Check it

new year. new web site. 

proud mama.

Newly sharpened pencils

"Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address." 

- Tom Hanks in "You've Got Mail." Such a classic. 

 

My choice autumn vocabulary words:

Spiced, toasty, crisp, woolen, cinnamon, hot toddy, Thermos, body heat.

Back. Brooklyn. Biscuits.

I'm back in the City and thoroughly exhausted. 

Tomorrow is reuniting with friends, but more importantly tomorrow is a damn good breakfast with fresh biscuits and French-pressed coffee. 

egg. oh breakfast. oh hell yes.   

More on the epic train journey later...

CHOO CHOO

The same panicky feeling swoops in before each long trip. It's anxiety trapped between fear and excitement. I may vomit. (But if you know me and my weak stomach well, you'd know this isn't too unusual.) 

I'm leaving on an East-bound train. NY/NY or bust. 

I'll see you there. 

Acute kid.

From my seat in the coffee shop, I watch a small girl, probably no more than four, who is showing an impressive display of gymnastic ability. She's tangling her tiny torso around an iron bistro chair while using the large window as leverage to pull herself further up. (Her mother is one of those women who still has her eye on the child, but is too engrossed in a chat with her friend to ask her to sit still.) Her hands are on the seat of the chair, and her bare feet are on the glass as her body makes a triangle in the air. Acute. With cheeks puffed in concentration, she flips her feet down to meet her hands on the chair, balanced by her butt which is now pressed against the window. In an act of comical perfection, "Blue Moon" is playing softly through the speakers inside the shop. Though the dismount was shaky, no doubt caused by an agitated mother, I'm giving her a 10 for style. 

On friendship

"We all know that I can't be your moral compass." 

- Me to Kristi 

Four years at the speed of light.

Blink, and you missed it. 

Thursday

There's something about boxes that always makes me sad. It seems like I've moved almost every eight months during the last four years, but the process has yet to seem less daunting. I'm not sure if it's the physical act: the box cuts, the lifting of furniture, the dividing of the kitchenware; or if it's the task of metaphorically putting your entire self into the back of a truck, having only to de-rumple it in a new place. 

It's always easier to pack than it is to make yourself at home. There is something about a well-worn room that screams, "I AM COMFORTABLE HERE," whereas it takes me months to put everything in it's perfect spot in each new space. I mull over it for ages – photo there, pencils here, no the other way around – until it aligns with my perfectly balanced mental picture of bedroom harmony. 

Here's to coming back out of my box unrumpled. 

On social awareness

Who says we're a post-activism generation?

I woke up to my favorite song.

Just picked up Lightning Dust's new album "Infinite Light," and I'm loving it, this track especially.

The Sentence Game: A Porch Story

When the moon was full we danced naked, basking in the light that, surprisingly, made us climb trees and jump from one to the other. Then out of the blue sky, came a bat black as night water. It screeched as it soared, singing, "I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts." Damn. It was scary. Out of the woods came the bat's best friend, werewolf man. The bat took Liz away, Leah rode the werewolf following, so Sarah, Sarah P., Jill and Allie called their unicorns to follow. Afterwards we all took to the skies, swooping in and out of a dirigible. 

The six authors of this awkwardly wonderful piece of fiction would like to acknowledge the following people, factors and inanimate objects: PBR, Onyx the cat, new haircuts, porch weather and Polaroids.  

Some days just feel like this.

Wind me up,

wind me up

and spin me round.

On ominous wall art

"This was the year her mind went south." 

- Spray painted to a brick wall I stopped in front of due to alley-way congestion. Oh boy. 

On safety

"You don't need it. If you fall it won't help you much." 

- Said about my seat belt by the carney operating the ferris wheel at the Monroe County Fair with a slow drawl and side of animosity.