Thomas Choinacky
The Regional Rail runs behind my house. Today's work from home means when not staring at my computer, I stare out at the tracks. One passing SEPTA train shocks a flock of morning doves who flutter and disperse. I fall down a search for what a group of doves can be called:
-a coterie
-a colony
-a coo
-a dule
-a herd
-a cluster
-a pitying
I work part time in wayfinding design and my computer has me deep in a building in San Francisco. I am both in the second story of my rowhome and in the 15th story of a hospital on the opposite end of the country.
I am a full time artist. "You are invited to Forehand Down the Line." Self-producing a dance for Philly Fringe, I end my work day emailing out dozens of invitations. I am inside your inbox (am I unread?) and laying on my couch.
At dinner I discuss with my partner how to decompress at the end of each day. I have been working on this dance for over five years and so the show is becoming a monument. I want to make sure that I can shut my brain off, rest, and not get caught in the final, ongoing tasks. I plan out places across town to hang show posters. I am at my kitchen table and posted across street corners on Baltimore Avenue and Clark Park.
I haven't left the house until after dark. I have a craving. Something sweet.
Flip flops on and I flip and flop down the block to the closest shop that may be open. A car zooms by blasting:
"Whats loOoOove
Got to do, got do with it..."
Ashanti and Fat Joe's voices fading quickly away.
I purchase my guilty pleasure of Double Stuf Oreos. I flip and flop back home. Two teenagers stop me in the park asking if they can have one. I oblige. I mean I'm not gonna eat this whole family size pack myself.
My delight of the Double Stuf Oreo is:
1- the ongoing contemplation of stuf being spelled so goofy. Like an accident where someone lost their breath as they were trying to explain the product.
2- you can twist them apart and make them quadruple stuf!
I cannot live without making my Double Stuf Oreos quadruple stuf. When someone has standard "single stuf" Oreos (i don't understand this preference) and twist them off to make pretend Double Stuf, they just taste like disappointment. There just isn't enough filling stuf! I need more. Back home to my dead end street and I feel located here and nowhere else. I have milk for dunking and a belly satisfied by quadruple stuf.
Thomas uses they/them & he/him pronouns interchangeably. They make live performances that are autobiographical, queer, and sexy. They are a bike commuter and a tennis player. They have a Kate Winslet obsession and a large chochke squirrel collection (perhaps, largest as they have not found any other person to make this claim). Fascinated by archive and memory they rewrite their obituary every year. @thomastommy Thomasistitanic.com
