addison stone.

love in quarantine: k throwing cold, wet paper towels on me to ensure i wake up for a morning phone interview. then making me iced mocha coffee. keto to ensure i also don’t sugar crash before it. not routinely a deep sleeper, but i think the current state of things makes me paralyzed with anxiety so much so that not only is my internal clock tangled like a pile of miscellaneous cords to rootless electronic devices (forcing my sleeping habits into a later time), the alarm snoozing is out of control.

to keep some sense of order in the AM routine, i’ve listened to my morning radio djs despite whatever task i may be working on. it’s either live or played from a later podcast post but either way, i continue to do it. a bit of it is out of habitual action, but more to the simple truth of not going half-crazy. everybody has different circumstances in the thick of this global crisis, and no one will come out the same. no matter where they fall on the privileged or not-so privileged scale, there’ll be a shift. a shift in character, beliefs… or the more obvious tangibles like health, employment or allies.

i haven’t found the right word to describe the feeling yet. sad is too generic, angry is insufficient, confused is too ambiguous. whatever the feeling is, it’s a poignant indication of what is coming after the disruption. this entire isolation process thus far—with all its political and social monoliths steering us to lord knows where—is a personification of the “thundercat-drunk” album. not literally, but in this pliable but dense like salt water taffy semblance.

even in the day-to-day normalcy of pre-quarantine life (which was already anxiety-inducing in itself for me), morning radio is how i got the day’s tea and how i felt even minorly connected to a satc-ish fab 4 except in over-the-radio-waves form.

as a die hard chicago bulls fan, in chicago, growing up amidst the height of the bulls dynasty in the ‘90s, there were some generalized unwritten rules which came along with that type of fandom.

by design you could say we were basically bread to be anti detroit pistons, another to be anti los angeles lakers. you could not be one fan and be another. i won’t bore you here with all the reasons — some stemming from draft pick capabilities, to seemingly non-existent salary caps, to downright nba rivalry. you could appreciate magic johnson as a player, but it pretty much ended there.

a lot of that changed in the kobe bryant era. it was a really weird feeling, this cognitive dissonance, this intermittent crossover. but here’s a kid, coming out of high school into the league after being traded from the hornets, who essentially modelled his game from michael jordan (and did not hide it), and somebody you simply could not ignore. you almost could feel the second coming of jordan, it was unreal. inspiring. and infuriating just the same.

fast forward years later, as a bulls fan you did not want to see him get that 5th ring. as a basketball fan, you wanted to see him thrive. every mvp, every all-star appearance, every pump fake pivot.

he would play for a team that housed greats like kareem abdul-jabbar, but made a legacy all of his own, too. he was kobe. he didn’t have to be any other.

like any celebrity death which shakes the world, we are affected from afar by this tragedy, and you forget that this being's human — leaving behind a wife, kids, family, friends. he might’ve had a list of errands he had been meaning to get to or friends he was planning on seeing “next time” just like us. and to sit and think of that is so incredibly heartbreaking… to not only leave this earth in that fashion, but to leave it along with a daughter, and then amongst others who were not only part of his mamba family, but people who are also cared about, loved, cherished.

i think that's why this affects so many, even those outside of us mourning the kobe legacy.

because we can all imagine what those losses would be like.

or it makes us relive losses of our own.

for all the fans who are in shock, grieving... that feeling is tenfold and some change for these families. not to diminish the death of anyone else and their impact, just a simple fact.

etched distraction fixed pitches chased spectra run, run from the crimson blue is calm monotonous muted safe cradling the light only to find static masked clarity distorted tones weakened sweeps rattled thrill the lull flickers 1,000 voices swell and refuse to shut up

it’s stagnant, then it’s can’t-even-keep-up active. it tries to haul you to the finish line, but you keep giving into the cramping. it leads you through a dark alley you’ve never been before and it’s okay because google maps told you so and it’ll reroute anyway. but as soon as the light manifests the vibe of familiarity, it throws shade your way. what the fuck was all that for? asshole.

it throbs. it’s badu telling you to shake that load off and sing your song, liberate the minds, then go on home. then again, where is home? is it in an inspiring lecture? is it in the arms of somebody? is it in the smell of mac n cheese? is it in coltrane? is it in that sitcom you can recite in your sleep? is it in the down feather pillow that pokes at you but you deal with it anyway? is it in the pillow you’ve been laying on you’ve just turned over, fresh and cold to the touch? is it in acknowledgment? is it in the head you just got? was it in your last cigarette?

it anticipates to pour a glass of scotch for you as you make your way to the bar. it’s the very architecture of your sore throat, nausea, and headache in the morning after. it brings you to a place you thought never existed. it revisits old wounds. it buries you in to-dos, making checklists seem mandatory in order to feel good about checking something off.

it’s sensitive. it’s angered easily. it’s a flip of the coin.

so much negativity surrounds the notion of "wanting more". but personally, i'm all for a place in time where lavish vacations are a thing and acquiring loubies are like spending money on a $1.50 hot dog/pop combo at costco. it doesn't mean i forgot where i came from, and by all means it's not necessary for me to live a happy life.

but let's not pretend that shit ain't nice.

to have the leisure / monetary freedom to support things i believe in with regularity no matter how wallet-slimming... would be bomb.