Sometimes, you need music to write to.
"I was sitting with your brother having breakfast and he says, 'Dad, why are you wearing that ratty jean vest?' and I said, 'What gave you the impression I give a fuck what you think?'"
I admire my father.
"Am I a bad daughter, Dad?"
"Are you crazy?" he asks.
Maybe.
I drink a soy latte and he eats a pumpkin muffin. We go to Starbucks because the old Scottish woman who usually guards the patio is gone tonight. My father stopped speaking to her when she started scolding him for being married four times.
"Listen, who you fall in love with, who you love, who you like, who you like a lot, that's a deeply personal choice," he tells me.
"I know I'm right. I know my instincts are special."
"It's your ass up the flag pole. The higher up you get on that flag pole, the bigger the target is. It's your life."
I laugh.
"Don't laugh. Listen. You have to assume that you are the sane one. That's the only way life is livable."
"I am sane, right?"
He looks at me like I'm crazy.
"It's your movie, baby."
"Yeah, until you have kids."
"No. It's my movie still, baby."
He laughs.
The flat finality of that spectacular confession led me up a staircase of thoughts and from their peak I couldn't find my way down.
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