The sky is a heartbreaking blue today. It verges on cruel. An airplane, bigger than a speck, silent, floats in a sharp, straight line and disappears behind the umbrella overhead. A whole plane full of people with their own peeves and frustrations, their own private jokes and their own schemes. Going somewhere. 

In 999 of my thousand and one moods I hate the telephone. In a thousand of them I love a patio, sundrenched or starlit. An alcove open to rain or fog. A Greyhound bus, a cemetery, a mountain trail, a waterfront, a dimly lit bar that’s seen better days.

I just read The Emperor of Gladness, a novel I’d decided would be perfect before I even cracked it open. Never a good idea. (And not fair to the author, either. Sorry, Ocean Vuong!) I’ll save my criticisms for book club; today under this brutal blue sky I’m thinking about Hai telling Sony, “Most people are soft and scared. They’re fucking mushy. We are a mushy species. You talk to anybody for more than half an hour and you realize everything they do is a sham to keep themselves from falling apart. People put on this facade of strength. They act like they have a purpose and a mission and their whole life is supposed to lead to this grand fucking thesis of who they are. But what happened, huh?”

Holden Caullfield would agree.