Posted on Thursday, 08/22/24.

At 6 a.m. I biked from 根津 to my new apartment in 北沢. The last of my stuff I shoved into my backpack. A full bottle of water. A slim silver portable bike pump. The subway disallows bikes, even if there was room among, but the trip wasn’t that far, and the morning was mild. At a certain point it seemed silly to do anything else.

Even so early the weather was closed and humid. I was thankful for the clouds—the spits of rain that broke up the middle third. Nine miles is nothing for people who bike, though for me it was an unusually long transit. I had just reassembled the bike, too, shoving it into a box and entrusting it to baggage handlers. The tires were under-filled (the best I could do with the pump). The bottom bracket needs to be cleaned some day, and the ends of the bar tape redone.

The only problem was a loosely secured water-bottle holder that rattled (causing brief fear for some loose critical component), though finger-tightening its bolts fixed this, and the rest of the ride was as it’s always been. I ate a small amount of yogurt beforehand, drank water immediately on waking, and felt comparatively good during the ride, especially the back half. Small climbs passed easily, my legs responding to strain. It was tiring, but everything I asked for, from my body and the bike, was given easily enough, and I arrived while the sidewalks were still quiet.

I’m glad I packed the bike. Some of this pleasure has been bred by a basic ride on nearly empty morning streets. The bike was the first real object I bought in Cambridge (on the first day, riding it back from the Craigslist meetup). Slowly I discover, on my own terms, those basic activities or obsessions that occupy the mornings and weekends of those pushing 30—I even recorded the ride on Strava, mainly out of curiosity, and find some amusement in how it charts my indecisiveness, my occasional phone checks, my jogs from sidewalk to street throughout the ride.

I’ve dragged many objects here with me, some less special. My largest suitcase, a cheap, featureless black rectangle, was bought at an Aeon in 厚木 two years ago to accommodate purchases made during my internship, and now it is back, just a forty minute train ride from its beginning. My copy of Infinite Jest, now sleeved in a mylar Maybe not mylar; some PET-adjacent thin clear durable plastic carefully folded, specially made for book covering (bought in a five pack). cover, is back here also, toted first hubristically when I was 19. I took photos of it in the forests around the base of Mt Fuji; performing this ridiculous act because in my mind it allowed me to punctuate the death of a friend the previous April. My second suitcase, beige and fabric-covered, now ragged around the edges, is also here, originally from my mother, who bought it for my grandmother just on the cusp of her Alzheimer’s diagnosis, intending for her to use it for travel. As far as I know it was given to me unused. I am glad, then, that is is now beaten and frayed, something in its metal ribbing bent and contorted. I’ve dragged it around for almost a decade now. I have taken it to see lovers.

Today my various appliances arrive (or are set to arrive). My futon came the first of everything, yesterday morning, from ニトリ. I had already bought an 100% linen sheet set from 無印, naturally dyed and faintly pin-striped, and the bare room against it implies something very hikikomoriïsh (rendered in latin characters in reference to TL—now all I need is a hot-plate).

The remainder of the day is open; the time of the deliveries is not finely specified, and I have nowhere to be. Tomorrow I have a presentation scheduled, and some meetings online and in person, but for now passing the overcast day in silence is appealing. My apartment is for the moment curtainless and I can clearly be seen from some adjacent buildings. One of them has a small dog that stands at the window. Then there is an orange cat in the same window.

08-24-24 &c.: I have a friend who runs a blog of their own. Or at least it is text, and roughly linear, and broad and prolix and beautiful, because it makes me feel that much more is permitted than we discuss in light company. They post something new, which I read, and which makes me feel very far from them, which is not unusual, though it is different in an empty apartment at sundown, and because I let it be different this time. I have cried at all sorts of strange things recently. Not at this, but I can imagine that I could, if I were listening to music, or if it were morning. Right now all I feel is the distance. I like their writing because it is complex, in the same way I like the writer because they are complex, or at least permit that illusion of complexity I like so much, because I seldom ask direct, plain things of them, and months of silence punctuated by asynchronous, written communication is unavoidably devastating and erotic. When I write to people, and this has not just happened with one person, I am sent letters with long explicit descriptions of the effect of my writing—often these are unbelievable, and in real ways I am not present at all during these responses. This is not about my writing, but instead the basic malnutrition most people experience for writing even mildly contorted toward them. It can make them lose themselves, if only mostly (because many of the people I know write earnestly) because it implies the enormity of the effort (which they understand) expended behind the scenes to produce the thing bent and twisted and work-hardened just for them. This effort is uncomfortable and massive and metastatic with love. I don’t know what to make of this.