Invocations Of A Readership

In a theater ~10-12 min before the 8:40 p.m. showing of harrowing foreign film next to ambivalent date in awkward silence who resents you for having to read subtitles on a weeknight.

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Twenty-five presumptive attempts to describe the context in which you are reading this.
  1. Coffee shop off Mercer St. waiting for your next class at NYU; coffee with cream, no sugar; obscure 18€ Italian fashion magazine on the counter whose glossy cover betrays an array of greasy fingerprints.
  2. Home today from high school because you “feel sick”; pre-diagnosis of borderline personality; mom downstairs watching Good Morning America; you just reblogged a Ryan Gosling gif on your tumblr whose cursor is a wand emitting sparkles.
  3. Hyper-linked here from a disparaging article from, like, three months ago. You’re so behind.
  4. Squished between two large men on the Green Line en route to BU from lunch at Copley Place, the harsh metallic clicking of the tracks colluded with thoughts of you under them. Time to see a psychiatrist.
  5. Streaming NPR in a pop-up window now eclipsed by Photo Booth as you take the eleventh picture of yourself for possible inclusion of OKCupid profile; cat rubs your left shin in hunger, oh crap you forgot to run to Petco for Fancy Feast’s “Gravy Lovers” gourmet cat food.
  6. You’re just online; it’s really quite unremarkable.
  7. On the 35FL of an office building on either 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th street, downtown; the earnest feudal clicking sounds of your co-workers’ keyboards and mice are evocative of the very frantic rents and grim mortgages for which they come here, everyday, as do you, in death.
  8. In a theater ~10-12 min before the 8:40 p.m. showing of harrowing foreign film next to ambivalent date in awkward silence who resents you for having to read subtitles on a weeknight. iPhone’s white glow makes blunt chiaroscuro between your face and the darkened room.
  9. UCLA dormitory absconded with your hopefully final acne flareup, that pink constellation of self-doubt and gooeyness; these nights seem to exude the hook-ups of other people while you sadly click on everything that resembles a hyperlink; the smog outside renders the muted sunset into a Rothko.
  10. In free-trade solialist-y coffee shop on Valencia St. seated at a large table with others slouching into laptop with the emphatic, almost hypnotic, solipsism of a generation of narcissists who are simultaneously able to imagine how they must look like to others while looking into the collective self-congratulatory ether of their metaphorical and/or actual networks.
  11. Parent poking into your son’s browser history looking for porn, drugs, or guns. But this is what you found. What a freak.
  12. On the L-line across from stylish black dude who looks like he auditioned and failed for TV on the Radio; barely loaded this page on your Android, since you only have one bar — which reminds you of the one bar you still have to go to, about which you sigh. A hipster whose parents always said they were special just behaved in a socially inappropriate way and smirked. Next stop, Lorimer.
  13. You’re a tight ass who takes the internet way too seriously. Please comment citing all the errors in both the spelling and my character.
  14. Fiancé just put on her third J. CREW outfit for tonight’s “family thing,” at which you will undoubtedly have to engage with her WASP-y aunts and cousins; you’re slouched on the couch with her iPad between J.P. Morgan and AIG accounts maintaining your gold.
  15. Nervously waiting at Rittenhouse Square for a second date with a guy who’s actually sexy and nice and successful and everything you want and you can’t really believe it but you’re afraid you’ll sabotage this again, like cheat on him with a valet man while he’s in the bathroom grunting out the bad mussels. Philly sluts, whut whut.
  16. Your facebook friend shared this, commented on the share, and liked their own comment; your facebook friend’s friend, a likely mutual friend, also contributed to the discourse whose very obsolescence is likewise liked by a cohort of strangers; with repugnant curiosity, you clicked on this.
  17. In your boif’s apartment while he re-strings his guitar for tonight’s show which you conceded to going to; finishing up turkey sandwich and lentil soup after mild coitus with said boif on his self-orgasmic crusted navy blue sheets; a dried-out fern by the window crackles under the light breeze. His band sucks.
  18. At home with The Cobert Report being abrasively way too ironic in the background, cereal for dinner, in PJs already, with Gmail, Tumblr, Pinterest +3 or more (including this) tabs open; not to mention the two pop-up’d Gchats with your friend in Amherst and mother in Denial, both for whom you must alternate facial countenances and dispositions.
  19. At your recently divorced Dad’s new condo worrisomely navigating around his porn-ridden browser’s history trying to respond to your mom’s text about taking back the pepper mill and good truffle oil which he totally knew would piss her off if he took.
  20. Waiting for the Brown line at Randolph, a corporate-y newlywed “power couple” next to you engaged in public displays of affection, your self-loathing deeply associated with the rat scurrying along the rails; freezer burnt tater tots and an unaffectionate cold-hearted iguana waiting for you at home.
  21. Media buyer for advertising agency browsing this and its hit analytics for market report and possible inclusion of your client’s shiny soon-to-be ad-blocked banner ad. Your entire body is imbued with cologne and yesterday’s workout.
  22. Post-pornhub wankfest yielded expected results; calmed, diminished, you make the “edgy pop/lit cultural website” jaunt through which you are vaguely passing now. A scratched Björk CD just started skipping. This may be hell.
  23. You’re in a large 5-bedroom house in McLean Virginia. You took 40 mgs. of your dad’s Oxycodone and just inhaled a can of your dead grandmother’s hairspray discovered under the sink. You are blasting Dane Cook’s latest comedy show and either laughing at that or this. Probably that.
  24. Reading this on BlackBerry 850’s built-in text web browser; lol say hi to 1999 for me.
  25. The person whom you are dating is a contributing writer to this site and you are their supportive partner, somewhat worried that you’ll be “tested” on what they wrote, tonight in bed, where arguments begin and relationships end. TC Mark
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