Monday, December 20, 2010
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Saturday, March 7, 2009
A drink
She started to place the never immoderately sized glass of room temperature water on the table, smiling with a characteristic equanimity. Mirrors covered the ceilings and the walls, and there was the sense that our presence extended equally in all directions. The vibrations of the glass hitting the table prompted me to look at her as her reach extended and retracted millions of times all around me. Unfazed but grateful, I nodded and took a refreshing sip of my share.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Undo button Want
I am not talking about a promise you've gone back on, or a heart you've broken and never meant to break; I am talking about something there actually could be an undo button for.
Like, the three hours of data analysis down the drain for one hapless slip of a finger onto a 'B' instead of a 'C', that stood no chance of being caught before another eager finger hit 'ENTER'.
Like, the three hours of data analysis down the drain for one hapless slip of a finger onto a 'B' instead of a 'C', that stood no chance of being caught before another eager finger hit 'ENTER'.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Sundays
I've slept just late enough then to have my fill, but not enough for my unconsciousness to spill over into the useful portion of my day and I, unhurriedly, go downstairs with my bag half as heavy, and my step with just a little more flutter. By now I'm usually rushing, but I'm not anxious; there's nothing pushing me ahead from behind.
On a Sunday, early in the day, but not too early - let's say around 11, but not later than 1- the people you see together then are really together. There's an overwhelming feeling of families with sleepy kids and couples that are in that place where they're content just reading side by side in bed in their favorites pairs of pajama pants. With each other they're on their way somewhere, because you don't just go and have a good homecookin' brunch in an unestablished relationship. It steadily feels sunnier on a Sunday early afternoon, a few degrees warmer than it ever is, even when my skin has been made damp and cold on the walk over.
I am on my way to meet you and we don't yet know where it is we're going. There are so many places to go today, but we'll just pick one small space to occupy and today those places will be visited by more than one at once, just before we're split by Mon-Fri again tomorrow.
On a Sunday, early in the day, but not too early - let's say around 11, but not later than 1- the people you see together then are really together. There's an overwhelming feeling of families with sleepy kids and couples that are in that place where they're content just reading side by side in bed in their favorites pairs of pajama pants. With each other they're on their way somewhere, because you don't just go and have a good homecookin' brunch in an unestablished relationship. It steadily feels sunnier on a Sunday early afternoon, a few degrees warmer than it ever is, even when my skin has been made damp and cold on the walk over.
I am on my way to meet you and we don't yet know where it is we're going. There are so many places to go today, but we'll just pick one small space to occupy and today those places will be visited by more than one at once, just before we're split by Mon-Fri again tomorrow.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Saturday was such a perfect day.
I want to know all those places that don't share in a cyber reality. Especially those that don't because they have a history so long ago, they haven't had a chance to touched again by prying, typing fingers of someone who feels the need to make them so present-day, when their histories really just seem to beg a coexistence, but not a part in present day.
Saturday was a perfect mix of starting the day an hour later than we both wanted, and both of us expecting it would happen because we know about each other's little foibles after all these years. Of the classically expected unexpected construction on the 7 train. We both never bothered to check, because in Saturday was the sense that the 7 was going to take us wherever it wanted at that time, it was that acquiescing futility associated with keeping up with announcements on that line which used to be a frustration in us. Of being forced off train by everyone else who was fortunate to hear the announcement that we needed to hear, too, but didn't, on the ride that would leave you and I off a last-stop two stops too early. Of walking over that overpass to get to the free shuttle buses that we never quite able to find, and wouldn't have been able to anyway. We both knew this right when we starting walking, started venturing into that part of Queens we never venture to. In Saturday there was that I think I'm walking north, but it feels like I'm walking south feeling as our sneakers met new ground. Of letting yourself do that, letting yourself get a little lost, because Saturday, today, is so sweet you might as well indulge yourself. Of walking around those parts of Queens in the bright middle of the day, lost, that you'd never walk by yourself when the sun starts to set, when the bustle that makes you feel okay leaves with the sunshine. Of the bitter cold carried in the sunny wind at your face, into your hair, reflected by your scarf. Of trying to capture of picture of the way interlocking rusty beams support the structure above you, just before you finally find the train 'underground' that you knew was somewhere nearby, but your frozen camera freezes and says no, just remember how much you love the way this area let those beams rust, instead.
Of waiting at the subway stop, right near the tail end of the train, in the station you never get occasion to wait in, sticking your head over the tracks a bit to see the subway that isn't exactly a part of this station, wondering about what has settled into that dark area, until the train approaches pushing ahead the light that lets you see all that rust, and dust, and at least that bottle of vitamin water with its pink label. Of getting off at that stop, walking as fast as you possibly can with your hollowed stomach, to be let out into a construction area where the don't walk/walk signs are, apparently, irrelevant as the road has been blocked off to cars about fifty feet in either direction. Of not knowing whether or not the construction which had taken over the area intended that the space be only for themselves, or if they expected you to walk there, too but in Satuday was making those precautious advances anyway toward the aluminum paneling. Of walking around that huge truck that I would have needed a ladder to get into, hoping there was space for us to squeeze through around the other side, to arrive at the diner you weren't sure was open because it had its operation would have been fighting with it's own renovation. Of opening the luckily unlocked unfinished wood door to hear power drills and waiter yelling "Wherever you want!" which has been yelled to all kinds of customers for years, and years. Of course it would be wherever we want, but the front part of the diner clearly belonged to semi-permanent construction worker crowd eating fatty meals that would nourish them. Of sitting in the back and holding huge menu in my hand searching through it, and while I'm on my phone for a minute, I hear you babbling aloud about how you can't decide between chicken salad salad, or chicken and salad, not knowing you'd end up having the wrap, anyway. I'm sorry I was on the phone when you came over, Mr. waiter, you. I smelled your sweat and I know you just don't need to deal with people gentrifying your diner like that. Luckily my friend got that appropriately small cup of chicken noodle from you then, and you must understand I ignored you because I'm unpracticed when it comes gentrification. Really, I'm just a neighborhood gal myself, wishing your hood was my own.
It was in that way I sat there starting out the window eating my chicken cutlet sandwich, in your diner right under the tracks that were being worked on. I saw the way the sparks and dust flew down out the window, and the unbroken swing of the mini crane in across the front of the graffiti'd building. The noises from outside were transformed into an energetic hum by the time it hit my ears. Of the way when I asked if you actually did have the strawberry shortcake, you actually did. Of the way my friend's apple crumb came warm, melting her scoop of vanilla, as sat laughing at the ladies in front of us drinking their diner wine and giggling with the waiters, as we ate these desserts that were so much insanely better than we could have expected judging by just our sandwiches. We hope we left you a good tip.
Saturday was a perfect mix of starting the day an hour later than we both wanted, and both of us expecting it would happen because we know about each other's little foibles after all these years. Of the classically expected unexpected construction on the 7 train. We both never bothered to check, because in Saturday was the sense that the 7 was going to take us wherever it wanted at that time, it was that acquiescing futility associated with keeping up with announcements on that line which used to be a frustration in us. Of being forced off train by everyone else who was fortunate to hear the announcement that we needed to hear, too, but didn't, on the ride that would leave you and I off a last-stop two stops too early. Of walking over that overpass to get to the free shuttle buses that we never quite able to find, and wouldn't have been able to anyway. We both knew this right when we starting walking, started venturing into that part of Queens we never venture to. In Saturday there was that I think I'm walking north, but it feels like I'm walking south feeling as our sneakers met new ground. Of letting yourself do that, letting yourself get a little lost, because Saturday, today, is so sweet you might as well indulge yourself. Of walking around those parts of Queens in the bright middle of the day, lost, that you'd never walk by yourself when the sun starts to set, when the bustle that makes you feel okay leaves with the sunshine. Of the bitter cold carried in the sunny wind at your face, into your hair, reflected by your scarf. Of trying to capture of picture of the way interlocking rusty beams support the structure above you, just before you finally find the train 'underground' that you knew was somewhere nearby, but your frozen camera freezes and says no, just remember how much you love the way this area let those beams rust, instead.
Of waiting at the subway stop, right near the tail end of the train, in the station you never get occasion to wait in, sticking your head over the tracks a bit to see the subway that isn't exactly a part of this station, wondering about what has settled into that dark area, until the train approaches pushing ahead the light that lets you see all that rust, and dust, and at least that bottle of vitamin water with its pink label. Of getting off at that stop, walking as fast as you possibly can with your hollowed stomach, to be let out into a construction area where the don't walk/walk signs are, apparently, irrelevant as the road has been blocked off to cars about fifty feet in either direction. Of not knowing whether or not the construction which had taken over the area intended that the space be only for themselves, or if they expected you to walk there, too but in Satuday was making those precautious advances anyway toward the aluminum paneling. Of walking around that huge truck that I would have needed a ladder to get into, hoping there was space for us to squeeze through around the other side, to arrive at the diner you weren't sure was open because it had its operation would have been fighting with it's own renovation. Of opening the luckily unlocked unfinished wood door to hear power drills and waiter yelling "Wherever you want!" which has been yelled to all kinds of customers for years, and years. Of course it would be wherever we want, but the front part of the diner clearly belonged to semi-permanent construction worker crowd eating fatty meals that would nourish them. Of sitting in the back and holding huge menu in my hand searching through it, and while I'm on my phone for a minute, I hear you babbling aloud about how you can't decide between chicken salad salad, or chicken and salad, not knowing you'd end up having the wrap, anyway. I'm sorry I was on the phone when you came over, Mr. waiter, you. I smelled your sweat and I know you just don't need to deal with people gentrifying your diner like that. Luckily my friend got that appropriately small cup of chicken noodle from you then, and you must understand I ignored you because I'm unpracticed when it comes gentrification. Really, I'm just a neighborhood gal myself, wishing your hood was my own.
It was in that way I sat there starting out the window eating my chicken cutlet sandwich, in your diner right under the tracks that were being worked on. I saw the way the sparks and dust flew down out the window, and the unbroken swing of the mini crane in across the front of the graffiti'd building. The noises from outside were transformed into an energetic hum by the time it hit my ears. Of the way when I asked if you actually did have the strawberry shortcake, you actually did. Of the way my friend's apple crumb came warm, melting her scoop of vanilla, as sat laughing at the ladies in front of us drinking their diner wine and giggling with the waiters, as we ate these desserts that were so much insanely better than we could have expected judging by just our sandwiches. We hope we left you a good tip.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
What an annoying entry.
I recently had this strange experience where I was looking for a place online, because I had found it in person. After a bunch of searching, however, I realized there wasn't a parallel URL location. My first instinct which totally preceded assuming that it's just new and hasn't at least been blogged about yet, is that I had imagined it even existed at all? But really, it was a street where not many people walk, and not in a place where anyone might think to look for it. Does a place, for example, for which many connections can be drawn by many people, have a greater degree of existence than this little place I stumbled across, that doesn't seem to touch many other parts of this world?
How much of your person do you accredit to the way you exist as an online personality, through your google hits, and your online profile? Maybe it's just what your voicemail says that "so you," or maybe it's the new way you've formatted your resume - but have you ever really realized how much relevance you derive from all the second and third person activities regarding Your-Name-Here? Don't you sort of feel more real when you can look at your resume that defines you, or if this little blog entry had been about you?
I sort of laugh everytime I hear my name. It's this little connector from me to another person, quite an interesting experience every time it happens. If nobody called my name out, how does that exactly change who I am?
How much of your person do you accredit to the way you exist as an online personality, through your google hits, and your online profile? Maybe it's just what your voicemail says that "so you," or maybe it's the new way you've formatted your resume - but have you ever really realized how much relevance you derive from all the second and third person activities regarding Your-Name-Here? Don't you sort of feel more real when you can look at your resume that defines you, or if this little blog entry had been about you?
I sort of laugh everytime I hear my name. It's this little connector from me to another person, quite an interesting experience every time it happens. If nobody called my name out, how does that exactly change who I am?
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