Paydays

The magic electronics wizards have had my computer for a month. I am going today to reclaim it. Killing two birds with one stone, I will also use this trip into the city to reclaim my place as as New Yorker, not just Brooklynite. I have not been into the city in too long. I will be pleased to look up.

The rain is in everything. The rain filled the air, and the air filled the linens and the people and the bugs. the rain filled me up. Now, I’m soon headed home for a week or so, and I see that they’re predicting rain out there, too.  So many drops lately.

I am struggling to wake up in these dark, wet mornings. My dreams are partitioned by the snoozing of my alarm clock. (How is it that the word snooze was put on so many machines? It’s quaint but ugly. I don’t dislike it; I am just surprised, that’s all.) They have been odd dreams full of old friend’s junior high school crushes, the Dartmouth campus, pecking kisses to lips and foreheads and necks, cake-baking, white tennis shoes, welts, ice, and warm sweaters.  The warm sweaters are the real reason it is difficult to wake up. My room in the basement is clammy on these weekday mornings, nothing like the wooliness in which my dreams ensconce me. But at night, my little hobbit hole glows so nicely. It is so cozy. I am full on these summer waters.

Write petals and drops.

In the mean time

I have been living all in luxury. Chocolate ice cream cones with rainbow nonpareils, a cat on its back in my lap, fresh-squeezed frozen raspberry lemonade, a chorus of girls singing nineties music in my office, watching kites in prospect Park, getting caught in rains related to tropical events, imagining my writing of the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, deli sandwiches, men asking if I can be handled (clearly not), Hearts to a hundred points in the courtyard, sticking postcards to my walls, long phone calls to the west, long walks in circles, trips to the library, trips to the other library, trips to the library’s steps to see the embellishments, chatting with my roommates over waterbugs and used furniture and stacks of books. Brooklyn in summer is Brooklyn pouring out of itself. Everyone is on the sidewalks, is in the parks. Everyone is boiling up with the weather.

You, too.

I aught to have mentioned before now…

My computer is broken. Check back for new posts in 2-4 weeks.

Sorry.

To the Future

At home, I drove a silver Pontiac Bonneville SE (that’s Sport Edition). I remember when my parents bought it for my mom to drive, how sleek it looked in the driveway. I think it was the first new car they’d ever purchased, round about $22,000.

I liked it better than any other car because when I climbed into the front passenger seat, if I pointed my toes, they could just barely touch the floor. I was three then. But when I was seventeen and drove two of my friends home from Rocky Mountain Youth Leadership Camp, that same low-down, reclining comfort still defined the car. We opened the sunroof and cranked up the tape player while I cruised down the highway. One of my friends fell directly to sleep in the back seat, and when we pulled into her driveway, she said, “You have the most comfortable back seat. I really, really want to have sex in it.” I said, “You can borrow it any time,” which pretty much solidified our friendship.

Now, my dad still drives the Bonneville when it is too snowy for him to take his Z to work or when he’ll be carrying more than one passenger or when he needs and incredibly roomy trunk to carry extra golf clubs around.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/us/04land.html?hp 

I am not surprised that Pontiac is done. I am not sad about it either. I am, however, nostaligic for those days when we wanted big, heavy cars manufactured before the invention of The New Steel, cars with muscle that a family could invest in, prepared to drive them for seventeen years, easy. I am nostalgic for the days when you needed a boat to sail the highway.

Head off into the sunset.

Sun Ups

This is funny. I’d like to be a goombah.

Summer is almost here, andeveryone seems so relieved. Everyone sinks their claws into their work. Our nails are tearing as we get pulled along. It will feel so good to let go.

My room is so, so messy.

Clean up.

Swine Flu

I am constantly asking myself, “Why the hell didn’t I go to Med School?” and then thinking, “Poetry!”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/health/policy/27care.html?em

The thing about governments is that they are corporations. People forget that. Operating budgets are key, even when it comes to medical operations. We have to decide what we value in the product we purchase from our government.

Don’t throw things at those annoying “Pratt the Rat!” protesters. Or do.

Too Busy to Properly Maintain My Blog…

So, the season changed. In an instant, New Yorkers put their fluffy coats back in their (small but treasured) closets and debuted their summer fashions. Protestors ragged on Turkey in Union Square, and we ate Whole Foods, ignoring them. Apparently, everyone else ate Whole Foods as well because every trashcan in the park was overflowing with their lunchtime packaging.

Brooklyn is beautiful in the heat. Everyone dips in and out of bodegas for beverages and makes games on the playgrounds. It is hot, even at night, even on the water under the Bridges. It is a good place, learning to let go of its violence, learning how to keep hold of its character. Me, too.

Check out my random pseudo-research:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/nyregion/thecity/26hous.html?pagewanted=1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau_Maus

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/realestate/23livi.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin_Martin

http://nymag.com/news/features/crime/2008/42604/

http://yournabe.com/articles/2009/03/25/ridgewood_ledger/news/ridgewood_ledger_newsgwnskxw03252009.txt

When my boss requested that the RAs on our staff remind our residents to be extremely cautious in the neighborhood because of a recent surge in violent mugging, especially those involving knifings, she said “With the economy like it is…”

She said, “Brooklyn is hungry. You can feel it.”

Don’t tune out the sirens.

Rain

I’ve been thinking about clothes and the way that they act to preserve the eroticism of the naked body. What would we look like if we never wore clothes? We wouldn’t seem half as sexy naked if that’s how we always were. My sister used to talk about teaching in a nudist colony. She claimed that they had a hard time attracting qualified teachers. It makes me wonder if they have an easy time attracting live models.

I always assume that cameras are watching me. It isn’t paranoia. I just assume that we are at a time when we are constantly being recorded, photographed, watched by security cameras, what have you. My mom sent me a slinky in the mail (along with other goodies!). I am playing with it in the lounge, and I have no idea if there are security cameras in here. Playing with a slinky doesn’t seem like something I would normally do unless I were alone, but if the camera is here, I am less alone, but still I don’t care. I am a part of the documentation generation, apparently. I don’t mind being watched. In fact, I hope that I am being thoroughly recorded so that one day, the government will be able to show me my file, and I will be able to make sense of myself.

Someone in my Radical Aesthetics class wrote a piece called “God’s Marketplace” that was inspired by a discussion (clash) that one of my other classmates and I got into. The phrase “God’s marketplace” was his, but it was my idea. Nobody likes my idea in that class. Maybe they think I am silly and stubborn. Everything has a value. Even love. I use the word commodity loosely. Or maybe not even loosely enough.

Find quiet.

“Isn’t life fun!?!?”

It was Easter Sunday, and I rested. In my pajamas for twenty hours from dark to dark. So needed. Another day can be for chocolate and bunnies. Another yet for Christ. I am glad that Lent is over. I will no longer pretend to be giving up afternoons gabbing at the diner. I like gabbing at the diner, don’t you?

I saw Rods and Cables at 3LD in the Financial District. Got off the train at Wall Street a few hours after the closing bell. I couldn’t believe how many strange tourists were there. They seemed to like Alexander Hamilton’s grave. I liked their half-formed history lessons. The play was in a space at the end of glassy white tunnel. And in the performance, a woman splooshed in apple sauce. It looked like more fun than I thought it could be, but then again, she was an actress. She had clown make-up on, too. And black lingerie. And the clown who put her in the kiddie pool of food didn’t get her off, even. He was scum. It was a great play, at least I think that I think it was a great play. The seats were uncomfortable, but so was much of the content matter. There was a woman, who was The Sultry Flight Attendant, who spent a lot of time naked. And there was That Woman. She was good and awful. The Clown was just awful. The Little Man in a Big Costume reminded me of an aquantance. It was a great play, gave me plenty to think about. And there were projection screens showing delicious make-out scenes.

Nights like that are good for the city, good for me. I need out more. I need free more. I need more. Now that I remember Lent happened, and now that it is over, I’m going to give myself more.

Provoke.

Two Strangers’ Vomit

And the things we know. And the ways our lives intersect. And my professor saying, “Jenny, Jenny, Jenny! It was a test! I knew you’d pass. I had to get you to unlearn.”

Get a life again.