized when, you know, something something pandemic something something grateful mmhmm cabin fever.
Ethereal skate park. Ethereal outdoor track. Ethereal public pool.
Ethereal hairy muscle legs.
