I drove, today, alone and starving, into the In N Out Drive through (I am not yet vegan). And as I played Typhoon’s Daytrotter session, I waited for a person to take my order (normally: this In N Out splits lanes, and the workers come to you), looking around, until I heard, a muffled and muted “what can I get for you today?” from the right side of the car. The employee stood outside my closed window, talking to me across the car, and I slowly rolled down the window. A body stood outside, looking over the pancaked car. She was twice as tall. She almost bent down to make eye contact, as I flopped my body horizontally across the car to face her. But she straightened back up, looking past me. She said nothing. Her eyes contained (I’m sure you have seen this slowly populating, like an infection, in a larger and larger amount of younger people these days) nothing. Eyes empty and disconnected, as she stared above the car, and I told her, “double double with no onions, fr—” and she said, looking above the car, avoiding eye contact effortlessly without hesitation, “would you like fries?” and I said, “fries and a vanilla shake,” (I am trying to gain weight) and she said the price, and said, “you’ll be after the truck.” There were four trucks in the lane next to me. I would be, in my mind, before and after a truck: normally the workers specify.

Yesterday, I went to a gay beach party, where hot men wore speedos on the beach, and I knew without a doubt that I would run into kickballers. I did. But I brought Patrick with me (“I was going to have a moody, woe-is-me day,” he told my friend as he explained who he was, “but Blake all of a sudden showed up and said, ‘let’s get burgers,’ and then ‘we’re going to the beach!’ out of the blue and spontaneously”), who was not a kickballer, and wanted to know about kickball drama. 

But enough with the beach, filled with gay men drinking themselves silly: I went back to Patrick’s place, and we had dinner, while he played the game on the phone. And when I left, he said, “I’m just going to play Xbox,” and I wonder what sorts of lives we all live and how the in n out person ended up like the in n out person.

 I have been trying to be more “physical” with media, which is not physical at all. I bought an iPod. It gets reactions. But at the moment I bought an iPod my listening habits changed instantly. I’m debating unsubscribing from streaming services entirely. I just do not need them. I’ve got all this music that I’ve purchased over the past couple years and do not really care for anything else. 

I read the descriptions for Daytrotter albums, trying to find where I put my files, and find some new ones. And the descriptions flourish with decór. I’ve been listening to folky bands from Daytrotter as well, with 9 members, playing loud and energetic shouty songs, and suddenly, deep inside me, shifting and stirred and planted like a seed thrust into the ground, is a burning hatred of bedroom pop: the calm, soothing, easy-listening music made by, sometimes, an individual in their bedroom. Bedroom pop and its aftermath, obviously taken up during the pandemic: traumatized zombies saying “how are you” to the empty passenger seat with the window rolled up, gazing up at the series of trucks behind my car, lifting themselves onto the curb, into the plants decorating the building, and ignoring everyone.