Keep Moving Forward

pros of having a large vocabulary: many words i know

don’t talk to ME about gay yearning. in 2020 during lockdown i lived alone on a boat for three months. i went ashore once a day to work in a marine bio lab. we all had to access the lab at different times so we were never together & risking infection. i was alone all day every day, from my boat to the lab and back to my boat. one day a woman anchored her boat beside mine. we passed each other ashore just once at the harbor and she hit on me and invited me back to her boat. i told her i’d love nothing more but i could not risk exposure because of my weak immune system. she said it was a shame but that she understood. that night i was watering my vegetable garden i grew in 5 gallon buckets up on my roof and playing music on my speaker. “american pie” came on and she climbed up on her roof and shouted all the lyrics to every verse at me across the water and we danced together on our respective roofs. she raised anchor and moved on a few days later.

All of the above, plus:

A strange genie appears and has an offer for you. You’ll be cured of all, you’ll have a stable job you’re happy with, and you’ll basically just live the best life you can imagine. However, there’s a catch—you’ll have to relive one specific grade level from middle or high school (the genie is American).

This is back on my dash! And listen, I love to see Amir Khusrau getting appreciation, but this translation ignores a lot. The original rhymes! And scans! And does playful things with register! And conveys a tone of affectionate banter between the two speakers, not least because it has them both addressing each other as sakhi (translated above as “girl”) in the last two lines. I think taking some liberties with line order is worth it to preserve more of the rest—and I think there’s a better translation of sakhi. And so:

Rickypenny. Most valuable real coin ever.