Imaginative Interlude, the First

Biscuit: "Cmon, cheer me up for saying I have an enormous nose by naming your octuplets."

Krissa: "Well, the eldest is the proud and ample-bosomed Zak-Kuk, who rules with an iron breast and is hopelessly in love with the blind Donkey Boy of Icktahul-Zik.

She is jealously followed everywhere by her much plainer but even more scheming younger sisters, who were so desperate to beat each other in the race out of my womb that they were born strangling each other with one hand, holding the foot of Zak-Kuk with the other. They are known as Curi Illpay and Cuxi Uarcay.

Their next-younger brother, Titu Manco Capac, is so embarassed by his name that he has elected not to speak his entire life, instead playing dumb messenger boy to his tyrannical brother Quehar Huallpa Yupanqui, who once swung both Curi and Cuxi around the room by their floor-length hair in a show of bravado intended to woo the next door's daughter, the shy but blossoming Anahuarque, but only succeeding in stripping the already-ugly sisters of their hair and earning their eternal emnity.

Urco and Apo, on the other hand, are two completely flavorless and uninteresting children. Thus, they have both already been pegged to run as joint president in next year's rigged elections.

But the final, glorious member of this sprawling violent tribe... the Enormous Cava-Chic'ya Chimpu Ocllo-Cuca, who's actually the bottom FIVE sisters
all rolled into one. She/They merged long ago as she/they conspired to eat her/their way across the top half of the Andes (literally the mountains themselves, mind) and have lived there ever since, as One Enormous Sister. Several may have died in recent years, but she/they'll bite off your fingers if you try to count, so hungry is/are she/they."

It was in the telling of this crazy tale of a mad clan of Incans that I realized something: if Biscuit's and my fantastical workplace creations are anything to base judgement on, my children are going to have some very interesting bedtime stories to sleep on.

Seven

Months

March is: The cold snap breaks in New York and I pack a suitcase for Brasil and a week with my brothers, the sand, the sun, and the caipirinhas. I return from Brasil and meet a handsome and charming Englishman. I knew he'd be handsome and charming, I just didn't expect him to be the handsome charming one for me. We spend one week together. Glances across a crowded bar. A late night adventure with a mouse. Kissing on a sofa bed. A cold sunday morning breakfast hunt. Champagne for breakfast. Dinner at French Roast, wandering arm-in-arm through the West Village. Mornings spent in bed turn into afternoons. A ferry ride. Grey Dog. I love yous. An impromptu proposal, a tearful departure. A life changed.

April is: forget the showers. Long distance phone calls. Job hunting. Surprising the daylights out of friends and family. Spring comes to New York without me even noticing. Visas are discussed. Kisses are sent transatlantically. A ticket is purchased, a best man is told, and a certain baseball bat is purchased.

May is: agonizingly long until the 26th. Outfits are packed and unpacked, travel plans are made from London to the Isle. Another airport, another kiss. Camden, Notting Hill, kissing on the tube to the shock and discomfort of fellow passengers. Tramping up the Downs in my frye boots, startling whole warrens full of rabbits. We sit among the prickly thistles and watch the sun fade from the island landscape, watch a rider dash across the hills across the valley on a galloping horse. My hand remains in his pocket, my head on his shoulder, for walks to town and along the esplanade. My heart is torn again as I board the plane home.

June is: a miraculous seven day approval for a fiance visa, a ticket bought back to England in July with help from the Love Fund. Flickr becomes our chink in the wall. We watch our little packet travel from Vermont to the NVC across the seas to England. We decide to get a permanent ticket before his birthday. We wait, and talk, and long.

July is: punctuated by a perfect trip to Hatfield. Mornings under a sunny yellow duvet, staring out a blue sky. Coffee in the back yard, fresh baked bread, trips on a bouncy bus to town. Walking through a wilderness garden at Hatfield House, barefoot and laughing. Having dinner on the floor, listening to Joni Mitchell and kissing. Taking ages to leave the house. A pint and crisps at the Horse and Groom. Another goodbye, another airport ... and for the last time. "I'm just taking a later flight," to make me smile through so many tears. And the best distraction of all, upon arriving home - Kate, coming to stay with me, for two months.

August is: getting an interview at the US Embassy. Waiting. Preparing. Hoping. It's also - a flurry of tribal activity with our new girl, lots of margaritas and parties. My life waiting to come and my life as it stands are both so wonderful, I wonder if a girl can really be this lucky. Thus passes August...

September is: an interview. An approval. A celebration. A sudden whirlwind of exciting decisions - when to fly, when to have the party, when to get married, when to go to Maine for 3 days to celebrate. And then, when all the decisions have been made, when a ticket sits waiting, bags start getting packed, work starts winding down on his side, life starts speeding up on mine... and here we are. September 30th. The last day of the last month I'll spend waiting for what I knew to be true the moment we met. Thank you, September. For bringing us good news, for moving rather quickly, for ending today.

October will be: Arrival. Kisses. A weekend alone. Coffee and smiles in the mornings. Wake up calls in person. A celebration. A trip to City Hall - two rings, a kiss, at last. A trip to New England. Evenings in front of a fireplace. The windswept cliffs of Acadia. Finally together, after seven months of planning.

Stuart and I are going to City Hall to get married on October 18th, exactly seven months from the day we met. It may seem short to some. But when you know what you want, seven months can seem a long time to wait for it. And here it is.

Eight

Of My Most Cherished Possessions

8. Tea Mug: It's a navy blue mug with a dark clay-colored inside. It's very chunky and widened at the brim. Some former friend of mine left it in our old house and out of some dormant maliciousness I never returned it to her. Perhaps because I knew we were meant for each other, the mug and I. A few months ago, the top of the handle chipped off when it banged against the side of my sink. I carefully glued it back and while the mug looks a little worse for the wear, it now knows exactly how much I love it.

7. Brown Cordoroy Blazer: I got it last fall, and have been anxiously waiting to wear it again. It's a thin-wale dark brown cord, with one leather-covered button. There's an inside pocket with a pinstriped flap that brings me some sort of secret fashion joy. When I wear it with jeans, a tee shirt, and my Frye boots, I feel like I can take on anything. And for a New York girl who couldn't kick a ferocious trash can out of the way, that's a valuable asset.

6. My Nikon F2: While I don't use it as much as I used to, because working at a photography magazine means you get to borrow and play with all KINDS of toys (Canon Rebel Ti and a Fuji F450 currently on loan), sometimes when I'm feeling lonely I'll pick it up. It has this heavy black metal body, a ding on the front left corner when I dropped it while shooting the Houston skyline, a manual film-forward that I never get tired of pushing, and I know every single button and its function. It was my father's, older than I am, and he saved up for it for a full year. Over the years, I've photographed best friends, boyfriends, cherished skylines, pets, buildings, family, meals, objects, bedrooms, and myself. And I have four boxes of photographs, all carefully indexed, to prove it.

5. My shiny new 4G ipod, 20GB: My parents hid this under my bed for my birthday this year, trusting my inherent messiness not to find it in the four days before my birthday. I didn't. They knew how badly I wanted one, to go with my lovely Mac laptop, and my dad thinks they're a luxury of the most stupidly decadent variety. Still, they gave it to me. I've spent a month listening to the Decemberists, Billy Joel, Shiv, Ed Harcourt, Van Morrison, They Might Be Giants, Frou Frou, Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Elliott Smith, and Radiohead. Ears = happy. Plus, I get to be one of those obnoxious New Yorkers with white strings in their ears.

4. My Frye boots: Best when worn in combination with jeans, a blazer, and a funny tee shirt, these boots are actually a powerful magic force in my life. I will never get over the nine months of craving them and thinking the two hundred dollar price tag too dear, only to find them, last November, at an Army Navy Surplus store on eight ave, for less than half the price. I bought them without a moment's hesitation, didn't eat lunch in midtown for well on a month, and haven't looked back. I wore them on cliff walks in Newport, through puddles the size of small lakes, through two blizzards, with pajamas during a Bacon Expedition on a cold December morning after hours of partying. I wore them the night Stuart and I met. They make me feel tough, powerful, almost indestructibly cool. They're beat up, my mother bemoans their existence, and I love them to tiny little tough leather pieces.

3. My Llama: No, it's not a real llama. It's a sweater. It's cashmere, salt-and-pepper colored, with a huge floppy neck and too-long sleeves. My mother gave it to me, Christmas of 2000. The first time I wore it, my friend Matthieu tried to convince me that cashmere came from llamas (our favourite animal) and that you had to kill them to get it. He insisted on calling me llama-killer all day. Never mind that he was completely and utterly wrong... the sweater came to be known as the Llama. I wore it during the dark days of that winter, when I was at my lowest. It always smelt of cigarette smoke and far away places. It's totemic in my life - I wear it about once a week in winter and I never leave it crumpled on the floor. Ever.

2. Bow Bear: When I was four, my parents gave me this little french-made bear with a yellow bow around its neck. I'd seen it at a toystore in Rabat, tucked away on a back shelf, and fell in love. It was fluffy and the color of mocha, with little black eyes and a black nose. I named it, in a stellar moment of complete unoriginality - Bow Bear. The bow is long gone. Throughout my childhood, I naturally referred to the bear as "he", but thought it strange that I should have a male teddy bear. So I tried to correct the pronoun, and I put the bear in a purple frilly dress. So was the first ten years of Bow Bear's life in drag. He's properly a male bear now, and I think he sneaks off to hang with his ladies when I'm asleep.

I've never taken a plane journey without him, and I've rarely cried a tear without his matted brown fur catching the bulk of my sadness. He's known to make three distinct facial expressions with my help. He can flap his arms and fly. Children I've babysat for have coveted him, his stuffing has been removed twice for cleaning (complete with stitches down his back), his eyes have gotten lost in the back of his head during a disasterous run-in with a washing machine, and he's been left behind and retrieved in countless hotel rooms, friend's homes, and backpacks. The bear has survived it all. And he still sleeps with me every night. Well, except for days on end when he's fallen under the bed. And boy, is that ONE reproachful look on his face when I drag him out, dust him off, and kiss his little black nose.

1. My passport(s): My very first had a smudged baby fingerprint where my signature should go, and a picture of a screaming month old infant. My 1994-2000 US passport was completely chock-full of stamps. If it had lasted another trip I would have needed extra pages. Brasil. Kenya (6 times). Switzerland. England (4 times). France. Tunisia. Mexico. South Africa. Every where I've gone, I've had it with me. Anywhere I need to go, it'll take me. And while I like my Brasilian and Argentine passports for international flavor, my American passport - US Citizen born to Naturalized Parents - says alot about my life. Why I am the way I am.

Anything else I own isn't a possession - you need to come to the source. Me. But if you ask, I'll tell you.

Ten

Things I'll be Doing Between Now and October 7th, Which is Ten Days Away:

10. Writing various things pertaining to the corresponding descending numerical day count. Tomorrow's title will be "Nine". You can figure out the rest from there.

9. Buying area rugs for our bedroom, as I was kindly informed by my downstairs neighbor that my late-night cleaning binges and other walking-related choices have woken her up frequently for months now.

8. Obsessively redrawing various plans for the future second bedroom, including but not limited to: "Shall we do the walls in red? How should we build the desk? Floor shelves or wall shelves? What shade of futon cover?" But NOT including: Where will the bassinet go?(so phphphbtbtbtt, jen.)

7. Taking out my shiny new City Hall Outfit and staring happily at it, carefully hanging it back on the hangers, and putting it back in the closet.

6. Making plans for Every. Night. Of. The. Week. Until. Then. So that I don't sit at home, and oh, chew my fingernails off from excitement.

5. Actually getting real work done at the office, so to justify our week long vacation of love.

4. Having dreams where I'm running through wrong airports, stuck in traffic on the Van Wyck, not wearing the right clothes or any clothes at all, beating up an INS officer, and generally having exactly the kind of airport-anxiety dreams one would expect.

3. Spending a lot of quality time with the Kate before she takes away all her good shoes moves to Carroll Gardens.

2. Digging up good winter recipes to try, thinking of great movies to watch, and how much tea there is to be drunk while snuggling on a certain cozy couch with a certain wonderful boyfriend for life. Giggling with anticipation.

1. Pacing the floors, singing along to the love songs, daydreaming out the window, counting the days, the hours, the minutes.

Here's to Ten!

It's a Sunday Night And I'm In The Middle of a Cleaning Rampage And All I Can Think To Say Is:

GODDAMN you, Internet. A girls needs distraction sometimes. Why don't you bitches BLOG on the weekends?!

Photographic Evidence for our Toothless Years

I made everyone get in the giant leopard-skin chair at the San Gennaro festival. I'm not ashamed. I realize it's cheesy and touristy and retarded and probably infested with lice.

It's also our youth, and our friendship, and in fifty years when we're all living at the Tribe Nursing Home (Biscuit's house) we'll look back on this smiling group of friends and say, "Weren't we beautiful?"

Well, it'll sound more like, "Whumffwee moodhfuh?"

But whatever.

Making Time Fly

I'll bet you all think it's been really hard on Stuart and I, to be separated for these past few months, with only a smattering of beautiful English days together all summer. You were wrong, relative to the SKULL CRUSHING IMPATIENCE that I am currently feeling.

Today is Thursday, September 23rd. Stuart arrives, as you're all well sick of hearing, on Thursday, October 7th. That's 336 hours, with about 98 hours subracted for blissful non-clock-watching sleep. Now I'm freaking out, because 336 hours sounds like a LOT more time than, say, 14 days or 2 weeks. And there's one thing I'm not very good at: waiting.

The past few days, since we broke through the three week mark, Stuart and I find it hard to even talk about anything else to each other. I lie awake at night, staring at the furniture in my room and rearranging it so that there's the most amount of space for all our stuff. I reorganized my kitchen this weekend and put larger items on the top shelves with a confidence I didn't possess when I first moved there, shorty mcsmallface that I am. I've mentally coordinated and trashed about ten Airport Outfit ideas. My obsessively plan-oriented brain has been going into hyperdrive, complete with smoke coming out the ears.

And none of it is making the time go any faster. Two weeks feels like the Sahara of Eternity until we're together again. I've started snapping at subway trains and deli sandwich makers because they're not moving fast enough. As if somehow, the slower other people function, the slower time will move towards October 7th.

Help. Does anyone remember that whole Wrinkle in Time thing? Any ideas on how to turn concrete time into a mutable, subservient being? How can I make two weeks become two hours? Advice is greatly appreciated... AND STEP ON IT.

Apparently, all the guides to nuptial organization say that you should never throw a surprise bridal shower. "The bride is the only one organized enough to know who should come and when and how," say the guides. "The bride is in charge of her wedding, let her make major decisions," they opine. "She'll probably have several showers thrown by several different people, and she knows the most about what she wants," they assert.

"Pffahh," said my friends. "They don't know THIS bride."

Six weeks later, this is what happened:

When I walked in the house after lunch and a "cancelled play" with my mother and sister, there was the tribe - or, the Sleep-With-Men portion of it, anyway. Biscuit, Shiv, Kate, Fish, Jen, Mike, and my dear friend Beth, all standing there yelling "Surprise!" The walls had festive black and white decorations and I actually had to ask, "What is this?!" and be told it was my bridal shower before I had any idea what was going on.

Over the course of the next two hours, we ate crustless sandwiches, a delicious white cake covered in raspberries, and my trademark cheezballs. My beautiful friends gave Stuart and I our wedding celebration dinner at Babbo (thanks, biscuit and mike) a beautiful silk nightgown from Victoria's Secret that I'd had my eye on (thanks girls - I'm sure Stuart will thank you too), an apron from my sister that says "I don't do dishes", a garnet necklace (thanks, Beth) and a lot of love and laughter.

I don't think I needed any more confirmation that I have the most amazing, beautiful, crafty, intelligent and loving group of friends (and a pretty craftily brilliant mother, too) on the face of this mad green ball. But in case I did, that was it.

Innocuous Gate Night Determined To Be Front Operation, Rumsfeld Hopping Mad

Last night, the following things were discussed:

1. How to sell your soul.
2. Whether the original owner of a sold soul is still accountable for actions committed by the new owner.
3. If you can lease a soul.
4. If you can sell a soul if you don't believe you own one.
5. If, by selling your soul, you're affirming a belief in God.
6. Whether God is more a tort law or a criminal law kind of guy.
and lastly, as with any good abstract evil-doing/world domination discussion,
7. The Luxurious (Mandatory) Resort for Men®

All this led to Kate finally asking the inevitable question, "If a soul salesman leaves Chicago going fifty miles an hour and men are granted access 20 miles inland from the coastline and Bill is sailing around the world on a yacht, is there really a God?"

What, you need more proof that my friends are evil little rascals hellbent on stylish domination?

Look at the obvious scheming:

And the cunning sass on that face:

It's like the pirates always say. Who better to trust with your life than known schemers, dealers, and heathens?

Love + Swearing = Wedding

Last night I made invitations to our party, the one we're throwing before we go to the courthouse.

Wait, let me rephrase that. Last night I:

1. Designed a simple pretty invite. Read it very carefully. Customized the printing size on my computer's Page Setup to accomodate 3.25x5 inch cards.

2. Watched my printer repeatedly spit out the test card without printing anything on it. Swore.

3. Tried every manner of readjustment to get the printer to understand how to print the text box on a 3.25x5 inch card. Managed only to get corners of text printed on corners of test card. Swore violently.

4. Called Biscuit after 2.5 hours. Swore whimperingly.

5. Listened as Biscuit tried it on his identical printer and succeeded after about eight minutes. Swore pitifully.

6. Followed Biscuit's incredibly simple instructions, which involved merely telling the printer it was 4x6 inches and realigning the text box to come out at the top right hand corner of the window. Swore at myself, using all of the above adverbs.

7. Set about happily printing 25 invites before realizing that the party is on the sixteenth of October, not the eighteenth as I'd just printed on 25 invites. SWORE AND LAUGHED AND THEN SWORE SOME MORE.

The result? I managed to print the remaining 20 cards with the correct date* and will have to head back to Kate's Paperie for more. After three hours of fidgeting with pixels, considering printer-homocide, and a lot of R-rated monologues, I realized something ...

It doesn't matter how casually and light-heartedly we set about getting married. It's still a wedding. And while I'm doing everything I can to avoid Bridezilla-esque behavior (swearing at the computer doesn't count - that's par for the course between me and technology), I learned last night that weddings are weddings are weddings. Yes, they're about love and trust and commitment.

They're also about swearing, the wrong flowers, swearing, organizing throngs of people, swearing, endless pages of notes, and swearing. And printers. And swearing.

Bring it on, Wedding Gods. We can totally handle this shit.

*And yes, I did consider simply scratching out the "eighteenth" and writing in "sixteenth" with an asterix at the bottom saying "FUCK THIS NOISE I'M DONE".

Blue Night

I left the office to meet up with Kate and her out-of-town friend for a bite before they headed to the theatre and I trudged home. We had french fries. French fries were a good idea after a day as quiet and Wednesday Morning Coming Down as I'd had after last night's glamour.

When we parted at 57th and Broadway, I had a boring subway ride home without the comfort of my new ipod and no evening plans except sitting at home, staring at my walls. Intentionally, mind. Even a chic kitten like me needs a night off.

But as I walked to the N/W on 7th, I decided to pop into Lee's Art Shop. I'm one of the least artsy people I know, but there's something about the tools of the trade that bring me a certain high-minded calm. I like seeing rows of tempting paints and reams of clean paper. I'll graze my fingertips over bristly brushes and run long swathes of ribbon through my hands. It's soothing, all manner of wild untamed creation just waiting to be born out of such simple materials.

Without much money to spend and no great ideas to spend it on, I managed to walk out of there thirty minutes later, eight dollars lighter and toting a much-coveted little black chalkboard and a box of Crayola chalk. I would hang it on the back of the front door, I thought, at exactly the middle height between Stuart and I, and we could put grocery items or reminders on there.

On the half-block walk to the train, it started drizzling in that dark-sky, early-fall sort of way. I was glad to be wearing a light coat and I bought a coffee from a vendor and drank it under the gleaming eaves of Carnegie Hall, making a mental note to go see a performance there one day. Something where I could watch the smooth wooden curves of a cello from a darkened velvety theatre chair.

On the rainy walk home from the subway, I stopped to pet an adorable lab-collie who was blinking the droplets off his black lashes. I laughed with a woman pushing her sleepy daughter in a stroller about the absurdity of standing in the rain waiting for a light to change. She had a voice like a young girl and lives on my street. Now I know who lives in the pretty white house.

And here I sit, ready to do some design work for our wedding party invites. I'm listening to rain falling outside my window, listening to songs that Stuart left on my computer in March, wearing his Cowes Week sweatshirt. The chalkboard looks lovely, and while there's no useful information on it yet, I think "ceci n'est pas une chalkboard" is a pretty good start.

Somehow, with eight dollars, a coffee, a light rainstorm and friendly neighbors, New York managed to comfort me. Not a bad night for a rather blue day.

Fashion Plate for a Head

What does it say about me that when I'm really excited about an upcoming event (a trip, a movie night, getting married and going to Maine for three days), my excitement expresses itself through PLANNING VARIOUS OUTFIT CONCEPTS?

The Limit

Okay. I've blithely ignored my spam comments, since they've rarely appeared on my main page and I'm too lazy to deal with deleting them. My back pages are a veritable smorgasboard of erection drugs and online gambling. But I've just reached my limit -

Someone/thing has actually posted spam to this site. This is a spam post that I didn't write. Whoever did, used MT to do it, and it looks like they simply replaced the pre-existing blog*spot entry to do so.

I am stunned and fuming and at somewhat of a loss. I have changed my password, already a completely made up word, to something different and equally esoteric. Various brilliant techies have searched my activity logs, checked around online for noises about spam-posting, and seem nearly as baffled as I am.

So I decided to post about this. Because it looks very much like something or someone hacked into my site to use it for spam. And it's the first we've heard of it happening. Any ideas are welcome.

In more brash language,

FUCK THESE SPAMMING FUCKERS AND THEIR FUCKING SPAMMY FUCKFACES.

On the Wording of Invitations, and Big House Tangents Thereof...

Me: How do you like the wording?

Biscuit: I would suggest including the word "wedding" in there somewhere. Instead of "jaunt to the courthouse". Which could mean "We're going to pay someone's bail."

Me: Wouldn't that be great? Having a "Get Out of Jail Party"? I guess someone we know would have to go to jail, though. Who's the most likely?

Biscuit: N. Or L. No, definitely L. N is too crafty.

Me: What would L go to the big house for?

Biscuit: Getting in a brawl. Or prostitution.

Me: Would it have to be black and white? That's SO August 2004.

Biscuit: No way. It'd totally be a Lock & Key Ball.

Me: I hope L gets arrested soon.

Biscuit: HAHAHA.

Me: Wait, what were we talking about...?

Biscuit: When?

Finally

We got approved yesterday. The man said "Welcome to the United States". We bought a plane ticket for October 7. We booked a little B&B in Bar Harbor (thanks to my generous beautiful brother's wedding gift).

I'm happy.

No Edge Whatsoever

If I was Dooce or Sarah Brown, I'd write something funny and witty in capitals involving Steven Colbert or poop. See how I don't even have the energy to link to them? That's how lazy I've become.

I'm up at midnight because I'm calling Stuart at five AM in his hotel room to wish him luck, kisses, and my hand in marriage. His interview with the US Embassy is this morning and I'm nervous so that he doesn't have to be. I've been sitting here all night, obsessively looking at the inexpensive flight we found for his October arrival, hoping it doesn't dissipate into thin air once we're approved. And, to quell the vast nameless internet's doubtless fears about two people you've never met, I'm sure he will be approved, because I have to believe these things because I'm goddamned Pollyanna these days.

Which explains the title. No edge, people. Go elsewhere for your edge and your wit and your irony. Tonight, I'm all LON-NYC flights and staring at my half-empty bed and checking out cozy bed & breakfasts in Bar Harbor and discussing courthouse weekend plans with my mother and mooning over pictures taken on ferries in March and praying to whatever Immigration Dieties exist out there (there must be a Hindu god for that, right? There's two hundred thousand of them...*) that the man I love comes out of those tightly controlled, US soil gates tomorrow bursting into song that we've been approved.

So cmon. You wry hip people believe in true love and happy endings somewhere in your cynical black little hearts, right? Cross a finger, or a toe, or step on a black cat or something**. I'm in love and I'm waiting here.

No Edge. All Bunnies. That should be my tag line.

* That's an Eddie Izzard reference. If you think I'm insulting Hindus because you have no idea what I'm talking about, you're a phillistine and should be ashamed.

** For chrissakes, if the SPCA calls me on that, I'm turning this blog around and going straight home.

A Weekend Devoid of Labor

I realize that the glamorous side of the weekend was all black and white and vodka and glitter and cigars and cake and heels and danger...

but the rest of the weekend was movies and french toast and wandering through the sunshine and flowers and soft tee shirts and late mornings and laughter and...

... yes, blackberries. fresh blackberries.

Brighter Than Sunshine

Kate took a mix CD out of the carrier and slipped it into the car stereo.

"You're really going to like this song. You'll either laugh or cry, but you'll like it."

I stared ahead on the road, smiling at the sun glancing off the metal signs pointing us homeward from a few hours relaxing on the Rhode Island shore.

I never understood before, I never knew what love was for, My heart was broke, my head was sore ... What a feeling..

I rolled down the window and felt the breeze lift my short hair off my neck. I remembered the breeze on the back of a Staten Island Ferry in March. I remembered the feeling of awe, of complete surprise, that so much love had lain dormant in my heart for so many years, and yet, with the right words and smile and eyes, how quickly this emotion had leapt to the surface.

Tied up in ancient history, I didn't believe in destiny, I look up you're standing next to me, What a feeling...

Going sixty down a sunny freeway, with the smell of salt in the air, and my hand making resistance waves through the tangible air, I remember that feeling knowing love when I saw it again. The way the flowers live through an eternity of night but know the caress of sun each morning and turn instinctively towards it. I saw it in Stuart's eyes, reflected back at me, and I threw away any shard of resistance, gave in, and haven't looked back.

What a feeling in my soul, Love burns brighter than sunshine
Let the rain fall, i don't care, I'm yours and suddenly you're mine
Suddenly you're mine and it's brighter than sunshine.

It didn't matter, in that moment, that Stuart wasn't physically next to me. I watched the sun glint off the concrete under my racing red car, the sparkles dancing on the surface of the blue Atlantic that separates us. I arched my back and tilted my head towards the open window, and a content smile stretched across my face. There he was. There he is. And here he'll be.

Brighter than sunshine, indeed.

Good People

I hadn't seen Amy for about a year when I bumped into her at Billy Blues, in Houston, in early 2000. She looked sweet enough to eat, with sad pretty eyes and that caring head-tilt she probably didn't realize she did. We said hello, and the next minute she said,

"I'm really sorry about your dad, honey, I'm glad he's getting better. I've been thinking about you."

It took the wind out of me. My father had been in the hospital for 2 weeks in Johannesburg, after being medivac'd there from the Congo for an emergency quadruple bypass because of a heart attack. He'd been alone when it'd happened, alone for another fifteen hours as my mother grabbed her purse and some clothes, flew from Houston to New York to tell me, and from New York straight to Jo'burg. I'd joined them there, one frantic week of double-time semester wrap-up later, and spent those two weeks driving from hospital to hotel and back again every day.

I'd only arrived in Houston with my parents a few days before, and while everyone knew where I'd been, Amy and I hadn't directly communicated about it. We were casual friends - you know the type. Hello, what's new, oh what a funny thing you just said! Laugh, laugh.

And yet, there she was, a kind hug and a few words whispered in my ear simply because she knew it had been hard. I gulped back tears of gratitude and was humbled by her kindness.

Amy's sudden quiet selflessness made me sit up and take notice at the different kinds of Good People. There are so many people who, unwittingly, use generosity and consideration as a tool to better their public image and by extension, their self-esteem. I've never held it against anyone, this more dramatic form of imparting kindness upon others. I've done it myself, sometimes, to curry affection from one or another person.

But I think of Amy's second-nature kindness. I think of a friend who thought nothing of quietly slipping my roommate some cash for us to take a cab because she knew we were both strapped and wanted to see that we were home safe. I think of my brother, who never picks fights with anyone even when he's at his most stressed, most strapped, most frustrated. I think of another friend who will see the best in anyone, even people he dislikes.

And I remember Amy's immediate concern for other people, and the simple direct way she said exactly what she wanted to say without making a fuss or drawing attention. How her words meant, you're on my mind. I think about Good People, and I consider myself blessed to have so many in my life.

Because really, with kindness, it only takes the smallest selfless gesture.

Cloister Cafe, August 31st

The sky-pirates may have been making the frequent rounds above our heads, but at the table it was all drinks and laughter and teasing and cosmos and apple martinis and shaggy dog jokes and revolutionaries and "pumpkin!" and birthday cake and hugs and smiles and did I mention the drinks?

Mouseover for snarky commentary, as per usual.

A Neck Free for Kissing

Gripped by an impulsive fever this weekend, I cut my hair to my chin. Rather, my mother cut it, because she's damned good at that. I've been growing my hair out for almost two years now, and just like that, I decided I missed the short sauciness of a bob.

So I cut it. I surprised most of my friends last night with the new look and now I can put it up on the internet. Why? Because for about ten minutes into the cut, I thought I'd made the wrong choice. Biscuit retorted,

"Oh, hush up. Tomorrow you'll be wanting to MAKE OUT with your own hair, you'll love it so much."

And indeed, as usual, the Biscuit is correct. I totally want to make out with my sassy new look.

But I'll leave that to Stuart, shall I?

Vigilance is the New Laissez-Faire

It's seems that the thing to DO these days is crusade against Digital Media Theft. And we all know how I like being at the forefront of fashion, analog OR digital. Because of Fish, and Julia, and Sourbob and the girls at SpinStartsHere, the talk of digital content theft has been very much on everyone's mind.

Last night, a friend tried to point out that stealing content from the someone's website was just like downloading music illegally. While I personally don't download music simply because of aural laziness and because Apple tells me not to and I listen to everything Apple tells me, I still think stealing someone's writing and passing it off as your own is worse than simply downloading a song illegally. It would be like downloading the song, learning to play it, and then passing that off as your own.

To qualify how I feel about stealing website content, I'll say: Stealing People's Writing is the New Horrible Satin Capri Pants. Or the new Stupid Fucking Crooked Trucker Hats. It's the New Bad, is what it is.

So in the spirit of vigilante justice, I went hunting for people who'd dared mess with a girl wielding a Pink Baseball Bat of Style and Doom. Using Copyscape, Google's new toy, I managed to find exactly one site that replicated my content word for word without crediting ph.com:

Myself. Ah, how meta.

I'm very glad to not have been stolen from. Because my PPBoSaD is currently being refurbished for the big Wedding Bash and I really don't want to get any messy carnage stains on it.

lskglfkdgjnsfdklg.

fourteen wondufl friends + cosmos for me + five hundred doalr tab = GOOD NIGHT OUT.

excsue me i have toogo to bed.