i can't complain...it was a really good summer.  full, like summers should be.  i shed a tear for you today.  we had such a good time, so parting is always bittersweet.  somehow, with your cool nights filled with a chorale of crickets, you make me forget the hot, stuffy days where i didn't feel like doing much.  instead you fill my head with sugar plum dreams of heads bobbing above the deep swells of the ocean, music wafting from the loud orchestra as the silent film plays, darkened theatres of french movies that made my heart hurt, cold beers on an iron boat, cutting the still waters with the point of my red kayak, and o, those evening drives when i opened the moon roof and breathed in the night.  no, i can't complain.  but, fall, i am still waiting for you, too...

i came home full of paella, almond liqueur and flan tonight. my eyelid is doing that weird flippy thing that makes my right eye feel huge and uncomfortable. i feel...so...tired. and i don't know why. thank you to r for posting this. i thought it was beautiful and haunting yet melodic, too. so i am saving it in my collection of beauty full things.

Here it comes...the second city from the producers of Paris, je t'aime. I hear you're next, Shanghai...

i'll let the picture do the talking.  this is the nice present i got on my last day in brooklyn.  you can imagine my surprise when i went to load up the car to go home.

yay.  the best was when the little kiddie camps were walking by, holding hands in their florescent shirts, and all let out a collective little kid gasp, "WHOA, look at the broken car!!!" which was promptly followed by a chorus of "whoa"s and gawkers.  yeah, that's actually when i felt bad.  ha.

i can finally hear crickets tonight.  it's the first night in awhile.  since i've moved into the city.  it's what i missed about the suburbs.
i can finally hear my heart tonight.  it's the first night in awhile.  it goes thump thump and it tells me its secrets and what it's been thinking.
i can finally hear my insecurities for what they are.  shams.  voices telling me that i am not who i am.  that i am another less confident version of me.
i can finally hear me.  in the clipped conversation we had tonight, i could hear my mouth talking as it hung mid-sentence while you hung up.

i am trying to find out why the tears are falling.  i am even questioning myself out loud.  but i've since dried the tears, and my thoughts don't help much.
i am trying to understand how peace and turbulence can exist in the same hour.  how i can read about carla bruni while nestled in my bed at the beginning, and then sit at the end of the couch in frustration at the end.
i am trying to pray and recite scripture to myself because i have this idea of how things should be, and how they are not that way, but then i run out on a conclusion.
i am writing.

it's amazing to find the solace of self in the stillness of night.
even as cars whiz by on the outside road in a steady calmness.
because in the midst of thinking that i am a lone star.
you.  are.  here.

i like how when i asked you to take a picture, you sat up, all poised like a nice little kitty.  but then at night, when i try to sleep, you run around like a madman, chasing invisible giants, giving loquacious speeches after chomping on your food, knocking down cups and gnawing on my precious flowers.  so i try to stay mad at you the next morning when my eyes bag with sleep.  i move from one end of the the room to another, and you follow me as soon as i am out of sight.  so i pick you up like a baby, and you meow in your contented simplicity.  cat, you are the bane of my existence - melting me in every way.

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pablo neruda puts it best.

The artichoke

With a tender heart

Dressed up like a warrior,

Standing at attention, it built

A small helmet

Under its scales

It remained

Unshakeable,

By its side

The crazy vegetables

Uncurled

Their tendrils and leaf-crowns,

Throbbing bulbs,

In the sub-soil

The carrot

With its red mustaches

Was sleeping,

The grapevine

Hung out to dry its branches

Through which the wine will rise,

The cabbage

Dedicated itself

To trying on skirts,

The oregano

To perfuming the world,

And the sweet

Artichoke

There in the garden,

Dressed like a warrior,

Burnished

Like a proud

Pomegranate.

And one day

Side by side

In big wicker baskets

Walking through the market

To realize their dream

The artichoke army

In formation.

Never was it so military

Like on parade.

The men

In their white shirts

Among the vegetables

Were

The Marshals

Of the artichokes

Lines in close order

Command voices,

And the bang

Of a falling box.

But

Then

Maria

Comes

With her basket

She chooses

An artichoke,

She's not afraid of it.

She examines it, she observes it

Up against the light like it was an egg,

She buys it,

She mixes it up

In her handbag

With a pair of shoes

With a cabbage head and a

Bottle

Of vinegar

Until

She enters the kitchen

And submerges it in a pot.

Thus ends

In peace

This career

Of the armed vegetable

Which is called an artichoke,

Then

Scale by scale,

We strip off

The delicacy

And eat

The peaceful mush

Of its green heart.

(i hear it's even better in spanish)

{best read in a refined english accent with the slight fervor one might use to retell poe's a tell-tale heart}

it started not too long ago...at shakespeare-in-the-park to be exact. after a five hour wait, we managed to nab 9 tickets for hamlet. while feeling victorious, as the ticket line had reached epic proportions that day, it was a long day, and the only thing i could think about during the three hour tragedy was the cheese sticks that our neighbors were munching on. it wasn't that i was particularly hungry. but i was coldish and wet from the showers that had pressed themselves upon us that day. and i love cheese. and it would have been fine if they just quietly ate theirs, but our neighbors to the front happened to be friends with our neighbors to the rear, so banquets of grapes, pretzels, and...cheese sticks passed freely before our eyes - tantalizingly and teasingly.

i'd never really seen a cheese stick before save for those polly-o string cheese numbers i used to bring for lunch. i played fox and the sour grapes by dismissing the artificially yellow-looking strips as mere processed cheese.

but the next time i saw them, i was shopping for beach food. while the rest of my basket had already been filled with tortilla chips, nuts and nectarines, the red foil of the the cracker barrel 2% american cheddar cheese sticks called out to me in a banshee-like manner. "buy me! eat me! don't you remember how you longed for me?" and without so much as a second thought, i snatched up the pack, only hesitating slightly between 2% and whole milk.

i packed three for the beach that day. i ate one for breakfast. bliss! and as soon as i reached the beach, i ate my second one. heaven! i restrained myself from eating the third, since i'd technically brought that for l, but i kept asking her repeatedly if she was going to eat her cheese stick in case she forgot that it was waiting for her there in the cooler. when she politely declined, i laid there talking with her, though a small portion of my mind was imagining the outline of the cheese stick in my cooler. later, when i dropped her off, the cheese stick was still in my cooler, so as soon as i got home, i ate its slightly wilting frame as an afternoon snack. still good.

the story takes a turn, though. a day or two later, i woke up groggy one morning, and nothing seemed to satisfy my palate. i had a day-old croissant, but i needed something more savory. more flavorful. aha! cheese stick! i had forgotten about them because they had been pushed behind a water jug, but the immediate thought brought my appetite back. as i pulled one out, i noticed some flakes around the edges. 'hmm. faulty packaging, i suppose.' i imagined the cheese stick factory and the whirr of the machines that deftly sealed and cut the packages so that the cheese sticks could be individually wrapped. some cheese would inevitably fall out of its constrictions.

at this point, God himself must have intervened, because i'd never fully taken the packaging off a cheese stick. i'd been content to simply nibble it right out of the package. but this time, this one time, i ended up taking off the entire package. perhaps i had had some trouble with aperture and this was done inadvertently. or perhaps it was divine intervention. i say this because the next site i'm about to describe still brings shudders to my soul. right in the middle of the exposed cheese stick, in stark contrast to its smooth orange body, was a fuzzy patch of green and white mold! the horror! the shame! i nearly shrieked when i saw it whether it was because of the realization that this had nearly gone in my mouth or for the sheer horror of the sight of mold. stationary as it is, mold is frighteningly terrifying to me. the smallest smudge is enough to send me screaming to another room, its grotesque form often indelible in my mind.

needless to say, my short-lived love affair with cheese sticks quickly dissipated. i shoved the rest of the package back behind the water jug and tried to forget them, though the whole incident was enough to turn my mind off food for the morning. how betrayed i felt, and yet i did not even want to get close enough to the package to get the address for customer service. i was willing to let it go.

several days passed, and i saw the slight corner of the red foil peeking out past the water jug. my mind softened for a moment, and i pulled the package out to examine it again. while the striking image of mold still struck me, i decided to give it another chance. this time, however, i was much more cautious. more hesitant. i closely examined both ends of the cheese stick. no suspicious flakes. then i slowly tore away the red foil covering, quivering with the slight fear that a repeat sneak attack might occur, but nothing but the cool clear surface of american cheddar. i turned the cheese stick over to examine all four sides, and when i deemed the threat to be negligible, i took a bite. it was still good, and yet the awful experience of days prior somehow tainted the current one. i sighed as i put the remaining three sticks away, unsure of when i'd have the will to eat them again.

this will indubitably be my first and last bag of cheese sticks.

wordle