the dangerous journey to the future (via telephone)

kevin has joined our party with level 20 exp! myrtle beach and next year here we come, straight to you from the purple heart highway

a vulgar display of power

for matt

good morning georgia again (via telephone)

so we made it to georgia somehow, last night. five am to four am and the most surreal waffle house experience of my life and three gas tanks behind us, we finally slept. i just woke up to the sound of nothing at all and a perfectly blue sky. oh clipper bay

(via telephone)

playing the jackson five

WE JUST PASSED A TOWN CALLED DUM FRIES

(via telephone)

the iced teas grow giantly in maryland diners

the susquehanna, maryland

rest stop vacation (via telephone)

four hours and four states behind me, and another eight hours til i'm behind the wheel. hello new jersey!

pictures in the air all around us (via telephone)

I have discovered how to post from my cellular phone! This means that i will be able to update from the OPEN ROAD. Complete with really, really bad cell phone photography. Get excited. I am (considering this took me the last two days to figure out.) Wish me luck (on the highway and technology). Love, elise's cell phone.

this was the last warm day i felt

sequoya's fake keds, manhattan. 12.08




and i don't even know what date this was- and as much as i love the cold- it's good, that i'm heading south.
a fifteen hour drive to experience what i've always made fun of as the mid-country lukewarm unwinter.
it is going to be great

i love new england more than places i haven't even been yet

massachusetts, 12.21.08



because times like these happen so often it's as if massachusetts thinks it's normal

holy days

home, 12.08



happy holidays, everyone. that means your holiday, too. i hope everyone's days are going as well as mine. times like these make me feel like the luckiest person i can imagine. and luckily enough that sort of thing is almost limitless-

love,
elise

stomachache

manhattan 11.23.08




full body stomachache is when i take the walks

it's one of those things where i only like other people who take walks
by themselves

the first night

nate, massachusetts. 12.22.08




it was dusk and we
knew at that moment that we
would survive, twig us



because nate was a snow centaur, the head and hands of the entire earth

re-hash

manhattan 12.08




last few days have been taken up with moving temporarily home.
and wow, life is just so different here
most of my thoughts are just wow wow wow wow wow wow

breaking the windows of the fever cabin

cara, manhattan. 12.08






sorry for the petite hiatus, academia was calling.


now the only things calling are Men and Friends and the One Hour Photo down the street, so good so good
my Well well is well enough so that i can wish others well too,
have a great day

tangerine

rishi and bonnie. kent boys', brooklyn. 12.5.08




the people we tie our expectations to are always the wrong ones, or even the wrong things. i've started tying my expectations to the past instead and it works out better.

disappointment = had a happier memory before, you lucky person.
a good surprise = progress.

i'm lucky because the best advice i can give myself is to remind myself of the big basic concrete blocks of my life. and walking down the street i run into faces i know, and you can only ever know a face in a good way, and the cold air smells like new england, almost, sometimes. woodsmoke blows over from the west village. a woman loses her scarf and it flies over in the wind and hits the newspaper man. he drops newspapers in surprise and they blow straight up, and the face of a little boy appears in the window of the twelfth floor, in awe at the ambition of the rebellious high-flying first page of the new york post.

in december it gets so cold that the only thing not frozen is your brain. you say hello to the brains walking around in giant downy coats. and when you get to the place you're going to, you appreciate having a body like you never have before, except last december.

and in these rooms you smile at all the others, in that perfect warmth of People because you realize it, finally, now. because even the apartments are cold. because the only thing that you can do is be with People.



on the late night walk home you pass the one other one walking on the quiet brooklyn side street. you are both two-am-cold. through your wrapped heads and bodies you make eye contact.
standing on the opposite sides of the tracks you wave without waving as your trains come to take you away from the last People of the night. the last person who knows you exist until the day.

7 a.m.

the apartment, december 2008.





you're calling so early in the morning, winter

night regulation

bushwick, brooklyn. november 2008.







it's hardly easy to live in the city
it's easily hard to live in the city



making a long list of how to connect to the humans

go for broke, hands in pockets

noah, bushwick. november 2008





my computer is being read its last rites

the most wonderful time

mashpee, massachusetts. may 2008


of the year.

rememberies

dan at the kent boys', brooklyn, halloween 2008



family circus

THE BITTER COLD

bushwick, brooklyn, 3:30 pm. november 2008.




is all i need.


last night i woke up at 3 am and my window was open. then i heard a woman on the street below scream "yes!"

when i looked down there was no one around except the fruit cart man smiling.


"i have no idea how so much happens"
"wait, what do you mean?"
"what?"
"so much as in how many things you have no idea about, or how that many things just happen?"

when your fourth birthday party lasts fifteen years

mike and annalise. manhattan, november 2008. 1:05 am.




a lease had been signed by the problem children of the world. they put it under my pillow.
i woke up with it stuck to my face, and as i peeled it off in the early morning light i realized it was just listing things i already knew-
they wanted me back.
i sent it back out the window in the best paper airplane i still knew how to make, letting them know that i'm leasing to own.


forever, those big shiny child eyes

supporting hundreds of species

bushwick, brooklyn. november 2008.




being seasonally appropriate is facing the Facts.

things that can only be created from love and hate

kiwanis beach, upton mass. august 2008.





1. novels
2. baked goods
3. memorable summers
4.

after noon

annalise, washington square park, september 2008.

train life

somewhere between new york city and providence RI, october 2008






i am back and feigning organization. the pieces are falling together by chance and i'm enjoying the luck. it's almost scary; i'm not used to life feeling this good.

so i'm sorry it distracted me.

this is starting again! wish me luck?
welcome back to the day to day.

back from europe, already moved to manhattan

barcelona, spain. august 2008




this is the part in the novel when it just starts to end, when the someone gets their feet on the ground, becomes something more than ordinary but something no longer caught up in conflict. resolutionless (as they are, must be, in a real true novel) the pages fade out into small words, until their existence is as simple and blank and beautiful as the extra pages in the binding.

the volatility and danger remain, and all the extraneous- those things you've now learned after reading through that 600th page- fall away.

and, just almost, that person is so concentrated on the substance, the fiber, that they forget that there's an opposite - all the filler - so that they glimpse what might be their only chance at that iconic, idyllic automatic life. just the important. just the pulp.

delicates

home, august 2008




back from europe barely an hour ago. boston dublin barcelona amsterdam belgium paris dublin boston, i think my mind was left somewhere back there because the jet lag is killing me. maybe it's true what that one woman said, planes just move too fast for the human heart to keep up with.

just got to do some laundry- figuratively, literally- before my big move back to the city.

at this rate my heart will be lost.
FOREVER

last morning in the country

quarry plaza, milford, ma. august 2008





my 1982 olympus xa arrived in a plastic bag in the rain yesterday, hanging off my doorknob. and immediately i shot a test roll, processed it in the last few hours before europe. i'm already in love.

i'm leaving the country, for twelve days- my first flight crossing an ocean, first time on that continent. wish me luck, and i'll be back soon.

in the final week

tuckernuck and nantucket islands, MA. july 2008






distillation produces 99.9% pure water.
and i'm about 75% water, and it's been a hot, hot summer.

i guess that means that i'm 74.925% pure.
getting there