Thirteen Vignettes From 2013 By: Nick Kleese FEATURING A Bus Ride to the City !

Not Comic Books ! Group Mind ! Preferences ! Talk In a Bar ! Merits of Therapy ! Amore ! In the Classroom ! Those Skits I Do ! Peeves ! Writing in Two Parts ! Sentiment AND MORE! Im awful at keeping my profile public, which is both expected and deserved by my friends and acquaintances, and I apologize. In compensation, heres a piece about my thoughts, experiences, and feelings I have had this year, and wished I have had. It is not a summary of my past year. It is not a list of resolutions for the next. But, because I am sure there will be plenty of these lists in the following days, I am offering this now, to beat the rush, and to give the lists the space for attention they deserve. I dont know what it is. But its here, for you, if you want it. I. New York Man, them mutha fuckin kids, man. They gotta shut they mouths or Im gonna fuckin pop. The exhasperated voice from behind me spoke for the rest of the sparsely filled bus, stuck midway through the Lincoln Tunnel bound for Manhattan. Of the majority of the passengers who had opted to transfer buses to an earlier one in Albany, the southern family of six chose to wait around for their scheduled ride, which was over two hours late. Not only were the children highly impatient, undisciplined, and shrill, but the mother seemed to lack any vocabulary outside of shut yer mouths, git! and quiet! (pronounced, however, more like quit), which was made apparent by the bemoaning voice behind me. God damn, man, he exhaled. Too fuckin long Ive been away. Id been traveling for over seven hoursthree hours longer than the trip from Saratoga was expected to takeheaded home from a month in New York, divided between two weeks of improv in the City and two weeks of a rather posh writing workshop in Saratoga Springs, heart of New York horse country, home to old money (if youve seen Twelve Years A Slave, Saratoga is where the protagonist is first approached by his soon-to-be captors) and current affluence. The campus was secluded, tucked off a brick-lined lane winding through the lower Adirondacks, and too opulent. Wine served after the nightly readings, pro bono. Tempeh and multiple types of tofu in the cafeteria. Jamaica Kincaid and Mark Strand, Charles Simic and Joyce Carol Oates present. I struggled between gratitude and disdainthankful for the opportunity, decrying the way it all seemed so removed, distanced from the real world burning constant beyond the white pines. Get me home, man, the voice moaned. Get me home. Stuck in traffic, rolling slow below long orange lights above, enclosed in concrete, I, too, wanted to be home. Lacking the focus to read, write, or even doze, I absorbed the incessant screaming and hawing as best I could. Soon enough, the bus rolled out of the darkness and into the hot Manhattan afternoon. The sun was setting behind us, casting long shadows in the doorways and stoops of Chelsea. I rolled my head against the tinted window and watched the homeless sleep on the concrete steps, rummage through their tattered bags, stare wildly at nothing. The garbage had not yet been

collected and sat in mounds festering in the heat, sticky and odorous as sap, gangrenous, welcoming. Beside me, the southern children chased each other up and down the aisle. The driver did not bother to tell them off, instead informing us that wed soon be pulling up to Penn Station. Thank God. I collected my notebooks lined with thoughts from Saratoga as the bus rolled into the cool dim basement at Penn. It stretched around corners and past lines of weary, terse travelers impatient with anticipation, waiting in the dark, avoiding the imploring eyes of panhandlers and vagabonds. I felt something stir in me. I felt excitement, as though I were walking through the threshold of a friends apartment, entering into a reunion, familiar and warm. We disembarked, letting the raucous, apologetic family off first. I stood, stooped over in the nook below the interior overhead shelves, waiting for the family to pass. They were followed by the man with the voice, who was fervently shaking his head, rubbing his hands. I followed him out into the basement lot, into sweet, dirty air of the City. Thank God, man, thank God Im home! I aint seen my city for eight days, man! Fuck! I missed you! I missed my home! II. Graphic Novels Need to be considered an integral part of the English canon. I am sorry I had not given them their due before this fall. But I am grateful to have read American Born Chinese, by Gene Yang, for my Teaching Adolescent Literature class. It is a slim novel depicted three disparate storylines: the protagonists coming of age tale as a minority in America, the protagonists reiminaging his life as the star white boy in a sitcom, and the retelling of the Myth of the Monkey King. These three storylines slowly converge and coalesce at the storys denouement. Amazing. Yang has since written a historical fiction account of the Boxer Rebellion in two volumes, called, Boxers and Saints, and several articles about the merits of graphic novels in the classroom told, of course, in paneled form. Ive since gotten my hands on Daniel Clowes, Will Eisner, Alan Moore, Ivan Brunetti, and Gilbert Hernandez. I like to read these before bed and then have really wacky dreams: future writing material. III. Southbound We were driving back from Minneapolis on the snow-covered road, after having placed first at the Upper Midwest Regional Improv Tournament, after having slept, perhaps, three hours on beer-full bellies on cold wood floors, after having left the city at just after six, around sunrise, or so it seemed, when the snow began to drift down heavily, silently, as the radio played softly (No ones gonna watch you as you go/ from a house you didnt build and cant control), and my friends, collectively, stirred from their sleep, stared out the cold windows at the white sky, and someone said, in a single breath, Im so happy to be happy. IV. A List of Things I Like (from 2013) (in no certain order) Lana Del Ray, A Death in The Family, Guinness, the Queens-bound blue line, the vintage womans roadster bike given to me by two friends, Rick and Morty, peanut butter in economy sized tubs, listening to my friends banter, Cloud Cult, tan jeans (not khakis), French-pressed coffee, therapy, mornings when my shower heats up right away with full pressure, Demons, Watchmen, Misery Loves Comedy, Chicago-style improv, NYC-style improv, Wisconsinites, not

having to swim, slow mornings, French roasted coffee at room temperature, Sufjan Stevens, Charles Olsen, eggs, The Mountain Goats, bagels (highly portable), our bidet (Eternal Honeymoon), Gabriel Garcia Marquez, feeling gooooooood. V. A Conversation Why arent you more confident? I dont know. You should be! Well, I need to convince myself, first. Why dont you? I feel I dont know inept? Really? How so? Like, I get really anxious around anyone I dont know intimately and when Im exected to say something I fumble over my words because Im questioning whether or not they really are interested in talking to me, or if Im boring them and theyre just entertaining me because they pity me. Its all self-defeating. What makes you think that? I cant prove it isnt otherwise. Dont be a tool. Haha, Ill try. VI. Theres No Need to Suck it Up Theres a lot of bullshit out there about how the human condition can only be improved through suffering, and some of it is true. Dont the highs feel so, so much better after weve been through something awful? The next person to flirt with us seems even more attractive after a failed relationship. Twenty degrees seems balmy after negative ten. Etcetera. And when we get really depressed and isolated and our workwhether it be literary, culinary, manualimproves because of the insight weve gained in our solitude we want to stay there. The cynical thought patterns become comfortable because of their familiarity and, in their concentricity, fester. The world starts to look shitty, but you are encouraged to stay there and endure because of this pervasive cultural stoicism (particularly if you are a Midwesterner) reinforced by awful motivational art with slogans taken out of context, like, Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor. The man who said that was a French surgeon and Nazi sympathizer who condoned the gassing of undesirables. So, do your research, or whatever, before tweeting this pithy quote. Fuck that. If you feel bad, you should put yourself in a position where help can be given to you, for our experience of the world is mediated by our perception of it, and if our perception itself is tainted then clear it. Therapy is great. Medication is, too. If you have any philosophical problem with seeking help (hell, I did), talk to me after youve given happiness a try. Youll retain your analytical distance, believe me, but feel tons, tons, tons better, even if youre still lonely, for suffering is beneficial only when bearable. VII. Pretentious Daydreams I miss France. A lot. Ive been having exponentially more daydreams about Normandy this year than I did last year. And not only are they increasing, but are becoming more vivid. Ill be walking down Iowa Street, past downtown, toward the Old Cap, and smell garlic frying in oil,

or fat dripping onto fire, the noontime smells, and be taken back to Rouen, where I had nothing to do but walk around the cobbled streets looking at art and dodging rain, walk to the river, walk to the flea market on the far bank, not buy anything, climb a tall hill instead, journal a bit at the windy top, drink vodka in my hostel room alone, look at more art while drunk, see the tower where Joan of Arc was help captive, be unimpressed and lonely, count the hours until my train to Paris, think about the farm I had just left and the family I had come to love, etc. etc. Ive been thinking of ways to get funding to get back, though I am not expecting anything. If anyone reading this has ideas of how to get me back to France, Ill be grateful to hear them. VIII. A Series of Highlights from my Time at West High On my first day of my teaching practicum (like student teaching, but not as intense), my cooperating teacher bought me a cup of coffee from the student-run coffee shop. During my third (or fourth) week, I was told several students were going to dress up as me for Halloween (should I be offended or complimented?). On our third to last day together, we spent the entirety of our prep period discussing meditation and transcendence and tranquility. On my last day, she gave me a hug. On several occasions, I was told I dressed like a hipster. Nicknames from students included: Kobe, Mr. C, and Kevin. A student with whom I worked on his application to Columbia College, New York (several drafts) was accepted there. A student deemed a problem student by the faculty said hello to me one morning in the hallway. Was able to successfully reference Yeezy during my lesson on Whitmans Pioneers, O Pioneers! IX. On Improv The most mimetic of all art forms, in that life is unpredictable, unscripted, messy, vulgar, funny, and necessarily cooperative. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it reminds us that life itself is a reason to live, in that life is a process of, as Vonnegut wrote, of becoming, and that improv most directly allows us to practice this becoming by placing us on stage with other human beings and asking us to create something now among the group without conflict or self-interest. If it is successful, it is beautiful! This is the art in improvnot the humor, not the witticism, not the characters, but the wonder at creating something together, a rarity in life, but beautiful, beautiful, when properly executed. I now know several couples who have created something beautiful together (not physical, though babies count, too, I supposerather, in the strong, pure emotional connection represented best when others say, Oh, so-and-so are so good together! and truly mean it) and, hell, who knows: maybe Ill be able to do so, too, someday. X. A list of things I didnt like (from 2013) (in no certain order) Spanish beer, an intense loss of self-worth, not getting published, not seeing my family very often, feeling sad whenever I go home because of the discrepancy between the memories I have of Washington and the reality that it has changed along with my old friends who I still care for deeply but whom most likely assume I have my head so far up my flippant literary butt that I am unrecognizable, a break up I wish Id have handled better and for which I deeply apologize, that I didnt get to bale hay, depression, anxiety (had a sequence of terrible, terrible panic attacks while in New York, but was too stressed out to recognize them as such), banana split Oreos, The

Hobbit, pt II, Foundations of Education, an inability to gain weight (most likely a psychological deficiency of mine, I wont blame genetics), Childish Gambinos new album (need to give it another listen), Obamas handling of the NSA debacle, Phil Robertson and the Duck Dynasty proponents of free speech (lets not discuss particulars and, rather, interrogate this blind adherence to religious dogma (if youre going to abide strictly by the Bible, you need to understand it exists IN CONTEXT, not as THE CONTEXT), my slipping meditation practice, my inability to express my love for my friends through physical acts of affection rather than silly writings. XI. Writin, pt I Yes, much of my year has been experienced through the lens of a would-be writer, as have the past four years, though I am increasingly uncertain of whether this dominating mentality is overwhelming because of a natural impulse in me, or if it is merely a faade I am constructing that masks the farmer I know lives in me still, and if my maddening attempt to write is just overcompensation for my regret at having left the farm. At any rate, Ive been writing and reading more poetry, more weird prose generally, experimenting with form and prosody, and have been interested in the way we readnot mechanically, but semantically, as in the experience of taking in a text. But, rather than offer a smattering of these pieces, Im leaving you with this stupid, stupid, stupid poem (poem?) I read at an undergrad reading in February: XII. Writin, pt II How to Eat a Quesadilla First, bring it with you, though being Born is always a good way to begin. Tuck it Below dog-eared books in a backpack With worn corners just beginning to let In light. Let the tortilla get smooshed A bit. Find a table for two in The mall food court during Lunch time, preferably beside A pretty girl, but DONT Be nervous when the tin Foil crinklesit is never As loud as you think. Stare At it and at nothing else. Take Small bites of the burnt Backbone, first, so that its no longer Round. Then, big chomps of the point So that its no longer a triangle. Stare at it like a cloud. Guess what it will do next. Dont look at her. Focus on a point in space. Pretend to think about Metaphysics. Chew. Open

The Horse Has Six Legs: A Collection of Serbian Poetry. Stare at the page and wonder About words. Swallow. Eat The second triangle Similarly. Watch Her leave. Jot a Reminder to Pay the rent. Eat the third. Read a poem. Stay in* The space Between. *These last three lines, when read, resulted in a satisfied hmmmm from the audience, as though they were deeply prophetic. But, to be honest, I have no god damn idea what it means! Haha! XIII. Adieu! I finally got around to reading Into the Wild this year (it was for class, granted, but whatever) and thus was fully able to appreciate Chris McCandlesss profound deathbed realization that happiness real only when shared. For all my loneliness and self-deprecation and introversion and awkwardness, I am trying to carry this with me. I reserved this space for all the sentimental goobies I had refrained from placing in the vignettes preceding this, but as I start in on this section, I realize that I am dried up. Theres nothing I can say to truly express my appreciation for my friends and family and mentorsfor these roles are all one in the samebecause, without you all, Id be in a very, very bad place. You keep me up. And for that, I thank you, and am trying to make myself happier, happier, happier so that I may share it with you in reciprocation for all that which youve given me. You know who you are and you better watch out, because Im feeling better, and youre gonna get smothered.

Bonus: Questions for the Author Q: Hey, Nick, just read your piece. It was just alright. What are your plans for revision? A: Drink too much coffee and let the Muse puke up literature. Next question! Q: Hey, Nick, very brave of you to publish this yourself. Who are your inspirations? A: Everyone Ive ever met and everything Ive ever taken in. Next question! Q: But A: NEXT QUESTION! Q: Hey, Nick. Why did you write it all broken up like this? A: Because Im a pretentious adolescent who considers himself artistic. Next question! Q: So, Nick, why dont you just use Facebook regularly like a normal person? A: You want the pretentious answer or the public-relations approved answer? Q: The prior! A: Because I reject the notion of normalcy! Next question! Q: Nick! What are your plans for after graduation? A: Did you not read the thing! Peon! Next question! Q: Nick, Im worried. Are you going crazy? A: If I were, I wouldnt know it. Next Question! Q: Great! That wraps things up for our Q and A. A: Great! See yall next year! End.