This Could Be Any Moment, Anywhere, But It's Here.

The bed has an old green velvet headboard, and one button missing, dimple showing cheekily.

The bed has an old green velvet headboard, and the wineglass on the nightstand table is half-drunk, tiny little effervescent bubbles still not popped-- a pinot grigio, lively, and bright in the soft yellow light of the nightstand's lamp.

The bed has an old green velvet headboard, the wineglass on the nightstand table is half-drunk, and the music in the background is a strain of plucking chords, melding male and female voice, tenor and alto, one octave up, one octave down, reverberations and melody, and is soothing and sleepy.

The bed has an old green velvet headboard, the wineglass on the nightstand is half-drunk, the music in the background is a strain of plucking chords, and the book is surreal and contemporary and just a little bit pretentious for the sake of being surreal and contemporary and pretentious, even though it was written by an Argentinian author in 1966, during what could probably be called the Age Of Writer's Pretension.

The bed has an old green velvet headboard, the wineglass on the nightstand table is half-drunk, the music in the background is a strain of plucking chords, the book is surreal and contemporary and just a little bit pretentious, and the ashes in the elegant blue and brown cut-glass ashtray (also a bit pretentious,) still smell like smoke, still just a little bit alive, still potent and pungent and arresting at the corner of the senses, trying to grab attention for another go, another full-frontal assault on health and good, clean habits and mind over matter.

The bed has an old green velvet headboard, the wineglass on the nightstand table is half-drunk, the music in the background is a strain of plucking chords, the book is surreal and contemporary and just a little bit pretentious, the ashes in the elegant ashtray still smell like smoke, and I am struck with the sudden crashing revelation that outside of these few mundane details in this scene, I am in a totally foreign country, and knowing this, listen to the rumble of trucks and small cars and the high whine of mopeds and the tic-tic-tic of high heels on the uneven sidewalk and shouting in Italian and the screech of bus brakes and that nothing (save maybe the cigarette smoke and the music,) is familiar and I am quite possibly living precariously outside of my own life, in this strange and beautiful new and oh-so-very-old city, just buying time here, (another 81 days, 1944 hours, and a fuck-ton of minutes, breaths, sighs, strange words, and laughs,) until I can re-enter Life As I Know It, Take Two, and then, that will seem strange and foreign, and I will find myself longing for the missing half-glass of wine already drunk from the half-drunk wineglass on this nightstand table, and for the high whine of mopeds, and the tic-tic-tic of wooden heels on worn-down sidewalks, missing my alien outlook on life, a spectator instead of a member in this sport.

The bed has an old green velvet headboard, and one button missing, dimple showing cheekily.

XOXO