the endless entertainment provided to me by 1. burn notice 2. true blood 3. nurse jackie 4. entourage
my brother's new job which will bring him to boston and thus far closer to me
now a reason to visit boston and a place to stay
avocados, sweet potatoes, nectarines. they make the quest for six + fruits and vegetables a day feasible
that today's second trip to the pool was a hundred times easier than the first.
breakfasts at fairway with my friend angela where we plan our futures and impending marriages to actorsalexander skarsgard(true blood's eric, hello?) and his fatherstellan. in our fantasy i marry stellan making me angela's stepmother. we're not quite sure why, but this running joke provides us with endless entertainment.
i culled many wonderful and impressive gobs of knowledge from my time in australia.
chief among them is this:
a man looks far, far, far better when his suit is cut in the italian fashion.
why do american men wear their suits baggy and ill-fitting? they look like little boys playing dress up.
a well fitted suit-pant can make an okay-looking-man into a good-looking-man. a good-looking-man into a great-looking-man. and so on.
i can't even begin to imagine how you will look.
but because i am forced to wait for that fateful day when our eyes do meet, you cannot blame me for the torrid love affair i might just have with this man:
because he looks damn good in that suit. and because i would look damn good on the back of his vespa.
I came to visit one night. To make sure I could live here. We had drinks, my friend and I. And talked about life now, a year after school.
And then I took the red-line subway home, to my little pocket on the Upper West Side. I climbed into my too-small bed, in my too-small bedroom—my too small bedroom without a door--and I cried.
I cried for the all the things I imagined I was losing. I cried for failed expectations and the perpetual push away of that line—that demarcation of success.
And then I woke the next morning, washed away exhaustion and disappointment, and set about busying myself with all the tasks a move demands:
Telling the roommate. Letter of notice. Cleaning. Packing. Painting (oh the painting). To take the bed or not? Change of address. Weaning the wardrobe. Trips to Goodwill. Cajoling friends into helping with the actual move.
And all the while I was afraid. You see, I’d lived on the Upper West Side for five years. Two years in a dorm at 66th street, followed by two different apartments at 104th, and finished by my near-year stint at 80th. A forty block radius, in which I conducted my life. A forty block radius in which I attempted to become an adult. And yet here I was hurtling myself a hundred blocks north of my-so-called-home.
It was a product of funds. Of not having enough to live in such a “prime” location. It was capitulation, this move.
And yet I found that as I ticked away all those tedious tasks, I began ticking away other things--things I’ve long talked about but never acted on.
I bought a bike. And went in search of the perfect swimming pool. I found it at 145th and Riverside—I’m going tomorrow for the first time. I began to keep track of expenses and I (wait for it) did my taxes. And this idea of growing up, becoming an adult was suddenly an appealing notion. For the first time in my life (truly, the first time) it seemed thrilling, actually.
And so this move became about more than necessary funds, or the lack thereof. It was not capitulation, but decision. A choice. A change. An opportunity.
I spent the summer after my sophomore year of high school in Manhattan. Five weeks. I took the bus in every morning and walked thirteen blocks south to 27th street. And the city revealed itself to me and I to it. And I fell in love with mutual revelation.
I have spent five years trying to rediscover that love, or to recreate it.
Washington Heights is the most topographically diverse area in all of Manhattan.
It is.
Before I moved up here I would throw this fact around, using it as currency—one of many justifications I employed to convince others that I was in fact excited to make the move uptown. I don’t tell people this anymore, I don’t need to, I don’t need to justify anything. But because we’re all friends, I’ll tell you...two blocks north of me is a park where back in day, good ol’ George Washington set up fort with the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Mmmmm…I hate to brag, doesn't that history just turn you on?
And the street I live on is hilly. It bends to kiss the Hudson river. The George Washington Bridge stands guard against the skyline. It is strong and constant. The bakery across the street sells a roll that reminds me of my two week stint in Cuernavaca—we’d walk into a panaderia with two dollars in our pocket and walk out with two brown paper bags of bread—it was a happy time when one survived on bread and milk alone.
I can always find a seat on the A train. And the apartment gets light. And I have a door!
The grocery store on 187th is small and clean and wide with inviting aisles. It carries pumpking flax and ciao bella gelato. I could marry the grocery store! There are no crowds to fight, no throngs to move against. Fairway was always an experiment in tolerance and agility.
I love the relative calm here. The near silence. I love the ubiquity of bikes. Yes, the ubiquity of bikes! What a satisfying statement! And more than anything I love that it feels small and lush. It is a neighborhood. And I have found my Manhattan and mutual revelation is once more mine to unfold.
I loved Australia. The whole experience was divine. And yet there was no better feeling than climbing into a yellow taxi after a 20 hour sojourn, asking the driver to take me home, and for the first time in five years of Manhattan living, believing in the power of that word. Home.
get lost in as many cafes as possible. because let's be honest, coffee in australia is far superior. far, far superior.
explore bondi beach's most glorious bookstore, Gertrude + Alice.
where you might just find the loveliest of greencouches, which you'll dream of housing in your lush and lovely apartment. unfortunately, this will most likely remain a dream.
spend a full saturday afternoon ogling amateur rugby players. mmm. hmmm. mmmm.
do the cliff walk from bronte to bondi. start in the startlingly beautiful graveyard and follow the setting sun.
finish with a photo shoot at bondi beach, australia's most famous beach. and become uneasily aware of (i mean...celebrate) just how not-tan you are.
and much as i'm loath to admit it, a part of me will always love him.
but yesterday as i was sitting on a toilet, halfway across the world, with my pants pooled around my ankles and i looked up to see a film advert with his name on it, two thoughts crossed my mind:
I saunter into coffee shops now. My heels click-click-clicking against the cold, tiled floors. Breezily I approach the counter, toss my long, dark hair behind my shoulder, and order a coffee.
Black. With room for milk and sugar.
Then, with cup in hand, I walk slowly giving careful weight and time to each step. Generously I tick-tick-tock my hips from side to side. I want to make sure the eyes of every man in the room is upon me. I want each man to see what I’ll do next. I reach for the milk.
Pour, pour, drip.
And then, with deliberate care and a quite uncommon flare, I reach for…the sugar.
Real Sugar.
I lift the unassuming brown packet into the air. And then I shake.
Vigorously.
Shake, shake, rip.
Pour.
Shake, shake, rip.
Pour.
Into the coffee it falls.
My adventures in seltzer water and late night lemon runs has signaled the end of diet coke, and in turn the end of splenda.
She sat on her haunches, her tiny legs folded beneath her, feet splayed against the grainy wood floor.
She had instigated this.
This was her doing.
“I know how to French kiss,” she had said. “Wanna try?”
So there they were. Boy and girl. On hands and knees, hidden behind the couch.
“Okay. Stick your tongue out,” she commanded.
He obeyed, enthralled by her assuredness. He slipped his tongue out, an action not unusual for a four-year-old boy, but somewhat peculiar given the circumstances.
And she met him. Halfway. She leaned forward on her small fingers and pressed the very tip of her tongue to his. Just for a second. It was all very fast.
That’s how it happened, her first kiss. And a French kiss at that. She had heard stories—stories of its power and pull—and had decided to try.
She pulled her tongue away. And leaving it out, shifted her weight allowing her bottom to rest neatly on her heels. She considered the feel. Bumpy? The taste. Much like the cherry-red lolli-pop she had recently consumed.
She pondered all this sandwiched between the couch and the wood paneled wall. Across from a boy. The boy. The boy who had just given her her first kiss.
And it was there hidden behind the couch, still perched on her heels that she noticed something above. Above and to the right. Throught the window. He must have noticed it too, her partner-in-crime, for his face was awash in terror.
They had three older brothers between the pair of them. Three brothers from which the kiss was meant to be hidden. Three brothers who now peered down at them from outside the window.
Ah, of course, the window. Security, foiled! The couch provided only limited protection when the window was taken into consideration. Had they considered the window? Of course they had. Hadn’t they?
The three older brothers transformed at lightning speed (superman himself would have been done for) into the most potent of all villains: the tattle tale.
She and her partner were lead by the hand to the outside patio. To the parents. She didn’t hear what was said. Instead she studied the plush, plastic patio furniture. It was yellow—yellow as only the late eighties could produce.
She got the gist of it. No kissing. Okay.
But when she returned to school some weeks after the summer hiatus she quickly became the envoy, the purveyor, the disciple of this new way of kissing, spreading her knowledge to boys and girls alike. The playground was her classroom. And educate she did, giving the gift of knowledge as only her tongue could teach it.
photo by Chris Craemer
Greetings from Oz!
Today Diana F+ and I will be wandering by ourselves.
i originally fell in love with this image of parisian apartments when i saw it at lolita...
and so when the very first morning in my new abode i awoke the view below, i knew it was love...
they may not seem very similar to you, but to me...
well, for me, the sight of those across-the-street-apartments meant that every once in a blue moon i'd allow myself to pretend the street below was filled with baguettes and bicicletes.
