some things about this weekend

We have not spoken in years

My first brother (tall, rangy) & I discovered that we both listen to Bruce Springsteen more than we ought, that we love traditional French accordian music and daisies wrapped in brown paper. We both like to see a good anchor tattoo on a sailor. When I saw him this weekend, I didn't want to kick his teeth in for the first time in years. In fact, following our parents around a million different junk stores I held onto his sleeve and didn't want to let go.

You won't believe what he does to my heart rate

For the past month, we've gone out one or two times a week, each time staying out a bit longer. He is funny and smart and infinitely kind. He doesn't care what I wear and I don't minds that he spits a lot. He talks and talks and talks, filling the time with stories of old pets and college girlfriends and movie quotes. He doesn't take it personally when I don't look at him, don't say much at all. Friday was the hottest day yet and my body was in rebellion--achy, dehydrated, exhausted--before we even set out. Keep going! Don't stop! he said, all the way out and back. At the end of our run he said You are amazing! and then handed me a glass of lemonade while we waited for the endorphins to do their thing.

Where oh where can my baby be?

The woman got on near the Native American History Museum and since I'd forgotten my book and have lost my ipod, I went ahead and watched. She was wearing a ratty white housecoat, as Gramcracker might call it, the sort of thing that is one step up from a nightgown but not really a robe. The sort of thing that ladies with any sense or breeding wouldn't be caught dead wearing to answer the front door, let alone to take a bus across town. She set up the contraption on the seat beside her and then pulled the brim of her hat, printed with tropical flowers, down low over her mess of hair. Every time someone walked past, the woman would pull the little seat close to her and re-adjust the blanket or re-arrange one of the mangy stuffed animals. There was no baby in the chair, though, and after awhile she turned her attention to the bag beside her and its contents. She pulled out a stack of one dollar bills and studied the face of each one intently, running her fingers over the surfaces. Almost as though she was looking at photographs of people she'd known, maybe still loved.

charm school dropout

I miss the sweet anonymity provided by my old neighborhood. I'm no social butterfly and still, everytime I set foot out the door, I trip over people I know. There's too much pressure to act dignified all the time now and I get nervous, walking down the street, that someone I know might be just around the corner, waiting to pounce and pull me into conversation. My mother did her best to raise me right, but my social skills are remedial at best so if we bump into each other and I say something dumb and a little off, please know that I am keenly aware of my short comings. I apologize for my failure at basic conversation.


Memorial Day to Remember

The day was filled of chopping, cooking, laughing laughing laughing, eating and drinking and then floating along on deep deep pools of contentment. I watched my friends' faces catch the sun, watched their young healthy bodies turn brown under the big sky. We gulped in the air. We slurped up the day.

Earlier that morning an email came from G. who has an eerily prescient way of sending me literary buckets to hold the overflow of my heart. She was talking about Jonathan Franzen and how she hated him for saying what she always thought she might be able to articulate, perfectly, someday: "the great sorrowful world-smell of being alive beneath a sky."

The smell was very strong yesterday, rising off the river, coating our skin. For we were very alive, and the sky was very big.

A fairytale in every rhyme

hi (sly) try (lie) cry (die) bye (my my my my)

look book shook crook mistook / born torn mourn lovelorn forsworn

lad = cad;dad = mad;girl=sad

Ways to end a conversation

goodbye
take care
so long
be seeing you
nice knowing you
good luck all the
best fare thee well
stay awesome
or even just
the end