What to write about? I think I’m going to go all stream of consciousness on you, because my thoughts are a gelatinous world inside my head, like how I always imagined the cytoplasm of a cell looks.
Posts under ‘Thinking’
The parts where the music swells
Not blogged from a ledge - don’t worry
Nothing’s wrong, but there’s a feeling of restlessness in me. Last winter, the cold deterred me from going out and living the fullest life I could have. So did the loneliness, which sounds more depressing that it actually was. New York has taught me a lot, and one of those things is that it can be comforting to walk through the city streets bundled up and alone, no one knowing your name.
Life after the last bell
Yawn! I returned from Pennsylvania at 11:00 pm, had to unpack, lay out clothes for tomorrow, deal with a cellphone charger dilemma, shower, and finally fell into bed. I slept until 7:10 and joined the morning rush to work. When I exited the subway, I heard someone yelling my name. I turned to see Renee, smiling and bobbing in the crowd of commuters.
The good kind of tired
I got off the subway yesterday and walked up the stairs, staring at the weary posteriors of strangers. Upon ascent, my hair mussed in the air’s chilly hands. The last two days, I’ve been going out of my way to get home. I take the train to a spot eleven short blocks and four long blocks away from where I live. The bus could drop me off a block from home, but I want to walk, because when I walk, I think.
“Teacher” comes from the Latin root for “anxious as hell”
This is the calm before the storm, I think.
Hours before I leave for upstate New York, I’m compulsively chewing rectangle after rectangle of gum. I intermittently sing single lines from whatever song plays on the SoundDeck. I have to spend the next few days solely with co-workers. I haven’t done anything like this since I was in a summer Shakespeare program in college that required me to spend days and days at a time at a bed and breakfast in the Texas hill country. We’d talk for days about theater and Shakespeare, only pausing to swat flies out of our faces. I can’t tell you how tedious I found it. I like talking to people who haven’t necessarily read “The Tempest.” I like air conditioning. I like watching Project Runway and laughing at Vincent.
It’s on our side
Time springs up behind me, puts its sweaty (clock) hands over my eyes, and leaves me to guess.
3:00? 4:00? 5:00?
Terminally healthy
When I was a kid, I used to stand up too quickly and be overcome by a vertiginous lurch that my mom insisted meant “you sit on your butt too much - go take out the trash.” I had not-so-secretly hoped it meant I had some kind of disease characterized by auras and a tendency to sprawl for hours and read. I also used to go outside on sunny days, squint, and watch all these molecules of matter present themselves. I though it might mean I was a prodigy, because I had seen it done by the kid genius in Little Man Tate or rather, the video editors of Little Man Tate. If I wasn’t a prodigy, I’d settle for having special mutations. I later learned of corneal scratches. How disappointing.
What I want to say…
To You:
How dare you just take my spot in line when it was my rightful turn to be the next customer?! I don’t care how old, fat, and liver spotted you are! I waited just as long as you. In fact, I think I waited longer. “Age before beauty”? Oh, no. “Pearls before swine”…next time! Even if I have to put a hand in your face and yell over your order.
The heat goes on
I tried to find a picture that sums up summer in NYC. I took the one to the right last week. The fire hydrants really are open and spraying water, as seen on tv. Trash is at its most conspicuous. In my observation, Chelsea is currently the stankiest area in Manhattan, though I haven’t ventured above 122nd Street. The heavy man walking around like his dog just died is the Everyman. It’s hot, though not as hot as it was during last week’s heat wave. Everybody walks around looking at least mildly miserable, minus the girls attempting to teeter with panache in short skirts and wedges. I went to Harlem last night for some soul food. Monday night looked like a block party! Everyone was outside sitting on stoops, riding bikes up and down the sidewalks, or selling incense.
I guess I’m a grown-up now
*All the hubbub of my apartment hunt and kill has got me feeling more and more like an adult. Though I have a degree and a job and enough bills to feel like childhood is far away, I’m just now realizing that the big palookas of life aren’t so unattainable, but the completely carefree days are. I found something one of my dearest college friends, Rey, wrote to me. He felt like a man long before I felt like a woman. Sigh. I miss this guy.
