April 18

Remember that time in Amsterdam I sat in a cafe all day after I accidentally ate an entire space cake and wrote my whole essay from a different dimension? This time I’m in Palisade, Colorado at this magically queer coffee shop filled with delightful doodahs. Ever seen a vending machine just for tiny trinkets? I haven’t. Well. I hadn’t. Weed hits different at elevation. A breath of fresh air. Guys, it’s fine. It’s legal here. We’re free to have experiences without constant fear of nonsensical repercussions, are we not? On second thought. They’re making it difficult to follow the legality of the law these days. 

The dude behind the counter is wearing an army green shirt that says: God, Family, Country and Freedom: American Values. Adorable twink. The other barista/master chef/jack-of-all trades is running the show expertly from the middle. Their shirt screams: I IDENTIFY AS A PROBLEM. This feels intentional. Am I on a movie set? I think the answer’s in the middle. Colorado is a sea of normal. Ah-ah-ah-ah stayin’ alive conversations echo off the mesa. This town can’t be real. Picturesque with a dash of business as usual. Who knows what anyone knows. Really does feel like a movie set, not that I know what a movie set feels like. Come to think of it, feels like the whole world’s a stage these days.

I’m that strange but familiar weirdo everywhere I go, that’s why I go. Unless adriane’s around. Then we share that responsibility with just the right amount of pride to make it weirder. Drawn to the odd pockets, bugs to a zapper. Find an A to compliment your T and get yourself to The Milky Way! That’s the name of this coffee shop. I carefully selected an aqua blue upcycled glass arrowhead the same soul-stealing color of Freddie Mercury (the dog)’s eyes, a real deal Owl Pellet (see what this owl ate for dinner – puke has never been this interesting!) I thought maybe I’d send to my nephew, but now I really wanna know what tiny undigestible things the owl ate, convinced it will tell me who they are as an owl, and a teeny-tiny dinosaur claw game for adriane, who’s convinced world currency will one day be exchanged in tiny trinkets, a future in which she and I already thrive. We were destined to enter each other’s orbit three winters ago outside the High Noon Saloon. Bugs to a zapper or mutual manifestation. Finding your people is paramount these days. 

I walked here from our tiny house across the river, the Peach House that’s not peach. Tripped me up more than I care to admit until adriane pointed out that’s the name of the house, not the color. Some brains are just literal like that. This was before I knew Palisade grew (millions of) peaches, peaches for me. I fully understood the tiny home part, though that may have been an understatement. Isn’t the world full of things that aren’t what they say they are these days?

39 degrees + sunny. We left Wisconsin at 78°. Cool cool, but like, maybe a little warm for April. A tornado ripped through my hometown yesterday. Twisted right between my brother’s old house and my parent’s place, allegedly leveled the house on the farm across the road + a bunch of houses by the elementary school I went to for six months until my parents pulled me out of the GATE program because my mom said she didn’t want me to be weird. (I don’t think that worked. And I have follow-up questions.) I heard about the twister this morning from the OG Kowalski sister chat. Tessa found out from a friend who asked if our parents were okay, the reports mentioned their county road intersection. Woof, lots to ingest before noon. The never-ending news cycle, knowledge transfer, basic communication; it’s all an incredible journey these days. 

I walked to the Milky Way. How many people can say that? Maybe not the safest walk by today’s standards, but they haven’t seen the roads I’ve walked nor my standards. We landed in Grand Junction, sneaking in between weird weather patterns across the country, greeted by Winter on the short drive to Palisade, snowdrops bounced down like dipping dots, artfully snuggling into adriane’s fuzzy coat. But that was yesterday. Now it’s 45° and rising. I think the answer is in layers. Say, does the weather feel more chaotic these days?

Because I am of a certain age bracket from the Midwest, the first words leaving my mouth this morning to someone other than myself were unavoidably about the weather. What a beautiful day! I say, accompanied by arm gestures that felt like a twirl, who knows what it resembled. ’Tis indeed, the pair rejoiced. Probably didn’t say ’tis, but maybe they’ll start. Makes things feel more fancy. I like when people meet me where I’m at. The ferns high-fived me as I passed, bright alien green, or was that my heart-shaped sunglasses? They’re probably not even ferns. I stopped to marvel. 47 degrees. They say you’re closer to the sun here, but I don’t know what to believe these days. 

Last night at late night, adriane rolled a Yahtzee in fours. Obviously I reacted as if I had rolled a Yahtzee in fours, cuz Yahtzee is YAHTZEE y’all!! Celebrate your friends! Winning doesn’t have to be exclusive! We all deserve a perfect shake every now and then, that’s how odds work! Just because she got one doesn’t mean I won’t! There’s enough Yahtzee’s for us all! I shit you not, I rolled a Yahtzee on my very next turn. In sixes, bitches. But adriane won the game. I like how we’re rolling these days.

We make a good trio, me and this Milky Way bunch. Probably why they let me sit here for hours, silently beaming our messages. I catch the eye of the NASA astronaut framed on the wall. No clue which one he is. They all look the same, those characters. They know something(s) we don’t. Did he just wink at me? I’m wearing a crop that says D.A.R.E. To Keep Kids Off Drugs from the North St. Paul, Minnesota Police Department. Thrifted. Ain’t we all just walking propaganda? But like, double entendre propa-GAHN-da. I remember the program. Even co-choreographed a cool dance to a cool song I co-wrote with my friends in the 80s featuring the super cool Roger Rabbit dance move and performed it at the mall in front of actual people at an age before we were shamed into dimming our sparkle. Wonder what it’s like to be a kid these days.

As we pulled into the tiny house area of the peach farm last night, a loud hum filled the space outside my ears, or maybe inside my head. So loud, consistent, peaceful almost. Like a setting I’d purposefully select on my sound machine. We stepped out of the car, into a louder hum. Well this is not normal, I said to adriane, turning to the sky, stars glittering in response. Wait, is that a perfect circle of slightly brighter stars?! Holy shit. Is it….happening??! Fuck it dude, I’m ready. There’s got to be more to this narrative. This is not normal, I repeated. Or is it? Or is it. That’s my response to everything these days.

I lingered outside uncomfortably long, hoping a little too hard. Inside the tiny home, I checked my phone for the first time in perhaps too many hours. Dammit. My alien invasion was just the huge wind machines blowing heat from the carefully set fires all around the vineyard to try and save the peaches from the devastating freeze expected. Our host hoped we understood the noise. YES OF COURSE, SAVE THE FRUIT! Feels like we’re spending all of our time trying to save all of the things these days.

April 29

I’m home now. Wild how hard it is to regain the stream of conscious mindset I was in above, like when I was in grade school and came across an unfinished diary entry, having lived 9 different lifetimes in the 3 days that passed. Back then, it would go something like, blah blah blah, but anyway, I like Jimmy now, so none of that matters anymore! Byeeeee! Not sure why I felt the need to finish diary entries days later. I still have a weird time wrapping my head around myself. So many versions of me, living a life bound together with notebook scribbles. These days are fast, nothing lasts, it’s a graceless age, even innocence has caught the midnight train. I was 14 years old when Bon Jovi released that album, These Days. Wild how those 1995 days sound pretty interchangeable with these days. 

Anyway. My new friends Airshow closed out the weekend with the wiggle everyone needed. I guess when you put the name Airshow next to a time on a musical lineup, some people expect an actual airshow. With airplanes. Brains are all kinds of literal. No aero-planes, but arguably better: a jam band with a mandolin and songs about existence featuring aliens set to funky beats sending the bugs to a zapper bunch out to boogie woogie in the street. Hey everybody! Clap yer hands! I think that’s the answer to the riddle. Fill the souls with so much music we spill out of our vessels in wild abandonment to light it all up in liberation, leading the villagers to dance through the darkness of these days.

Yeah. That’s the way. There ain’t no time to waste, there ain’t nobody left to take the blame, there ain’t nobody left but us these days.