I feel it all I feel it all

I really liked having a desk job because its just so easy to explain to people when they ask what you do. Working at a gallery was almost like being a police officer in that everyone immediately knew what I did the second I said it. Which is to say that I just sat there and looked recipes up on the internet. No one ever came in and not much ever happened. The room was big and bright and I liked watching the fall reveal itself week after week through the picture windows. I wrote papers, read about Hindu nationalism, kept chugging along on what I thought was my impressive academic life, drinking hot tea for seven hours and then closing up shop. Another satisfying feeling. Pulling down the gates, locking them, arming the security system. I had codes! I had security codes and god how much more important could my job be?

I was sick in October, working at the gallery on a Sunday and my mom and dad came by with our family dog. That was a funny habit my father had, always bringing the dog along. Once he drove me home to Brooklyn and brought the dog. We stopped to get gas and when my father stepped out of the car the dog shot up to the front seat and just stared at him with such love and anxiety. It was strange and endearing.

On this particular day in October my mother stood outside chain smoking because she was pissed about something my father had done, the dog was in the gallery which wasn't allowed, but my dad seemed to be in a lovely mood. He brought me soup from the Italian place up by them, walked around the neighborhood and came back again. Steve had given me a Feist record and I was listening to it over and over in this open space, looking out the window as my parents smoked and forgave one another. Feeling good about the coming winter. Waiting for it because it was going to bring me all good things.