empty the contents of your pocket on to the table

apple: Down the street and around the bend from my house the city has crammed a school over a drug store. On the way to the bus stop each morning we pass a tall, tall woman with fly-away hair perched against the door frame like an egret. She shepherds the children through the puddles of vomit and cigarettes butts, around the chicken bones and newspapers pasted to the sidewalk, up the stairs and to their desks. I wonder if she's ever noticed the shape of an apple with curved stem and leaf, carved perfectly in the pavement a few feet away by who knows what, especially for her.

boy: He saw her first -- how could he miss her in that orange hat? -- and followed her around the gym. She noticed him noticing her, liked his look (blue gym shorts, marathon t-shirt), remembered his face, and grabbed my arm a few days later in the grocery store when he pushed his cart of frozen dinners by us. In line I took my time, counting and re-counting the pennies and nickels, holding up the express lane, so she could formulate a plan that wouldn't be executed beyond our own imagining.

chair: Squirrel & I won a folding camp chair each, stamped with the firm logo, for winning the egg toss during the staff appreciation party last week. These chairs will come in handy this summer after we construct a tether-ball poll in our back yard. People will have a place to sit while they wait their turn to play.

drink: 3 parts red wine, 1 part orange juice, 1 part 7-up. Add ice and then sit on the front steps with a friend. Drink it down slowly under a moon you can't see.

equivokate: I'm wondering about this lately: if it's possible to always mean what you say, or to mean what you say always. It should be simple, it seems. Don't say things you don't mean. But if everyone followed this rule, the world would stop and nothing would get done at all. And what of the things you mean when they fall out of your mouth, but would take back if you could once the situation has shifted 2 years, 10 months, 5 weeks, 3 minutes down the road? Sometimes, I say things to myself and will myself to mean them as I say them over and over again. I'm doing my best to say only things I mean. I'm counting on you to try, too.

farm: The farm hadn't changed much; the fuzzy edges of memory do well to accommodate a new lamp here or painting there while preserving the shape and feel of a place. The coffee is still the best in the world and the cream in the mason jar comes straight from the lopsided milk cow who never wanders far from the gate. There will always be a lamb who thinks he's a puppy and children who grow up and away will keep coming home. In front of the stone fireplace late that night, I realized how much I've missed her and, watching them together, how much has changed about who we all are and where we're headed. Thank goodness for the fuzzy edges of memories, though, and the way they contract and expand to let in all the light and time that goes by while we're not looking.

graveyard: The Garden State Parkway takes us through a graveyard. Stone after stone after stone marking life after life after life, sprawling over hills on both sides of the highway.

house: We are switching houses soon to live with Ms. Georgia Peach. I will miss the sound of the spokes of Banjoel's bike when he rolls in late at night, and the easy clever laughter that rises up when we're sitting around. I will not miss bunkbeds, sirens, and living like a sub-terranean mammal who squints when emerging from the dark into the light of day.

i: got nothing to say for myself.

Jinx & Mitzy: They got married 27 years ago today, a full 19 months before I came on the scene. Mt. St. Helens exploded fairly soon after their wedding, ash piling up like snow on the windshield of the car, and they were very poor. Mitzy claims she was shy and didn't speak for the entire first year. Jinx got hit in the face with a lead pipe in Alaska and almost died and Mitzy decided to start talking somewhere along the way, as anyone who knows her can attest. There were births and deaths and Sunday dinners in different homes and drives on sunny afternoons and warm twilights along roads in different countries. My mom still puts one hand on her chest and the other on my dad's arm when she laughs real hard at his jokes and my dad still marvels at what a piece of work she is. I don't think they've ever been bored.

key: I have not lost my keys once in the past month. This is a new record.