day 1

i keep getting messages. there are these people who are upset with me. they write me letters. they say, you never respond to my messages. they send more than one of these letters, so i send one back. i say soda water, chipmunk. they send me another letter, they say- that is not a response. i send a letter back, saying soda,water, chipmunk (s). eventually they will write me off forever. if i saw any one of them on the street i would say i love you i love you i love you, forgive me. it is not the kind of thing you can say in a letter. if you said it in a letter you couldn't say it on the street. i've been thinking about cali8fornia, i'll tell them. you came on the day i was thinking about california and a chipmunk on the wire was electrocuted right in front of me. it fell onto the sidewalk outside the library. no one else noticed. maybe they did and they poretended not to. can you imagine? forgive me. i don't deserve it. i smoked a cigarette while lookin at a dead pigeon on the street. i am cruel and unbeleivable. my ears are so small it must mean something. who would make ears so small. my parents have normal sized ears, i've seen them. they used to have a rotary telephone next to their toilet in the master bedroom. can you believe that? i used to listen in. can you believe that? of course you can, look at me. sometimes i am a senseless braggart. i don't even know if california exists. onetime this pigeon was dying outside a record store in paris. i saw it when i was coming out. i'd just been to see picasso. i was buying my poarents billie holiday records for christmas, frank and nancy sinatra. can you believe that? billie holiday, sinatra from paris. what a crummy gift! and anyway this pigeon was dying, just sitting there. strange how when a bird is just sitting there it clearly means the bird is dying. everyone knew it. i couldn't leave and i couldn't save it. i just stood there and stared at it. i looked at other people to see what they would do. what should we do? i wanted to ask them. i didn't even know how to say "what should we do in french. can you believe that? if you move to a foreign country you should know how to say what should we do in french. a woman with a fur collar yelled something at me. she seemed offended. what did you say? i wanted to ask her. maybe i knew, i can't remember. the only things i ever really said on my own and with bravery were, avez-vous du biere? and je ne suis pa un chaval (i am not a horse) once, to Alma on the street. she said the men kept clucking at her and the gaul! i said je ne suis pa un chaval! and she thought i was very good at french, was a prodigal leaner. really it was just that i'd remembered the word for horse and it was an easy sentence. i skipped so many of those classes. paris is always either beautifully grey or tragically grey, always one or the other and i wish i knew how to say that but i don't. soda, water, chipmunk (s).