Dead Letter Department #111

weather report

I kept having to remind myself about Easter. Insanely busy stores on Friday & Saturday morning? Easter. Uncannily quiet all over town Sunday morning? Presumably people are brunching or egg hunting or going to church or whatever one does on Easter customarily—it has never been a big holiday for me, so I confess to being a tad unclear on where the vast majority of people had vanished to. It was a bit easier for me to see it looming up on the horizon of the calendar when I lived on the east coast, due to the larger Catholic population, which meant I’d see co-workers coming in with ash on their forehead or bringing palms folded out of crosses in to hang in their cubicles, as a sort of forewarner of the events to come.

A couple of days beforehand, I did go with my mom to buy a chocolate truffle egg at Sweet Art, which was how she wanted to celebrate the holiday, a store so small that the family with small children smushing themselves up against the glass cases in an ecstasy of decision already inside meant that we had to queue on the pavement outside next to the shoe repair place, cooing over the enormous fluffy black dog who greets the customers coming in to pick up their resoled boots. The vibe is a little different at Sweet Art now that the original owners don’t insist on working absolutely every single shift themselves, frequently shouting at each other from the kitchen in a loud, friendly way, but the interior remains exactly the same, with a fortune telling mannequin guarding the back and the walls covered with the artist-owner’s paintings, every sign and label handwritten.

I’ve been feeling acquisitive, so on Saturday I did a wander around the Restore, where I was, as always, severely tempted by several furniture items that would in no way fit into my apartment, and Habitat for Humanity, where I was hoping to maybe find a tool box. On the way back, I swung through downtown to see if the protest I’d missed earlier in the day was still happening, and when I saw signs for blocked off streets & a fortuitous parking spot, pulled in & walked over to see if it was still going on. Instead, I found myself at a street fair, a full block’s worth of vintage clothes and artist’s booths, everything from punk patches to cashmere hand warmers. I spent my budget on trans poetry, of course, since I had the good luck to run across the poet Nova Martin set up at a booth, whose book Trans Liberation Station I had been meaning to get, and which she very graciously signed for me.

It had been a while since I had any water time, so I crawled out of bed early on Sunday morning in an attempt to beat the better weather crowds that are slowly gathering now that sunshine is back, and found the beach entirely deserted for a good long solitary walk, which was punctuated by finding a dead seal on the point: not just dead, but essentially unzipped from tail to head, with the inner workings all on display in a way I found fascinating rather than horrifying: the cage of the snapped ribs, with the white bone visible, the skin and fat peeled back. It was far too much of an injury to be incidental, so I imagine one of the migratory orcas got hold of it and then somehow lost it in the current before it could take much more than a bite, leaving the seal’s remains to wash up to shore.

stranger of the week

At an intersection near my house, I was peacefully sitting in the passenger seat when I heard an incredibly loud rock instrumental approaching on my right, and a little grey sedan pulled up next to us, front windows down, music turned up more than enough for my brain to start frantically pawing through sheet music until I finally locked on that long interval towards the end of Hotel California where they are just shredding wordlessly for ages & ages. No sooner had I realized this, and turned to observe whoever it was making this fascinating choice for all of us on the road than my eardrums were assaulted by the sound of a dog barking at full, frantic pitch, and instead of looking into the front seat to clock the driver/controller of the radio, I found myself making eye contact with a little red heeler who was absolutely losing his mind at the window, apparently due to my proximity, two car doors away.

Wordlessly, the driver reversed, and for a second I thought he was just changing lanes, but no—he simply pulled back far enough that the barking subsided, dog apparently now satisfied by the distance, and stayed there, a full car length from anyone else at the intersection, still gracing us all with Hotel California, until the light changed. I keep imagining him, problem-solving away for his small barky friend, reversing away from people all over town to make sure the windows don’t line up, while we all suddenly find ourselves listening to the Eagles.

one good thing

My friend sent me a really pretty picture of cherry blossoms the other day, & I said, of course, oh, where is this? She then informed me that one of the parking lot at the community college is absolutely bristling with them at the moment, so on the way back from grocery shopping I drove through, very slowly, made a little delirious by all the pink branches waving away above the parking places. It felt like discovering a secret, magical microseason—the brief days in spring when the parking lot by Kelly Hall is a garden.

Thank you for reading, and especially to those of you who are able to support the Dead Letter Department with a subscription. More soon, & in the meantime, may someone wordlessly reverse you out of a situation that is making you bark your little head off, preferably while the appropriate soundtrack is playing.