A field guide to Jan-february

DIRECTIVE 1:

SHUN WELL-DESIGNED/AIRY/SPACIOUS PLACES IN FAVOR OF WARRENS. It is possible to live in tunnels and still see the sun. Trade normal bulbs for red ones, trade flashlights for maglights. All sources of light must give off a distinct color to produce a sense of chiaroscuro in all inhabitants of a room/cubby hole/bar table. Ask not what lighting design can do for you, but what you can do for lighting design.

DIRECTIVE 2:

AVOID THE TEMPTATION TO BECOME A MAGPIE. Or if you cannot resist this urge, indulge in it until you feel sick. Remember that time in the summer of 1973 when your mother worked at an ice cream store before going off to college (which meant moving across the Hudson and just above 14th street) and could not look at ice cream for six years after. 1979 was a funny year, after all. For Mom. Not for us, of course, we weren't alive yet.

DIRECTIVE 3:

MOVE SLOWLY AND METHODICALLY THROUGH ALL READING MATERIAL. Breathe as your read aloud. Pay attention to the punctuation. Listen to the author conducting your speech. Write out all your notes and do the review exercises. All other processes will fail you and result in poor grades and a reduction in your grade point average.

DIRECTIVE 4:

WELCOME WITH OPEN ARMS THE RESURGENCE OF NON-NARRATIVE DREAMS INTO YOUR LIFE. Things are returning to normal - you dream again that spiders have bred with cats and that Vlad can produce silk that looks more like gooey PVC that allows him dangle from the fan above your bed which sends you in terror tearing out of the house into the yellow summer light where a dusty pick up trucks waits that you get into and drive off in to go rob banks that are empty and you can simply take the money from. Things are as they should be.

DIRECTIVE 5:

IN THE QUIET MOMENTS, WHEN YOU HAVE PUT DOWN YOUR WORK, THINK OF YOUR DOTAGE. It will be a relief to grow old. Or not. Or possibly it will and it won't. You will be able to reminisce and think of the summer of 2009, when someone was not yet alive. Your bones will creak and the calcium build-up from old bruises will not go away. Possibly, you will become obsessed with restaurants and wine and dusty volumes like your grandfather. But you think not. After all, did he follow directives 1-4?

END TRANSMISSION. FOLLOW ORDERS AND AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS. BEEP BEEP BEEP! WHEN ARE YOU COMING HOME?