When I left Park City, the sun was just beginning to rise over the Wasatch Range. I was in the back of a van with dirty windows, earbuds shoved deep in my ear, rubbing my eyes and yawning and straining to see the sun illuminating the snow through mudspots. The canyons spread before us through the windshield; the driver gestured to his left with a flat palm and said something to the woman in the front passenger seat. We all looked out of the windows and put our hands to our mouths like we had nothing left to say.

***

Last night, the entrance to the subway station was filled with misshapen discarded umbrellas, large golfing ones with company logos on them. One red one looked as if it had been kicked in the gut and left to die there. The carnage of wind. People walked by, uncaring, dry now, hoping to catch the next train.

***

(I just typed "umbrellas" as "upbrellas" and thought of Shel Silverstein.)

***

I have tried several times to write the story of an encounter at Sundance that involved a musician I didn't recognize, a picture of said musician and Brian May, someone who didn't recognize Brian May, a spilled soda, and Katie Aselton, and have subsequently decided it's not even worth telling, but have wanted to put the pieces down on paper before I forget.

Other stories too boring to be told: Spring Break 1993 (my mother, her friend, a minivan, and Barbra Streisand's Greatest Hits on cassette), That Time I Once Saw The Back Of John Cusack Walking Down Park Avenue, anything that involves telling someone what happens in a video they've never seen.

***

From my notebook:

HOW DO PEOPLE GET DRESSED IN THE MORNING?

followed by

See every task as an artistic challenge, an exercise in aesthetic.

I was eating tacos at the time.

***

I saw a 22º ice halo in Utah lingering around the moon and tried to take a picture, but it didn't come out right, so instead I made a note of it in my journal. 

***

(Also sometimes not worth telling: stories that involve eating tacos or seeing ice halos.)

***

My right leg often falls asleep in the mornings, as if it's been out partying all night and just strolled in as my alarm goes off. I make it get up and go to work anyway. I wonder if that's cruel of me.

***

The other night I was lying prone on the couch and asked J if he would wash my face and brush my teeth and then carry me to bed.

We wondered what it would be like to have your face washed by someone else. If you were paralyzed in an accident and couldn't move your arms, for instance. We decided to give it a go. I couldn't stop laughing; he wasn't splashing my face with water, but simply touching my cheeks with wet hands. I showed him how it felt. He said it's like having someone with miniature hands touch his face in the dark.

We laughed until my belly ached. I washed my own face. "I hope I'm never paralyzed."

© Zan McQuade. All rights reserved.