I’m staying for a while in a hostel, a very long narrow two-story building that’s like a lodge. It’s not swanky, but it’s scenic and has lovely aged wooden construction and friendly common areas, where strangers gather and sit around chatting and drinking. I have a cozy spare private room there I’m sharing with my brother Patrick. It’s a special place, a beautiful relic — viewed from above, I see a version where a fan artfully redid it in a magical cartoony Warcraft style.
At some point I run into a friend of my cousin, a skinny blonde girl, someone who’s stayed at my house before. We hit it off enjoying the outdoors near the hostel, some flower garden or botanical hall for guests. We decide to head up to the main lodge, waiting in a grubby loading dock for the oddly cited elevator.
We start to make out on a couch once upstairs. I’m hoping to move things to my room — where at least we’d only have to keep out my brother — but she’s insistent and we start to have sex there in one of the common areas. Inevitably someone interrupts us and we hurriedly stop. I’m a bit frustrated with her at this predictable outcome.
A bit later and we’re socializing in a room decorated with curiosities, curved couches along the wall, and a big picture window. And she starts going at it again (though I can’t even remember if it with was me or another guy across from where we sat before). I remember the reactions of the group being mixed, from conflicted fascination to willful ignorance. It’s not uncomfortable for me, but I do have a feeling of exasperation; it seems this is just how she is. She had no specific interest in me, and I passingly consider whether we should’ve used a condom. But in the end, the situation does come out rather well — it seems once the ice has been broken those assembled are pretty ok with an friendly. impromptu, afternoon orgy. Though whether she could’ve expected this or not is another thing entirely.
Visiting an oddly mom-n-pop country Apple store (to be clear: Apple the company, not the fruit). There, on a display of shoeboxes, is a display model for the new iPhone mini. It looks much like an iPod mini, the one from 2004, with the chunky last-century grey buttons of an old Nokia phone. An unexpectedly easy pass.
Awake in the pre-dawn light of my workroom. Building a campfire, carefully piecing out kindling into a blackened metal ring right there on the rug. As the fire burns down and the sun comes up, I fiercely whip the edge of carpet, making that edge briefly glow with every strike. When I’m done and put out the fire, I find that the rug is barely warm underneath.