The assignment

Symptom: people tend to ignore the cues around them (alternately, they seem to believe that all cues are for them).

Cure: pretend you are the tree in the center of the photograph (or the receipt in the other). Now do the acknowledgement needed to get out of the in-between.

At some point, you gots to go

Jackpot:
sweet, sweet memory and your looking glass of the boxes en route, on a barge. They will be late but they are your sweet you.

Bonus:
direction from the pointing hand. (Personal message to patient Gomez: sista, I told you so. Follow.)

Cousins, coussins (cousins, cushions)

Jackpot:
minimalist space is opportunity: sofa, couch, divan, davenport, settee, le clic-clac, pew, bench, pouf.

Bonus:
you no longer live in someone else's choice of furniture or depressing lithography. The design of the Barcelona Bed and the dance of the Mexican jumping bean.

333

Jackpot: the Cure is the Symptom.

Bonus: "an Ape's an Ape, A Varlett's a Varlett, Though they be cladd in silk, or scarlett."
[1659 J. Howell Proverbs (English) i]

Film

Symptom: merde. Temporality.

Cure: temporalities, feet, et un peu d'eau. Merde.

And then we all fall down: for yesterday

Symptom: ancient rhythms and chants take their head out of the sand of your memory. What do you do with them? Simultaneously, loss and reconfiguration.

Cure: two minutes of Henry Darger. Two minutes of Artforum. Walk 17 Chicago blocks in the humid sun. Burrito. Avoid drinking one and a half bottles of wine.

Pie charts for missing volumes

Symptom: good public transport, bad public transport. Dancing is not a cure at the moment (acute symptom). Pour la première fois, les accents te manquent.

Cure: elegant decisions, more equity and extreme close-ups of bugs. Summercamp! (2006, 85 minutes, Sarah Price and Bradley Beesley---NOW SHOWING! MON-WED, 6:00 P.M. AT THE SISKEL CENTER).

(For those acute symptoms, apply a cold compress of "Vive la langue du diable" to forehead each morning for an hour).

La santa banca

Symptom: the necessity of cutting cords.

Cure: cut them, sit and then be patient.

The little shutter in your brain

Symptom: the focal length changes suddenly, without warning. You are shiprocked on a bridge, bro.

Cure: examine expiration dates on all dry goods. Ask yourself: have you been stockpiling someone else's methods? Are you really a teen pop star in the making? Have you written a post-card to yourself lately (what would you say to you)? Remember that a balanced diet aids in the evaluation of scales--all of them.

Some say it's pornography

Symptom: kitsch. You almost have a full hand, but you don't. However, the building was solid as the funnel clouds paid a visit to the county yesterday. The view was disconcerting.

Cure: you don't need to gild the lily. Stick to white sheets. Put all knick-knacks, biblots and chachkes in a box in the closet and breathe a sigh of relief. Keep your chin up.

They were active smokers well into their 1970s

Symptom: you do in fact resemble your mother.

Cure: the comparison of oil paint and x-rays during obligitory visits to the préfecture. Carte de séjours and radical swagger or, alternately, a hitch in your giddyup. Let it all hang out.

Spider legs and ghetto blasters

Symptom: a persistent nagging in the back of the bleu, blue, bleu. Bus rides and forgotten combinations. You have been fetishistic and neglectful. Mildew.

Cure: chuck, who had the torch to melt the lock. Found savings bonds. Dishwashing machines. Fancy hotel bars in your neighborhood. Enjoy the fruits of your maternal language.

Leave it there

Symptom: traveling back to the past. Being too modern for it.

Cure: come back soon to your new hotel, city centre.

Being fit to print

Symptom: front page news is growing more interesting by the day. You are feeling more comfortable with new modes of transportation and while the same things continue to preoccupy you, your reading strategies are transforming.

Cure: explore your baggage (Monday: Chicago-Iowa City; Wednesday: Iowa City-Chicago). Discover what you thought was worth keeping 5 years ago and revise by remaining selective. Do not read everything.

Juvenile starling named Baby

Symptom: risk and flight. Tags: on ears, on the floor, on children, on tables, on a branch. It is a dry branch.

Cure: 3:30 a.m. taxi rides during which you see the lake for the first time. Thank god: the driver is not a talker. Make Way for Tomorrow (Leo McCarey, 1937).

Spider veins and Hot flashes

Symptom: signs of, fantasies of aging. Although (as some have recently reminded) meaning always falls elsewhere, outside of its vehicles, your body continues to signify, at times without warning, that its meaning is right on the surface.

Cure: exfoliation. Remember to subvert binaries. Examine the true economy of your recent gift giving: read Derrida, Given Time. (And as they say, stop smoking.)

What is luxury?

Symptom: la chair de poule and sciatica. With the delivery of chairs comes the arrival of impending work. You have no idea what temperature it is outside: gray is no heat-index.

Cure: re-learn how to sit. Re-connect with very old friends who have graciously used the term "the statute of limitations" with regard to your former selves. Write the following sentence in your best, eighth-grade cursive: In the space of conversation, luxury is found.

Does a Russian Olive only speak Russian?: On the Subtitles of Language

Symptom: common definitions are not shared especially regarding the following terms: conflicted; friendship; protection; respect. The absence of eye-contact, le visage and the shifting tenor of voice-- its hesitations, its punctuation marks-- has caused a severe bulging in close reading practice. In a word, writing is broken.

Cure: speak out loud, as one does, frequently. Do not try to count the leaves on trees, but do listen differently to how they sound especially when you think you've understood them perfectly. Finally, make a practice of looking at your hands as you type.

Acequia Madre: The Mother Ditch

Symptom: you return home to a home with no plants. An ill, drugged, confused man in the hallway has un-necessarily gone up ten extra floors. The hostile email in your in-box indicates that you have not been understood.

Cure: call the elevator and push 6. Remember that you have made an aunt. Hand-mow an overgrown, wild-grass garden and leave the dirt under your fingernails. Life goes on: continue wearing a mu-mu.

Herbal remedy

Symptom: a lack of lamps and social beings from your network cause itching.

Cure: tomorrow: Chicago-Albuquerque-Santa Fe; wednesday: Santa Fe-Albuquerque-Chicago.

X marks the spot: "Gomez Was Here"

Symptom: high and low heeled, as well as barefooted hilarity, spontaneity, and wits spring constantly from your being. There's a crazy-ass curl that comes out of your head and your reflection in a pane of glass (when you are not looking at it) tends to resemble not an exclamation point, but a question mark. You keep pointing and people and things and they keep pointing at you.

Cure: Dadatude. Et du ham, bien sur.

Le baiser du larron: the kiss of the thief

Symptom: the cinemas are shockingly empty and, suddenly, everyone (everything) seems to convey their (its) thoughts through secret smiles and spontaneous gestures of the arm or other limbs.

Cure: the best advice I've received about this condition is to recall that when alone, you are not alone. It has been recently published that in naming your flat (and/or finding its literary or Latin name--as opposed to its common name), you may see rapid improvement. Seek trees.

For FANG: she may eat alone

Symptom: you have moved to a new land (if its L.A. three months ago or somewhere else 6 days ago, peut importe [no matter]), and the shocks are prolific: the trees are different, the air is different, your fantasies are different. You seem to drift into that space where all and nothing are possible, simultaneously.

Cure: write, write, write. Grow projects. Concentrate on colors, lighting, time tables and on the difference between dungeouns and freedom. Put your fingers through your silky hair, feel glamorous and say, "PRIORITIZE AND RELAX."

How to treat floating

Symptom: reflections do not seem to match their source, et pourtant, tu n'as pas changé de corps, ni d'esprit. Passage-ways that once seemed creepy, et que t'avais auparavant évité dans ton quotidien, te confient enfin leur traumatisme et you forgive them.

Cure: one (1) boussole (compass); 1 (one) tape measure, et du sel (dans tout les sens). Put your hands on your hips, throw back your head and laugh at the weather.

P.S.

Symptom: to kiss and to be kissed.

Cure: send them.

Lorsqu'un portrait s'exprime: Yeah, I'm talking to you

Symptom: buildings contain buildings qui contiennent encore des buildings, et encore ou plutôt, des messages. You still have trouble knowing where you are but la surface des choses et les reflets sont assez satisfaisants. Backache.

Cure: ne dis pas tout à ta mère mais make her dance avec du vin et de la musique de son adolescence. Make new friends.