It’s hot. Blue summer hot, and the vapor rises like a fog. The soft belly place. It reminds me of the summertime arriving from Korea it’s so light and all things feel possible like that, like life is changing hugely and it’s something I welcome. I’m not jaded yet, living here. Maybe never bored like before. I can’t remember my life before coming back. It’s like I wasn’t really living before then.

It’s so beautiful that yesterday walking down Pine toward Pam, with headphones in my ears, I wanted to jump clear, just ride to the end or dance all night. The whole day and movie watching was ahead of us though, and by the end, the heat sapped the energy it earlier gave and so I felt tired. I did swim for a bit, but not in the lake as Pam suggested. Still, the skin was relieved to have the fire put out.

Except it’s over 90 degrees and the place can’t sustain it. The parched reek of salt, and contaminants tint the air.

Tonight she thanked me for coming. She said I have been very attentive and she wanted me to know how much she appreciated it.

I said we wanted to be with her.

Asserting myself by riding the bumper with a wheel on the yellow line makes the car in front go a little faster, maybe. Certainly, the driver feels uncomfortable. I like doing this; I’ve caught myself doing it again. It might be dangerous but it doesn’t feel that way. I don’t even notice it, sometimes. Oncoming cars will always swing wide.

Driving as close to the barrier as possible, or standing on the edge of the platform when the subway zooms by. I used to do those things. I remember that teenaged boy I saw with his arms outstretched and his toes at the edge of the platform, like a diver before the leap, as the train blurred inches from his face and his hair and clothes and body lashed from the gush of proximity. I saw how stupid it looked. (Missing something by an inch is the same as missing it by a mile.)

But I like the thrill of that kind of thing. It feels like honing attentiveness and fine motor skills. But maybe it just averts boredom, or maybe it’s a diversion from real risk-taking. A real diversion would be mountain climbing, but I’m not doing that lately. This weather invites it, makes me want to stand on the snow in a blaze, abiding the rush that comes with altitude, with coming down. (And what about real risk? There’s a stop there in my chest, my throat.)

I want to see one of those cars with that Christian fish decal stuck to its backside drive like a maniac. It never happens.