Scrolled through the day’s lunatic headlines and screamed into my hands. It wasn’t a single piece of news that broke me, just the general gestalt, the accumulating language of degradation. Too much has been infected by the binary logic of social media. Like. Don’t like. Follow. Block.

Maybe I should go live in a tree. Learn the phases of the moon and teach myself to cook with the sun. I asked C. if she would join me if I genuinely wanted to abandon civilization. She paused for a moment and said, “Maybe.” We discussed how long we would last in the wilderness before deciding she would be bitten by a poisonous creature and I would probably starve to death.

But I like thinking about those few seconds of silence before she politely said maybe. I can’t imagine a better kind of love: broad and generous yet rooted in reality like a tree.

Green Velvet – Leave My Body

Portamento Tracks | Relief Records, 1995 | More

Another mode of escape: the Muppet-voiced lyric from this mid-90s anthem has been looping in my head all week. Sometimes I want to leave my body and float away into space…