Peace Cereal

The hardest thing I have to do right now (really the only thing I have to do right now), is to finish unpacking my suitcases. It’s silly. It feels good to be so unburdened.

Sometimes I forget that I live near the ocean. But then, I walk down the road, hop on the lovely, lovely Q train, and let all my cares slip away.

Today, the conductor on the Q was comically rushing or drawling the name of each stop. There is so much whimsy on that train. On the way home this afternoon, a little boy was telling his little brother jokes:

“How many months have 28 days?”

“Um.”

“Hello!”

“I’m thinking!” Pause, pause, pause. “One.”

“No, all of them! Every month has at least 28 days!”

Both the boys laughed. I laughed, too. On the Q train, I can be eight years old again and nobody notices.

The boardwalk at Coney Island is full of tourists and hot-shit teenagers in fur-trimmed vests and long fake nails, even when it is closed. On a nice, sunny day like today, New Yorkers fill the streets and push their babies around in expensive strollers. A little further down the boardwalk where it officially becomes Brighton Beach, the tourists fade away and are replaced with geriatric Russian-speakers hobbling along beneath the weight of their furs. They rest on benches next to their walkers and watch the seagulls lured in from the ocean by the steady supply of trash.

I would like to live down there. It is not suburban per se, but it has a homey, residential feel. It has the best of both worlds: beach town and major city. Plus, I could get my hair cut at Vladimir’s Unisex Hairstyles and eat at my friend’s future bookstore and cafe, Raskolnikov’s.

Until I can afford a condo costing half a million dollars or more, however, I will be here in my dorm room, munching on the granola I bought on clearance at Associated. It’s called Peace Cereal and tastes like cake batter.

My radio is tuned to a Cuban station and I feel like dancing. As soon as I unpack, I will be able to fall into the steady up, center, back, center of the basic step without tripping. Until then, however, I’ll have to do my dancing out in the music-less hall.

Re-appreciate the place in which you live.

~ by Jennifer Stohlmann on January 12, 2008.