wondering what it is

it could be, among other things, the weather. I just learned the adorable mash up word, "sniss", which is, of course, to sneeze and piss, and this is what the sky seems to be doing about now. It's the precipitation equivalent of incontinence. February is too gray and sick to br cruel. It grimaces.

Genre Studies

I've never been very good at writing fiction. My long history as an accomplished liar doesn't suit me well in this received form. Maybe memoirists are the tellers of tall tales and novelists seek the truth through parallel universe narratives. Authors of stories that never happened live in other worlds while we here in the nonfiction section are testing out various versions of things we actually did. Or think we did. Or meant to do. As William Miller said in Almost Famous, "the truth just sounds different." The truth is a very large concept and I am only a girl with too many memories and not enough time. Or do I have too few recollections and a surplus of hours? The world may never know.

archiving today

wearing: plaid shirt, jeans, furry hat, bare feet
reading: the age of innocence on kindle, a world lit only by fire (still)
listening to: wavves
thinking about: moving into a little house on the water in maine or Ct
wondering: what to get a master's in
looking forward to: driving to new haven on Friday
contemplating: seeing a local band cover cake's fashion nugget cover to cover
waiting for: calm and inspiration, tomorrow's appointment
resisting: the urge to run
loving: pesto, bedroom fireplace and slippers, into the west from netflix
leaving: for mexico soon

A Cautionary Tale

M was a roommate of mine. On Withers Street, within reach of the BQE, towering above Strega Nonna's vegetable garden, he lived in a shabby sheet two bedroom apartment, with peeling linoleum and cockroaches in the sink. It was obvious he was sad, but so was I; I thought we would help one another. And for a time, perhaps we did.

The first night was walk up hot and I felt nowhere, alone and itchy. Angela stayed all night and in the morning we all had breakfast together at the Kellogg Diner. I started finding affinity in this quirky neighborhood already. And every night after work, M and I would drink 40 oz beers and eat mangos and watch 7th Heaven or the Gilmore Girls.

We were both spiraling out and down, but he presented well to the outside world, worked hard, then came home to smoke bowls and eat burritos in bed. It becamse an addict's apartment and I hid in my room, smoking, stealing peanut butter, writing all night because I had nothing else. I wanted desperately to be something but felt less than ever like a real person.

M wandered ghostly in the mornings while I layed awake and waited for him to be gone. I sailed to beaches on the outskirts of Brooklyn in a borrowed Volvo that drove so well. We hardly met after that. I owed him money. He would not clean. Bugs became a problem and when the toilet clogged and I called up the landlord, he saw the state of things and demanded that we go.

What other choice did I have? We divided our books on Buddhism and lesser vehicles, such as Against Nature, which we both enjoyed. I wrote M a check we both knew would bounce. We never saw each other after that. I moved in with my boyfriend in a much better neighborhood, a few stops on the G train away from SANE and SAME.

I heard he's gone. completely away. forever. And I think it could have been me. I'm sad. I try not to make the same mistake. I am the living one, the lucky one, I guess. How can two such smart and sensitive people fall so slowly on their own swords? I am able to be more chances. But those Williamsburg babies could have tried harder, could have tried harder if we did.

Santa Lucia Square

every Sunday even though I am not there, couples, mostly old ones, dance on a rasied platform, under the arched bark of ancient trees and concrete ceilings. Little musicians all in white stay shaded and play until I don't know when. I always became tired, and overheated just watching, while they made eternity keeping time. They are the backdrop of the gods. Antique sellers selling crosses and lanterns in the sidewalk footlights, families pedaling fringed orange cycles, marquesita venders, old men pushing ice cream carts. A half moon rises over all the Meridanos. God bless equator dwellers; they bring glory to the sun and all His animal humanity.

Drawing a Tree

I don't recall what year it was in grammar school when we were taught to draw a tree. We were told this was significant, advanced. No longer finger painters and stick figure simpletons, this was a lesson in realism and growth. Instructed to make a trunk from two straight lines, an inch or so apart and within this rooted width we made a vee. Two from one and four from that, the limbs reached in to stretch outward and up. It wasn't until years later that the word heliotropism was explained. But in that sunny artroom, where we wore out father's tattered blue shirts backwards, a group of children became artists, thinkers, and world watchers. Because of a tree made of vees.

Self-Infliction

I used to make a habit of hurting other people. Now I reserve this routine for myself. It happens when I am nervous. I thought I would stop feeling nervous. I need to remember to breathe.

Quietly, Hopefully

to say that everything is encased in ice is hyperbole, and not particularly poetic. but it's only ever shortly after the fact that I realized how much I miss warm skin bird singing picnic days. and it is beautiful. like a scrubbed and scary folktale by Hans Christian Anderson. I do long for days stretched out on scented tapstries, alone with a musty penguin novel at the beach. and I do wish back longingly, look back lovingly, though I don't want to live presently on road trips with cigarettes and strangers. my life is sweet. and I am just going to wait, or maybe meditate. so I don't have to remember when and wish I cared more. The snow piles higher outside the windows and it's friday and I'm healthy, and that's enough.

Nuns and Tears

waiting in the car for my husband in a post office, I watched an elderly, habited nun getting out of her compact car and attempting to cross the snow-banked and narrow street, and I cried. I wish I could be her.

Live To Tell The Tale

What began as light and late youthful adventure ended in tragedy. Our lives were irrevocably altered. I went to escape loss and death and what more appropriate place than Mexico to be confronted with the reality that there is no freedom from the real macabre. My husband grew gray, creased and wrinkled, watching and waiting for the patriarch to finally fall. And he fell on numerous occasions, but the final blow was slow and wheelchair-bound. An exit at the airport, we saw him off on his last adventure, the only one he wasn't departing for happily. Now the rest of us left are shaken but mending. I know how long it takes for the pain to lessen even to this discomfort degree. Even as we stretch, miles away from the everlasting days of those terrible events, this is when we experience loss most acutely. It smarts though the wounds grow closed and new adventures loom on the wintry horizon.

I Woke Up Laughing

Light snow falling and more than a foot predicted for tomorrow. It''s cold and gray and I'm sleepy but everything is alright in our little world.