Never Been Good at Fire Drills
in this paperback,
douglas coupland says thanks to
john, elizabeth, ian,
james, james (another), kevin,
jane, judith, louis, nathan, michael, ian (another).
in an audiobook earlier today,
a three minute roll call of
person after person after person.
it went on forever. james clear,
you didn’t have to thank everyone
for influencing atomic habits. but
i suppose it’s a good habit that you do.
all these books with all these
acknowledgements.
i’m not acknowledging shit.
not the women who inspired the love poems.
not the other poets i enjoy, definitely not
the other poets i don’t enjoy—louise gluck,
i’ve decided, just isn’t for me.
not the maytag air conditioner in
the window of my room. acknowledgements
are tricky in this way, you see.
if i thank the a/c, then i must thank
con ed for powering it, but the
unsustainable power generation of
the world’s electricity is not something
i enjoy thinking about—it reminds me that
i am a pest to this planet, using up
resources left and right.
like the world’s problems,
acknowledgements are tricky, tricky,
so i don’t acknowledge shit.