putting my back into it
inspired by sheila heti’s alphabetical diaries, i went through a year of my own journal entries, searched for the word “happy,” and made a poem out of the results:
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the water we surf in has high levels of e. coli, enterococcus, and coliform
people always talk about it but i don’t notice that it does anything to me. surfers are supposedly higher in e. coli but i sent in a fecal sample a few years ago and had below-average levels of e. coli. so i am not worried. but the water IS giving me bacne which only adds to my insecurities about my back in general.
it is funny to be insecure about my back because i only recently became aware of it. i never used to look at myself from behind. now i position my medicine cabinet mirror at a precise angle so i can look into the other mirror and examine my overgrown trapezius muscles which is a euphemism for hunchback. i wish it never occurred to me to look at myself from this angle.
***
then i went to physical therapy for hunchbacks. it didn’t work. but i got this video where i feel there is a palpably intimate connection between us:
i hope you enjoyed this edition of 💧randaleaks💧
p.s. if you’re like, why am i receiving this? it’s probably because you were a subscriber to goodhang.org. we wanted to keep that URL alive but bring our subscribers to our new projects. so here you are. welcome 💦
My wife has a whole back thing; some guy told her she looked like a turtle 10,000 years ago. We both have bad posture. I tell her: "I like your back," but none of us can get help with these things from another person's opinion. I have a leg / stance thing; some guy told me "you walk like a duck" 10,000 years ago. Abby once said: "I like the way you stand and walk," and I thought: what low expectations she must have, how deranged she is.
I'm over the leg / stance thing now, though. I'm old, and every weird thing about me now seems amusing and even nifty to me. But: we are both shaped pretty weirdly. They say "everyone is," but that's not true: just most people, and we all have every right to spend years wishing we looked like one of those beyond criticism, one of those with real power over others built right into their bones and skin!
I do those neck exercises too ^__^