Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
This is where I've been...
From Wednesday to Sunday, ten of Jorie's and Hal's closest and most loved descended upon her mom's house in Charlotte. We ate and drank and laked and pooled and hot tubbed and played Mafia and watched sunsets like these.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
"His delusion is preferable to the actuality of the situation."
Brooklyn, I wish you were here.
I am sitting in the sun in my parents' backyard, the dog under the table. I'm working on my children's book proposal and drinking coffee, so glad to be here and alone except for the dog. But still: I wish you were here. It's just so fucking beautiful, and so quiet, and so nice. I am getting so much done--all I can hear is the sharp buzz of whatever insect goes all summer days making that sharp buzz. It was chilly yesterday, cold at night. And this morning: chilly too. But now the sun is warm, almost hot, and I am evening out my A-shirt tan so I don't a) look weird in my bridesmaid dress or b) have to get a spray tan.
Last night Schnipper and I went to see OAR play at the Burlington waterfront. OAR is a band we liked in high school--back then they were also in high school, white boy hippie kids playing reggae-inspired jam-band music. Now they are 30-year-old clean-cut white boys still claiming to be the revolution, playing to 30-year-old clean-cut white boys still claiming to be the revolution. There were no people of color and so many dreadlocks. But: it was so fun. It was fun to see the hippies of our youths grown up and there with their kids. It was fun to see hippie women dancing with hula hoops. It was fun to hear "One for three, two for five," called over and over. It was fun to watch the dynamics of a group of straight people who seemed to be swingers. It was fun to track the movements of a beautiful boy we were calling "our hoodie boyfriend." It was fun to feel like my high school self was accessible without regressing. By the end of the night, my foot hurt bad and my back hurt bad and I felt old and like my high school self was long-gone, but: those few minutes with her were awesome.
Tonight Nas and Damian Marley are playing in the same venue, and though we want to go, it seems like my body just can't handle it. We'll see, though. It's hard to pass up the lake and the summer and the Schnip, especially when I've been without all three for so long.
And: I wish you were here.
I am sitting in the sun in my parents' backyard, the dog under the table. I'm working on my children's book proposal and drinking coffee, so glad to be here and alone except for the dog. But still: I wish you were here. It's just so fucking beautiful, and so quiet, and so nice. I am getting so much done--all I can hear is the sharp buzz of whatever insect goes all summer days making that sharp buzz. It was chilly yesterday, cold at night. And this morning: chilly too. But now the sun is warm, almost hot, and I am evening out my A-shirt tan so I don't a) look weird in my bridesmaid dress or b) have to get a spray tan.
Last night Schnipper and I went to see OAR play at the Burlington waterfront. OAR is a band we liked in high school--back then they were also in high school, white boy hippie kids playing reggae-inspired jam-band music. Now they are 30-year-old clean-cut white boys still claiming to be the revolution, playing to 30-year-old clean-cut white boys still claiming to be the revolution. There were no people of color and so many dreadlocks. But: it was so fun. It was fun to see the hippies of our youths grown up and there with their kids. It was fun to see hippie women dancing with hula hoops. It was fun to hear "One for three, two for five," called over and over. It was fun to watch the dynamics of a group of straight people who seemed to be swingers. It was fun to track the movements of a beautiful boy we were calling "our hoodie boyfriend." It was fun to feel like my high school self was accessible without regressing. By the end of the night, my foot hurt bad and my back hurt bad and I felt old and like my high school self was long-gone, but: those few minutes with her were awesome.
Tonight Nas and Damian Marley are playing in the same venue, and though we want to go, it seems like my body just can't handle it. We'll see, though. It's hard to pass up the lake and the summer and the Schnip, especially when I've been without all three for so long.
And: I wish you were here.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
"The more you can get yourself in trouble, the better off you are. You want to get in the dutch as deep as you can get in the dutch."
Dear Brooklyn,
It's getting so cool. The temperature is dropping, the air is crisping. The light is turning autumnal. It's almost here.
After staying up almost all night watching Damages, this morning Lyra and I met up with my best friend from middle school, Rae, and drove up Mt. Philo. As a kid, four out of five field trips took us up Mt. Philo. "Mount" is a strong word, but it's a nice little hike with a beautiful view of Charlotte and the lake and the Adirondacks. Not that I can hike, though, so we drove up, and I hobbled through the picnic area and we sat on some rocks (a bluff?) and looked out over the place from which we've come and now to which we've returned. It's beautiful here, and we--me and Lyra and the other Rametses and also Rae--are headed to the right place.
And we hope you'll come visit.
It's getting so cool. The temperature is dropping, the air is crisping. The light is turning autumnal. It's almost here.
After staying up almost all night watching Damages, this morning Lyra and I met up with my best friend from middle school, Rae, and drove up Mt. Philo. As a kid, four out of five field trips took us up Mt. Philo. "Mount" is a strong word, but it's a nice little hike with a beautiful view of Charlotte and the lake and the Adirondacks. Not that I can hike, though, so we drove up, and I hobbled through the picnic area and we sat on some rocks (a bluff?) and looked out over the place from which we've come and now to which we've returned. It's beautiful here, and we--me and Lyra and the other Rametses and also Rae--are headed to the right place.
And we hope you'll come visit.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Home again, home again.
It's dark at night here. Funny, how I've learned to sleep with light, learned to live always able to see. And funny how it feels to come back to this darkness--it feels safe inside, warmly lit, but walking to the car, letting the dog out before bed, I'd rather not.
It was early spring when I first started thinking seriously about moving north. I'd been missing New England since I left in 2001, always eager to visit, always longing for more trees than Central Park (as if I ever went there) could ever offer. But it wasn't until the end of March or the beginning of April that I started to realize: the time was coming.
I was up visiting JRoss, driving to Hampshire for a conference or to see his office or to pick him up. As you approach the college, farm land stretches out to either side of the winding road. Split rail and wire fences reach across the fields, penning in cows and horses. There are beaten barns and enormous farmhouses. I said to JRoss, "I like that house." And he said to me, "I love how much you love it here." And I realized: I do.
In the early weeks of considering this move, I imagined moving into one of those farmhouses, renting an apartment an older couple had built in the attic or what was once a carriage house. And then I came to Vermont to visit my family and I realized: were I to live in a house like that, it'd be dark like it is where I grew up--no streetlights, no passing cars, no neighbors. And it would be terrifying, in a way that it wasn't in my youth, partly because I rarely spent nights home alone and partly because I didn't know darkness from light in the way I do now.
So, thankfully, the apartment I've found is in a house where other humans also have apartments, on a street that is quiet and quaint but filled with life, walking distance from downtown and, hopefully, lit, though I haven't been there at night. September first is fast approaching, and it's time for me to start thinking about making this new home. And from scratch, having left everything in Brooklyn with the bed bugs.
Brooklyn, I miss you, but I don't miss those bugs. They are with me in my sleep, still. They will make it hard to visit.
It's dark at night here. Funny, how I've learned to sleep with light, learned to live always able to see. And funny how it feels to come back to this darkness--it feels safe inside, warmly lit, but walking to the car, letting the dog out before bed, I'd rather not.
It was early spring when I first started thinking seriously about moving north. I'd been missing New England since I left in 2001, always eager to visit, always longing for more trees than Central Park (as if I ever went there) could ever offer. But it wasn't until the end of March or the beginning of April that I started to realize: the time was coming.
I was up visiting JRoss, driving to Hampshire for a conference or to see his office or to pick him up. As you approach the college, farm land stretches out to either side of the winding road. Split rail and wire fences reach across the fields, penning in cows and horses. There are beaten barns and enormous farmhouses. I said to JRoss, "I like that house." And he said to me, "I love how much you love it here." And I realized: I do.
In the early weeks of considering this move, I imagined moving into one of those farmhouses, renting an apartment an older couple had built in the attic or what was once a carriage house. And then I came to Vermont to visit my family and I realized: were I to live in a house like that, it'd be dark like it is where I grew up--no streetlights, no passing cars, no neighbors. And it would be terrifying, in a way that it wasn't in my youth, partly because I rarely spent nights home alone and partly because I didn't know darkness from light in the way I do now.
So, thankfully, the apartment I've found is in a house where other humans also have apartments, on a street that is quiet and quaint but filled with life, walking distance from downtown and, hopefully, lit, though I haven't been there at night. September first is fast approaching, and it's time for me to start thinking about making this new home. And from scratch, having left everything in Brooklyn with the bed bugs.
Brooklyn, I miss you, but I don't miss those bugs. They are with me in my sleep, still. They will make it hard to visit.
"The ground on which you make the fiction is already a fiction."
Headed to New England again, at long last.
I woke this morning before the alarm, watched the sun come up against the buildings out the bedroom window. It was easy to get out the door—JRoss was sleeping, so I was not tempted to make some kind of scene. But the sweetdog was piggy and bear-y and I could not hug him enough or make him understand how I love him. JRoss’s friend, now mine also, drove me to the airport. A real gift, such a ride, seven AM and rush hour.
It’s impossible to accurately describe how much a loathe air travel. The stressful drive to the airport, stuck in traffic and watching the clock. Trying to check in on the ticket machine that doesn’t work. Standing in the security line forever, then scrambling to unpack my things the way the TSA wants me to, taking off my shoes, holding up the line. And then: the gate so far away, the food so overpriced, the current issue of US Weekly uninteresting. Delays. Nausea. Trapped in the window seat. The entire time convinced it’s impossible to get wherever I am going. Horrible.
Now I am sitting in the Philadelphia airport. I wish I were traveling with someone—Mary B, headed back to Chicago for AWP; JRoss, heading to MA. But: there are many things to be said in favor of traveling while injured. People offering to take my bag, airline employees offering to call that little electric cart I rode once as a kid when traveling with my grandparents. I get to board early, even before the horrible parents with their horrible infants. I don’t have to put my own bag in the overhead compartment.
But: this connecting flight is delayed.
Horrible.
But I have hope: that I will make it to Burlington by dinner, that I will finally rest my foot and it will heal, that JRoss’s car will come back to me from the shop as good as new, that Schnipper and I will take the dogs to the lake and that Lyra will be brave enough to swim. I have hope that I will drive to the top of Philo, that the ice cream will be sweeter than when I left, that there will be sweetmail waiting when I arrive home.
And in a week: Jorie and Hal come home, too, and their wedding week starts, and then Mary and Hannah and TT arrive and we will eat and drink and swim and spa and rehearse and process and recess and speech and dance and be merry. And then: I will return to Chicago and collect my sweetperson and sweetdog, and we will return east, where we most belong—even if my cheating heart has found a mistress in the Middle West.
I woke this morning before the alarm, watched the sun come up against the buildings out the bedroom window. It was easy to get out the door—JRoss was sleeping, so I was not tempted to make some kind of scene. But the sweetdog was piggy and bear-y and I could not hug him enough or make him understand how I love him. JRoss’s friend, now mine also, drove me to the airport. A real gift, such a ride, seven AM and rush hour.
It’s impossible to accurately describe how much a loathe air travel. The stressful drive to the airport, stuck in traffic and watching the clock. Trying to check in on the ticket machine that doesn’t work. Standing in the security line forever, then scrambling to unpack my things the way the TSA wants me to, taking off my shoes, holding up the line. And then: the gate so far away, the food so overpriced, the current issue of US Weekly uninteresting. Delays. Nausea. Trapped in the window seat. The entire time convinced it’s impossible to get wherever I am going. Horrible.
Now I am sitting in the Philadelphia airport. I wish I were traveling with someone—Mary B, headed back to Chicago for AWP; JRoss, heading to MA. But: there are many things to be said in favor of traveling while injured. People offering to take my bag, airline employees offering to call that little electric cart I rode once as a kid when traveling with my grandparents. I get to board early, even before the horrible parents with their horrible infants. I don’t have to put my own bag in the overhead compartment.
But: this connecting flight is delayed.
Horrible.
But I have hope: that I will make it to Burlington by dinner, that I will finally rest my foot and it will heal, that JRoss’s car will come back to me from the shop as good as new, that Schnipper and I will take the dogs to the lake and that Lyra will be brave enough to swim. I have hope that I will drive to the top of Philo, that the ice cream will be sweeter than when I left, that there will be sweetmail waiting when I arrive home.
And in a week: Jorie and Hal come home, too, and their wedding week starts, and then Mary and Hannah and TT arrive and we will eat and drink and swim and spa and rehearse and process and recess and speech and dance and be merry. And then: I will return to Chicago and collect my sweetperson and sweetdog, and we will return east, where we most belong—even if my cheating heart has found a mistress in the Middle West.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
"Choosing a ground by something pre-existent in you... presumably the object that has aroused in you something."
Well, Brooklyn: I am leaving Chicago.
It's been real. Lots of sweetperson time, lots of sweetdog time, lots of sweetfriend time, lots of newfriend time and newbeach time and newcity time. Lots of movie-making and Christine Schutt-reading and foot-healing. Yesterday JRoss competed in Queer Top Chef... and yes, it was as awesome as you're imagining. He and Vea, competing as the Queerly Brothers in Chippendale's outfits (for real), won in the outfit category, but were beaten overall by the Crusty Mustards. Otherwise there were barbequed foods and some intensely sweet rum punch and the kind of sunburn you get when it's overcast. There was me limping up to the roof and back down again. There was crippling shyness I got over. There was pal-ing around with my new friend. There was snuggling the littlest, most submissive dog I have ever met. And then in the evening we went to JRoss's friend's going away party at the bar where they all hang out, this sweet dive bar called The Sovereign that's filled with older white people you'd expect and then a bunch of radical queers. Pretty awesome. There was some whiskey-drinking and shit-talking and sweetfriend's-sweetperson-meeting and wishing-i-could-dance-but-having-to-sit-instead. There was serious fatigue, as there has been throughout this visit.
Today Marielle comes again and we'll be extras in the movie and then I will get ready to head back to NEW ENGLAND. Land of ice cream and swimming and greenery and berry-picking, I will return.
And Brooklyn: I miss you.
It's been real. Lots of sweetperson time, lots of sweetdog time, lots of sweetfriend time, lots of newfriend time and newbeach time and newcity time. Lots of movie-making and Christine Schutt-reading and foot-healing. Yesterday JRoss competed in Queer Top Chef... and yes, it was as awesome as you're imagining. He and Vea, competing as the Queerly Brothers in Chippendale's outfits (for real), won in the outfit category, but were beaten overall by the Crusty Mustards. Otherwise there were barbequed foods and some intensely sweet rum punch and the kind of sunburn you get when it's overcast. There was me limping up to the roof and back down again. There was crippling shyness I got over. There was pal-ing around with my new friend. There was snuggling the littlest, most submissive dog I have ever met. And then in the evening we went to JRoss's friend's going away party at the bar where they all hang out, this sweet dive bar called The Sovereign that's filled with older white people you'd expect and then a bunch of radical queers. Pretty awesome. There was some whiskey-drinking and shit-talking and sweetfriend's-sweetperson-meeting and wishing-i-could-dance-but-having-to-sit-instead. There was serious fatigue, as there has been throughout this visit.
Today Marielle comes again and we'll be extras in the movie and then I will get ready to head back to NEW ENGLAND. Land of ice cream and swimming and greenery and berry-picking, I will return.
And Brooklyn: I miss you.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
"It is in the fewness of the materials that the muchness of the effect is created."
Dear Brooklyn,
It's not you, it's Chicago.
East Coast, we have had the wool pulled over our eyes. The Middle West is amazing. It's glorious here--CHICAGO HAS BEACHES. Did you know this? And not Brooklyn beaches--beaches with clean sand and not a million people and water that everyone is saying is questionable but that looks and feels glorious to me. There are wide, tree-lined streets, and gorgeous, spacious, one-bedroom apartments with dining rooms and porches that cost $750 a month. People are friendly. Like, really friendly. There are beautiful old signs everywhere and plenty of parking and, again, people are friendly.
I feel ashamed of the superiority I felt living in New York. The false pride people from Philly always proclaim when they come to New York--who knew we in New York claimed the same pride just thinking about Chicago. San Francisco? We're right about that one. But not Chicago. Chicago is awesome.
It's not you, it's Chicago.
East Coast, we have had the wool pulled over our eyes. The Middle West is amazing. It's glorious here--CHICAGO HAS BEACHES. Did you know this? And not Brooklyn beaches--beaches with clean sand and not a million people and water that everyone is saying is questionable but that looks and feels glorious to me. There are wide, tree-lined streets, and gorgeous, spacious, one-bedroom apartments with dining rooms and porches that cost $750 a month. People are friendly. Like, really friendly. There are beautiful old signs everywhere and plenty of parking and, again, people are friendly.
I feel ashamed of the superiority I felt living in New York. The false pride people from Philly always proclaim when they come to New York--who knew we in New York claimed the same pride just thinking about Chicago. San Francisco? We're right about that one. But not Chicago. Chicago is awesome.
"You get to a certain age--don't touch. You'll find you're crumbling."
I've been out of touch. Since last Sunday, I've been in Chicago--JRoss is filming the movie we wrote, and I'm here, too, participating some in the movie-making, cuddling with Cooper, and kicking it with our friend Vea and Vea's and Jules's whole bunch of rad, loving, queer-ass friends.
I was supposed to fly back to Vermont last Thursday, but Wednesday night, JRoss and Vea and I decided to change that plan. So I moved my ticket and we planned for me to stay awhile longer, helping with film stuff, but mostly supporting my sweetperson while he works on such an intense project.
On Friday, I went to the shoot, which was something of a disaster. And also a really effing long day. At the end of it, JRoss and I found out that our housing situation had been temporarily complicated. As we walked down the stairs to head (not) home, I fell. And then I recovered. And then I fell again. And that time, I really fucking hurt my foot. So Vea and another friend carried me to a car, and to an apartment, and I was iced and arnica'd and Advilled and otherwise intoxicated, and it seemed like maybe it was just a bad sprain. JRoss carried me "home," which, for that night, meant a third floor walk-up.
Upon waking the next morning, it was PAINFULLY clear that my foot--though maybe just sprained--required some medical attention. We headed to the emergency room, where everyone--from the nurses to the doctors to the x-ray techs--was sweet and polite and accommodating and friendly. Coming in, as I always do, expecting the worst from doctors, I was fairly hostile and demanding, but by the time we left, I would have been able to smile at them, if I wasn't weeping for my fractured foot.
We spent two more nights on that third floor, and last night we were allowed back into the beautiful, spacious, glowing-with-light, plant-filled, cool, internet-accessible apartment JRoss is subletting, where we were reunited with our clothes (though they all need to be washed), a bed that is not a futon, and Facebook. Glory be.
So. Now I am doing my best to at least be a sweet face for my sweetface, even if I can't be the kind of support I'd intended to. I went to a shoot on Sunday, broken foot and all, and that was surprisingly functional and fine, so. I'm not the best bed-maker or dish-washer or laundry-doer at the moment, and there's absolutely no way I can sweep the floor. But I sure am nice, and I look real cute.
I was supposed to fly back to Vermont last Thursday, but Wednesday night, JRoss and Vea and I decided to change that plan. So I moved my ticket and we planned for me to stay awhile longer, helping with film stuff, but mostly supporting my sweetperson while he works on such an intense project.
On Friday, I went to the shoot, which was something of a disaster. And also a really effing long day. At the end of it, JRoss and I found out that our housing situation had been temporarily complicated. As we walked down the stairs to head (not) home, I fell. And then I recovered. And then I fell again. And that time, I really fucking hurt my foot. So Vea and another friend carried me to a car, and to an apartment, and I was iced and arnica'd and Advilled and otherwise intoxicated, and it seemed like maybe it was just a bad sprain. JRoss carried me "home," which, for that night, meant a third floor walk-up.
Upon waking the next morning, it was PAINFULLY clear that my foot--though maybe just sprained--required some medical attention. We headed to the emergency room, where everyone--from the nurses to the doctors to the x-ray techs--was sweet and polite and accommodating and friendly. Coming in, as I always do, expecting the worst from doctors, I was fairly hostile and demanding, but by the time we left, I would have been able to smile at them, if I wasn't weeping for my fractured foot.
We spent two more nights on that third floor, and last night we were allowed back into the beautiful, spacious, glowing-with-light, plant-filled, cool, internet-accessible apartment JRoss is subletting, where we were reunited with our clothes (though they all need to be washed), a bed that is not a futon, and Facebook. Glory be.
So. Now I am doing my best to at least be a sweet face for my sweetface, even if I can't be the kind of support I'd intended to. I went to a shoot on Sunday, broken foot and all, and that was surprisingly functional and fine, so. I'm not the best bed-maker or dish-washer or laundry-doer at the moment, and there's absolutely no way I can sweep the floor. But I sure am nice, and I look real cute.
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