"Kathy's Song" by Eva Cassidy plays on Pandora and I sip, sip, sip hot chocolate. The back of the package points out it's hot chocolate, not hot cocoa. I think the difference is chunkiness and the pieces swish between teeth, swinging around the front teeth that aren't impressed. What's this compared to couscous by the sea?
I saw a friend from high school today, but she didn't see me and I didn't say anything. Because, after more than seven years, what is there to say? (How shall I recap life? Chewed pens/rubbing feet/your slighted cello/car windows and I've always been afraid of corduroy, what about you?
Today someone told me life for many people is cold and there are no houses and the children call the shelter their home. But, she said, they keep trying; they hope, we hope. Maybe that's more than me, she asked.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
but there's music on clinton street all through the evening
Coming back to Pennsylvania is a barrage of memories : here's the hotel where your dad lived, the playground where I last saw you before you bicycled naked somewhere the living can't go, my old house with the holes in the wooden floors where my 10-year-old self stuck letters for some future owner.
I recognize everything, though it all seems just outside my grasp. There are "Save Garrett Hill" signs posted on lawns and storefronts throughout Rosemont to, indeed, save "G-Hill," a little neighborhood that prided itself on being one of the last bastions of unpretentiousness in the Main Line. I, too, do not want the annihilation of Garrett Hill Pizza and the emergence of a GAP, but it's no longer my battle. So I stand on the sidelines, watching the bakery workers and the bar owners on the front lines, battling for a place I've never quite understood.
The end of the year, of course, brings about bouts of uncalled for, and much too cliched, nostalgia. At 25, I'm seeing my parents age and watching them witnessing their own aging parents. My grandmother, my father's mother, who once greeted us with plates of cheese and salami after we made the two-day drive from Rosemont to Chicago, is now 91 and can barely hold the phone up to her chin to say she's lonely this Christmas. My grandfather died when I was 13, my dad's only sibling died when I was in college and her second husband died last year. When we flip through photograph albums with her, she almost always prefaces information about each photo with "that person died in..." We all slip away so quietly from this world. We all somehow manage to love and laugh and dance and sob and collapse and almost break and then we fade, waving goodbye to a world that doesn't wave back. But perhaps, just perhaps, it winks.
I recognize everything, though it all seems just outside my grasp. There are "Save Garrett Hill" signs posted on lawns and storefronts throughout Rosemont to, indeed, save "G-Hill," a little neighborhood that prided itself on being one of the last bastions of unpretentiousness in the Main Line. I, too, do not want the annihilation of Garrett Hill Pizza and the emergence of a GAP, but it's no longer my battle. So I stand on the sidelines, watching the bakery workers and the bar owners on the front lines, battling for a place I've never quite understood.
The end of the year, of course, brings about bouts of uncalled for, and much too cliched, nostalgia. At 25, I'm seeing my parents age and watching them witnessing their own aging parents. My grandmother, my father's mother, who once greeted us with plates of cheese and salami after we made the two-day drive from Rosemont to Chicago, is now 91 and can barely hold the phone up to her chin to say she's lonely this Christmas. My grandfather died when I was 13, my dad's only sibling died when I was in college and her second husband died last year. When we flip through photograph albums with her, she almost always prefaces information about each photo with "that person died in..." We all slip away so quietly from this world. We all somehow manage to love and laugh and dance and sob and collapse and almost break and then we fade, waving goodbye to a world that doesn't wave back. But perhaps, just perhaps, it winks.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
year after year what we do is undone
we took pictures with a disposable camera i still haven't developed. after corn kernels in indiana and eating midwest steaks and clinking glasses of not-milk, my mom and i parted ways in omaha after seeing my grandfather and my grandmother one last time before she died from smoking too many cigarettes in the kitchen.
when i pulled into the small wyoming town, it was cold and windy and i wore a black hat and one glove because my '91 honda accord had eaten the other one. there was a christmas tree lighting ceremony that night and my new roommate and photographer at the paper i was about to begin working for ate cookies with me and her dog sadie jumped all over me. we went to faler's and as i walked past the rows of animal heads staring with proud eyes, i bought coffee even though i never drank coffee. it was beer and coffee that night and what do you want in life? and i said this. i think this. snow and wind and the largeness-lostness of it all. van morrison in the kitchen and who do you think you'll be in your next life? me, maybe someone by a campfire, always.
when i pulled into the small wyoming town, it was cold and windy and i wore a black hat and one glove because my '91 honda accord had eaten the other one. there was a christmas tree lighting ceremony that night and my new roommate and photographer at the paper i was about to begin working for ate cookies with me and her dog sadie jumped all over me. we went to faler's and as i walked past the rows of animal heads staring with proud eyes, i bought coffee even though i never drank coffee. it was beer and coffee that night and what do you want in life? and i said this. i think this. snow and wind and the largeness-lostness of it all. van morrison in the kitchen and who do you think you'll be in your next life? me, maybe someone by a campfire, always.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
i've spilled the wine
it's all pseudo tequila shots here, here in the dark damp torn corners of a sort-of island. we left for a week, and when we came back, the yellow leaves had all fallen and i can't stop listening to nina simone. what do you say when someone you don't love tells you they love you? something like : this is life, all feet out of windows and chewed up pens. and i'm sorry it can never be you and me.
writing about shitty health care systems, i momentarily like my job. then i lapse back into apathy and wonder when i'll get the energy to start seriously looking in brooklyn. i'm lackluster even about that. what is it about alaska that pulls me? it's the need for the unknown, for people with torn sweaters, for the lack of pretention and the dustdustdust. then you can say, who's that girl flinging kernels of mud into her hair? and i'll say, oh just me.
it's the need to wake up and say, today, today the world hasn't disappointed me. today i remember where i am, and i like it.
writing about shitty health care systems, i momentarily like my job. then i lapse back into apathy and wonder when i'll get the energy to start seriously looking in brooklyn. i'm lackluster even about that. what is it about alaska that pulls me? it's the need for the unknown, for people with torn sweaters, for the lack of pretention and the dustdustdust. then you can say, who's that girl flinging kernels of mud into her hair? and i'll say, oh just me.
it's the need to wake up and say, today, today the world hasn't disappointed me. today i remember where i am, and i like it.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
november under lamplight
I'm sorry blogspot, I've ignored you. These posts are from another place I've dug for myself on the Internet. They obviously weren't all written today but over the last couple months.
doing shots of journalismjobs.com
I find that age-old obsession washing over me yet again : Leaving with the big L.
When I was four and living in Virginia for the first time since we moved to Buenos Aires, it was all I could do from finger the cold windowpane in my Charlottesville room and dream of Argentinian zoos and my friend's house where I had traded my all-time favorite animal for some beany butt doll I eyed warily and grew to hate.
Once we moved to Pennsylvania, I was happy with the nearby park but often made up songs about China and Japan and told my parents they could not say good night to me because, alas, though they thought I was merely a lump under my comforter, I was actually thousands of miles away in Shanghai. (Somehow, at age five, I actually knew of Shanghai.)
I've dreamed of Maine, Morocco, Algiers, Russia, Ghana, India. And so the story goes.
Now it's Alaska. I routinely check journalismjobs.com and recently found a posting for a writer/editor position at the Anchorage Press, an alternative weekly. I've spent a good chunk of time today devouring their articles and can list what to do and what not to do during an Alaskan winter : take walks, spend time with friends, buy a sun lamp, don't camp out in front of the television. I nod, as though I have any idea of what they're talking about, feign a shiver and dig my seventh-grade flannel out from the depths of the closet. (Yes, it still fits, along with my converse - you know, those shoes that once upon a time weren't made in sweatshop basements.)
(Side note : My husband is watching "Buffy the vampire something or other Slayer" and I keep getting horrific flashbacks of friends forcing me to watch Dawson's Creek.)
Anyway, I'll keep dreaming. But I know if I really was in Alaska, I'd be moping in some bar, going home by myself and counting the days until I got to see the person I love more than anything in the world again. So, I'll just have to wait until we can be those annoying newcomers chomping at the bit to explore the last bit of the Final Frontier together. Until then, Google images and Journalismjobs will have to suffice.
When I was four and living in Virginia for the first time since we moved to Buenos Aires, it was all I could do from finger the cold windowpane in my Charlottesville room and dream of Argentinian zoos and my friend's house where I had traded my all-time favorite animal for some beany butt doll I eyed warily and grew to hate.
Once we moved to Pennsylvania, I was happy with the nearby park but often made up songs about China and Japan and told my parents they could not say good night to me because, alas, though they thought I was merely a lump under my comforter, I was actually thousands of miles away in Shanghai. (Somehow, at age five, I actually knew of Shanghai.)
I've dreamed of Maine, Morocco, Algiers, Russia, Ghana, India. And so the story goes.
Now it's Alaska. I routinely check journalismjobs.com and recently found a posting for a writer/editor position at the Anchorage Press, an alternative weekly. I've spent a good chunk of time today devouring their articles and can list what to do and what not to do during an Alaskan winter : take walks, spend time with friends, buy a sun lamp, don't camp out in front of the television. I nod, as though I have any idea of what they're talking about, feign a shiver and dig my seventh-grade flannel out from the depths of the closet. (Yes, it still fits, along with my converse - you know, those shoes that once upon a time weren't made in sweatshop basements.)
(Side note : My husband is watching "Buffy the vampire something or other Slayer" and I keep getting horrific flashbacks of friends forcing me to watch Dawson's Creek.)
Anyway, I'll keep dreaming. But I know if I really was in Alaska, I'd be moping in some bar, going home by myself and counting the days until I got to see the person I love more than anything in the world again. So, I'll just have to wait until we can be those annoying newcomers chomping at the bit to explore the last bit of the Final Frontier together. Until then, Google images and Journalismjobs will have to suffice.
a survival guide : laughter
Everything I write today, I erase. Here is yet another attempt:
When I talked to her, she told me to come back. I said don't tempt me. I miss feeling like I belong. I miss being surrounded by people I love.
I said : Is that normal? To feel like you don't belong?
She said : There's no such thing as normal. But you're not normal, and you don't belong somewhere that makes you question if you are. Or what you do is.
I said : I know.
She said : I miss your laugh.
So I laughed. And I meant it. I laughed; she laughed; we laughed.
I laugh here too. And sometimes it's genuine. And sometimes it's for survival.
When I talked to her, she told me to come back. I said don't tempt me. I miss feeling like I belong. I miss being surrounded by people I love.
I said : Is that normal? To feel like you don't belong?
She said : There's no such thing as normal. But you're not normal, and you don't belong somewhere that makes you question if you are. Or what you do is.
I said : I know.
She said : I miss your laugh.
So I laughed. And I meant it. I laughed; she laughed; we laughed.
I laugh here too. And sometimes it's genuine. And sometimes it's for survival.
it's all candles and gingham here, little light
i worry i may be too old-souled for blogging. am i supposed to write more coherent entries that address daily issues? because that's what i do for a living, and i don't want to do that in my spare time. so there you go, non-existent blog readers - you will be receiving no doses of reality from this girl.
well, maybe just a little:
i'm obsessing over alaska. i browse journalismjobs.com daily for jobs in alaska, then proceed to spend way too much time googling images of alaska. i am convinced i will end up there, complete with candles in my windows and grungy checkered table cloths.
will this be me, my entire life? chasing some combination of myself from the past and conceived notions of the future until i wilt somewhere in the middle?
on a lighter note, my ex and i have been exchanging e-mails and it's nice to know we can have a functional friendship after having an extremely fucked up relationship.
or was that all in my head? were we normal, swinging on tree branches and writing love notes in women's studies classes? when did those alleged battles happen?
well, maybe just a little:
i'm obsessing over alaska. i browse journalismjobs.com daily for jobs in alaska, then proceed to spend way too much time googling images of alaska. i am convinced i will end up there, complete with candles in my windows and grungy checkered table cloths.
will this be me, my entire life? chasing some combination of myself from the past and conceived notions of the future until i wilt somewhere in the middle?
on a lighter note, my ex and i have been exchanging e-mails and it's nice to know we can have a functional friendship after having an extremely fucked up relationship.
or was that all in my head? were we normal, swinging on tree branches and writing love notes in women's studies classes? when did those alleged battles happen?
my legacy in dust
today: hopefully Into the Wild, rum and coke with little to no backwash, New York Times, wishing there were SCHIP-veto protests here, sad bartenders and not enough calls back to write my articles.
this weekend: some sort of quasi-meat party, forcing myself to pound kitchen tables, dancingdancingdancing in the nude, ghost busters outfits/maybeevenpainting??, library movies, some sort of zygote of a novel, remember i breathe too so maybe i am normal?
the future: alaska in real life instead of the movies, becoming not a citizen, enfants and picnics combined, growing old and laughter.
this weekend: some sort of quasi-meat party, forcing myself to pound kitchen tables, dancingdancingdancing in the nude, ghost busters outfits/maybeevenpainting??, library movies, some sort of zygote of a novel, remember i breathe too so maybe i am normal?
the future: alaska in real life instead of the movies, becoming not a citizen, enfants and picnics combined, growing old and laughter.
excuse me sir, you've lost your vegan cheesesteak
i measure time in letters about first loves and red sweaters, the worn-down soap, in messy beginnings of ends. i do not measure time in yarn, seconds or furrowed eyebrows.
have i changed since i graduated from college three years ago? certainly i've had more conversations over vegan cheesesteaks, more fireflies have been caught and let go. but have i changed? have i grown more cautious? three years ago, i hopped in my car and drove across the country to a town of 1200, where the mountains were always within sight and i didn't finger the windowpane, i flew.
these days, i dance. we dance. Pavement plays in the living room and the wind swings my arms back and forth. but i've got to piece my wings back together again. i've got to smash fists through windows and land gracefully in the grass.
have i changed since i graduated from college three years ago? certainly i've had more conversations over vegan cheesesteaks, more fireflies have been caught and let go. but have i changed? have i grown more cautious? three years ago, i hopped in my car and drove across the country to a town of 1200, where the mountains were always within sight and i didn't finger the windowpane, i flew.
these days, i dance. we dance. Pavement plays in the living room and the wind swings my arms back and forth. but i've got to piece my wings back together again. i've got to smash fists through windows and land gracefully in the grass.
this is how the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper
friday, my leg tingles. it freezes up and i hit it because i believe it's grown numb, but the sparks shock me and make their way to my heart. my heart, it's supposed to pump something like 6800 litres of blood a day, but mine disappears to climb trees and watches the day end in somebody else's body. like everyone else, i'm too late when i discover it's gone.
(...would you change...?)
i think in parentheses and ellipses; i always have. i once labored over letters and spent an average of seven hours per mixed tape.
i'm beginning to believe fluidity, in all its enigma and beauty and sadness, is one of life's few constants. when do you discover the others?
i am hoping in one or two years, i will need to pass a few minutes in an internet cafe somewhere i've not yet seen, and i'll re-read this. and i'll smile, as i often did in morocco - unless, of course, when i realized Dubyah was effing destroying the world.
asdlkrjaewiojulkzjdaoieruailerkjaklwerjelakwjraes.
i cannot CANNOT wait for that man to be tried as a war criminal.
(...would you change...?)
i think in parentheses and ellipses; i always have. i once labored over letters and spent an average of seven hours per mixed tape.
i'm beginning to believe fluidity, in all its enigma and beauty and sadness, is one of life's few constants. when do you discover the others?
i am hoping in one or two years, i will need to pass a few minutes in an internet cafe somewhere i've not yet seen, and i'll re-read this. and i'll smile, as i often did in morocco - unless, of course, when i realized Dubyah was effing destroying the world.
asdlkrjaewiojulkzjdaoieruailerkjaklwerjelakwjraes.
i cannot CANNOT wait for that man to be tried as a war criminal.
where did all the indirect objects come from?
Sometimes, my silence is a scream. The blue light filters through the air; I stare while others think I laugh.
I once fingered gingham, believing I would return to where air not arrogance is breathed and passive voice is not a term. what exactly is the difference between I had thought and I thought? Is the past so necessary that we must fragment that as well?
What do I do here? How do I learn, all over again, to live? Is it melodrama when you really feel you cannot breath; when you really do not understand most people around you? Or is that merely your own reality and you have to find some way to make it merge with others? Has mine ever merged with others?
There are moments when I'm pretty sure it has : in the back of a car, driving around Fremont Lake. With fingers intertwined, discussing the life of balloons. Waking with a smile, forgetting, momentarily, that we live in a place with curtains and wood that's slowly rotting.
I once fingered gingham, believing I would return to where air not arrogance is breathed and passive voice is not a term. what exactly is the difference between I had thought and I thought? Is the past so necessary that we must fragment that as well?
What do I do here? How do I learn, all over again, to live? Is it melodrama when you really feel you cannot breath; when you really do not understand most people around you? Or is that merely your own reality and you have to find some way to make it merge with others? Has mine ever merged with others?
There are moments when I'm pretty sure it has : in the back of a car, driving around Fremont Lake. With fingers intertwined, discussing the life of balloons. Waking with a smile, forgetting, momentarily, that we live in a place with curtains and wood that's slowly rotting.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Harley Davidson
There are snippets of songs, not whole melodies, but enough that your capitalistic spirit draws you in and you pull out a credit card with a $516,498.22 limit on it. You could buy anything! The Czech Republic! Cotton candy! Enough Nalgene bottles to fill the old community center on 32nd street!
My friend is becoming a famous actress in Chicago, and now she can't eat falafel sandwiches in peace. She doesn't mind, really, because people ask her about cheese in Wisconsin and if she believes in post-modernism. (Or is that not believe? Or not not believe without the connotations of a double negative?)
Anyway, she still doesn't fork over the quarters for clean sheets, and she still notices that, in time, they smell like avocados - OS NOT OES - and everything is very much a bridge OR EVEN a Brigitte Bardot song.
My friend is becoming a famous actress in Chicago, and now she can't eat falafel sandwiches in peace. She doesn't mind, really, because people ask her about cheese in Wisconsin and if she believes in post-modernism. (Or is that not believe? Or not not believe without the connotations of a double negative?)
Anyway, she still doesn't fork over the quarters for clean sheets, and she still notices that, in time, they smell like avocados - OS NOT OES - and everything is very much a bridge OR EVEN a Brigitte Bardot song.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
drop the machete you call history
Phrases will surface unexpectedly, and your seven-year-old self will emerge from the depths of rainy tents and modern-day tales of red-haired Swedish heroines. The words you've used your entire life no longer seem adequate, as you try to remember how it is that the person you once were uses the same words as the person you are now.
Current self : we wait patiently, for the mountains to erode, for the glaciers to melt, to remember why it is that you're here, munching on peaches and not wearing gingham-dresses in a cottage you've built yourself. There, you could forget proper pronouns.
Former self : I've waited for you to return the letters I wrote you; it's been years and the excuses I've heard include boring notions of time and space.
Current self : we wait patiently, for the mountains to erode, for the glaciers to melt, to remember why it is that you're here, munching on peaches and not wearing gingham-dresses in a cottage you've built yourself. There, you could forget proper pronouns.
Former self : I've waited for you to return the letters I wrote you; it's been years and the excuses I've heard include boring notions of time and space.
scarred boots
It was late and hot - not a sidenote by any means - and the driveway seemed to be more of an island, floating somewhere in disconnected thoughts. I was eating a mango and it was a continuous past tense, there in the hot night time when everything was not not-sterile-bordering-on-a-tango.
I often chewed gum with my front two teeth then, tapped my pointer finger and rarely my pinky and the windows were always the same : remember Virginia? remember Buenos Aires? remember Rosemont/Ottawa/Chicago/Omaha/Wyoming/New Haven/Casablanca?
I fingered my mango pulp, creating obscene gushing noises that hit everyone in the Chevy that passed by. They didn't mind, it was too warm, their air-conditioning was broken and to top it all off, they were playing Jackson Browne. As for me, the glory of it all faded and I sang with the fireflies.
I often chewed gum with my front two teeth then, tapped my pointer finger and rarely my pinky and the windows were always the same : remember Virginia? remember Buenos Aires? remember Rosemont/Ottawa/Chicago/Omaha/Wyoming/New Haven/Casablanca?
I fingered my mango pulp, creating obscene gushing noises that hit everyone in the Chevy that passed by. They didn't mind, it was too warm, their air-conditioning was broken and to top it all off, they were playing Jackson Browne. As for me, the glory of it all faded and I sang with the fireflies.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
stars, stars
I woke up early that day, years ago, when I believed a place that named itself "the city of drama" would prove to be my alternative salvation. The kind that comes not from steeples or spilled holy water, but from feet on gravel and mint tea. It was already hot before the sun rose, and my South African traveling partner was still cradling her pillow, a glass of rosewater and a book about an ideological continent on her hostel bedside table.
I slipped on the too-large orange slippers, bought in the 4 p.m. medina where the children beggers asked for coca and the store-owners drowned you in tea and "Insha'Allah" was a way of accepting life instead of religion.We had drank too many bottles of red wine and smoked too much hashish the night before, and I remembered to grab my last-ink-filled pen to write my own impromptu ode to the place where I would feel more lost and more at home than I ever would again.
After I climbed the stairs to the roof, where the man from the coast was dozing in the corner, I watched the world begin in shades of snapped-open blue shutters and old men in white robes selling mangoes. My face pressed to the rose-colored concrete, I took off my mask and promised the Everyday I would never forget this.
I slipped on the too-large orange slippers, bought in the 4 p.m. medina where the children beggers asked for coca and the store-owners drowned you in tea and "Insha'Allah" was a way of accepting life instead of religion.We had drank too many bottles of red wine and smoked too much hashish the night before, and I remembered to grab my last-ink-filled pen to write my own impromptu ode to the place where I would feel more lost and more at home than I ever would again.
After I climbed the stairs to the roof, where the man from the coast was dozing in the corner, I watched the world begin in shades of snapped-open blue shutters and old men in white robes selling mangoes. My face pressed to the rose-colored concrete, I took off my mask and promised the Everyday I would never forget this.
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