at home

I watched all six hours of The Jinx in one go and scared the living daylights out of myself but other than that it was the most uneventful of weekends, a breakfast beer in Coolidge Corner because I had a gift certificate and an oil change because he had a coupon. I dropped paperbacks off at the Booksmith. I picked up some face lotion at the mall. We made steaks with blue cheese and mashed potatoes with truffle butter, roasted string beans with olive oil and salt, then walked down Broadway in the drizzle to try the new bar on Dot Ave. I packed a couple boxes. I wrote a couple hundred words. I put my tour dates down on the calendar, long stretches of travel in the next few months–everything coming quickly all of a sudden, long arrows drawn across the weeks.

“You’re here now, right?” he asked me, when I gave him the rundown. “Until we move at least, you’re here?”

“Yup,” I told him, sitting back in the passenger seat, turning up the radio. “I’m here.”