just a gambler at heart

The brick front outside my window | is unraveled like a fault line crawled up its spine | and now that the sugar maple shed all its | squirming starfish leaves, | they crawl and shimmy | in the puddles between | the stones, looking
for
their
missing
legs.

they gon’ put you out on the streets lorena | they gonna sing and dance upon your grave

sassy DJ flirting disasters. realizing that i am the owner of a marshallese heart. samantha power on the subway. electric dreams [it’s weird how much i miss you sometimes]. being restless and uneasy because i can’t find a coffee shop; i might have found a coffee shop...the potter's house. rosemary & garlic mashed potatoes + gin & mango juice = thanksgiving dinner. yumberry grapefruit yogurt. trans-atlantic african phone calls. the OC season four, and all the music that came with it. tutoring for t.i. and speaking espanol with carlos. dangerous almost missed messages.

k'naan. jambo. wander.
winter doesn't know where i been. neither do you, and it makes me want to break through the walls. speak it all out loud, every word. every night time minute under those goddamned stars, the songs that stuck to the underside of the pandanus leaves, the intense sense of melancholy that comes over a person when we begin to embody an island. how every breath was hot and crowded and why i never quite recovered from kabul's and that i carried it half way across the world and how angry it still makes me to know that. tension mounts when i hear howling from the walls, the ceiling, around a corner, and the fucker about that is really knowing she's still there being smashed against the window pane. my bones ached in fever for 3 hundred and twenty-four days and NOW. now they don't know how to be warm anymore.
i don't know how, anymore.
i am still underneath that tin roof, rain drumming a ruckus out and the hermit crabs crawling in the walls, looking for someone who was ready to leave and never did. the island ate me up it loved me so. the chorus rises up when i walk around in the dark, but no one is going anywhere together, no one is going to sing. we move [night moves] for different reasons here.

and i miss my friend.

i miss the baby and kuuj jidikdik and wotje and how he went spearfishing for us even though he still needs help with algebra. drinking shitty coffee in the sun. dancing at adma's. kejanjan ukulele. riding the beachcruiser to the airport in a rain storm. memorizing the bends in the road [this is what i miss of everywhere i've ever been]. what worries me, you see, is that i will make sense to no one no how never will now that this has taken part of my soul and changed it. i was and now i am something else.



but that sea is just a gambler at heart | tossed aside the weary

jack kerouac & the streakers are making faces at me

GIRLTALK is BACK.

funny how things change so quickly.

i don't think i'm going to be a barista after all (which makes me sad)
i don't have to take out my eyebrow ring (which is really the only upside to all this)
i remain fiscally unstable.
and this tutoring business...

[i missed my kids a lot today, though. even the upstarts.]

night yoga. garlic couscous. F.R.I.E.N.D.S. thanksgiving. battle studies for real life.

they say that DC will eat you alive if you don't scratch your way in. walking passed a house in columbia heights where a little boy was shot is surreal because it was growing to be an ordinary part of my mornings. before, i never used to believe that a tragedy like that could ever return to normalcy. except in this monster of a city, it has to. people wouldn't survive if they didn't keep moving. you can see that just from riding the subway. some days. some days, you know? i just wanted my life to start, that's all. that's all anybody really wants, right? i mean, besides the babies and the diamonds. cover me in bling, baby. really little things are getting me. the woman on the 15th/columbia intersection who decided to speak to me en espanol. the scraggily charming clerk who followed me around in assistance at staples. the caribbean woman whose cafe smelled like himal + jolly bob's and whose directions eventually saved my life. the adorable mountainman/dirty hippie who was carrying homemade macrame lampshades (with manatees!) on the metro. when i get a paycheck + an apartment (and maybe a second job...) i am going back to that bookstore at eastern market and i am going to browse for hours. if i have nothing in my room except my yoga mat, a pile of books, white christmas lights, and that collage of jack kerouac & the streakers, i wouldn't be terribly sad. which is probably a good thing, because i don't think i'm going to have much of a choice.

reconnecting, and not with the people i would have thought.

another little thing? dwight schrute. and so i leave you with {the office}

What is my perfect crime? I break into Tiffany's at midnight. Do I go for the vault? No. I go for the chandelier. It's priceless. As I'm taking it down, a woman catches me. She tells me to stop. It's her father's business. She's Tiffany. I say no. We make love all night. In the morning cops come and I escape in one of their uniforms. I tell her to meet me in Mexico, but I go to Canada. I don't trust her. Besides, I like the cold. Thirty years later I get a postcard. I have a son, and he's the chief of police. This is where the story gets interesting: I tell Tiffany to meet me in Paris by the Trocadaro. She's been waiting for me all these years, she's never taken another lover. I don't care, I don't show up. I go to Berlin. That's where I stashed the chandelier.

vos beaux mots

four things:
i am going to be a barista [this makes sense to me].
i have to take out my eyebrow ring [this makes me melancholy].
i can only be a barista if i take out my eyebrow ring.
i can't get it out!

wading through months of district lists and meeting minutes and the rabbit hole that is Tanzania & the Dar es Salaam port authority. and i LOVE it. is this whole DC thing actually going to work? i like the city. i like the people. but there just aren't enough cafes and thrift stores for my granola self. too much business, not enough hippie. maybe i just live in the wrong part of town. adams-morgan shows some promise, as does u-street. i want curving staircases and lion-footed bath tubs and a room full of canvas covered in oil paints. ethiopian + nepali + margherita pizza + basil + sangria + sushi. that's what i want. a haunt. i always do better when i have a haunt. maybe i should be a ghost - all the ethereal habits and none of the rattling chains.
speaking of chains
i threw them all away. gone. on the ground, rusting. even as i begin to configure a regular schedule, with an office and dress pants and all that business, i can DO anything i want, in the end. full use of my independent choice. and the choosing to do! oh, the places i'll go, and the things that i'll see. i feel like goddamn dr. suess.

grilled cheese with brie.
vos beaux mots d'Afrique.

i'm a new soul | in this very strange world | finding myself making | every possible mistake

eleven days later

lorena {b. schneider}
dog days are over {florence + the machine}
keep it loose, keep it tight {a. lee}
before it breaks {b. carlile}
raising cain {g. alan isakov}

pills are harder to swallow these days. arguing with efficiency is exhausting (keep on, keep on). i promise you : never will i want respectable to mean that i forgot about all of this. [the] rebel yell carries on a clarion call a message a beat. write me a letter, will you? don't you miss me yet? if i know anything about anything, it's that we all come back around. paint the goddamn walls red if you want.

i believe in life before death.
in mistakes.
expressing spontaneous thought.
drinking coffee after five PM.
just because it doesn't work like that doesn't mean it shouldn't make you angry. there is a difference between naivete and idealism.
inform yourself, fight back.

1. pumpkin squash ravioli.
2. the idea of working for a woman who calls me 'hun' over the phone.
3. finally finishing The One With Phoebe's Wedding (5 years later)
4. lavender shampoo & peppermint soap.
5. riding the metro with bon
6. filling my days up.
7. all of that. that out there. that’s what i love.

[Once in awhile
when it's good
it'll feel like it should]

grocery shopping as celebration – brie and eco-merlot and sweet potatoes and the wrong kind of raspberry jam. the thing is, grocery shopping makes me just about as happy as eating spinach quiche with apple cider, or cool ranch doritos & cherry coke, or kwonjin ippan alal im lime. other things that make me this happy:
- remembering the lines of the metro without looking at the map
- buying books
- dancing around in tinkerbell wings and being unwieldy in a crowd full of strangers
- las posibilidades, and moving forward again.


For future reference: the escalator at Bethesda is unnecessarily tall and induces an irrational fear of infrastructural collapse within me. working somewhere with boxes and scattered photographs and a kitchen of the retro variety are all rather appealing. if the urge strikes you, walk down the alley; you might meet an adorable brasilian man peering in the window.

who’d you think you were dealing with | yeah, you underestimate me just a little bit | going in, going all, going off again

the chronicle of a life foretold

your ex-lover is dead [stars]
remedy [j. mraz, acoustic]
good love is on the way [j. mayer]

madison, briefly.
sentry, for old times' sake. autumn on east j. americanos on the capitol with girls from the beginning. still running into artists and thieves and undercover lovers. attempting to remember what it was like not to know every inch, and failing miserably. the fancy pinkus. accidentally driving to middleton and knowing where i was all the same. spotted cow.

a visit to the chi-burbs & michigan avenue.
tollroads. rain, and coral & gold & clementine, and reading the onion. five years. paint wars in the new house. crate & barrel, carol (and the wild things), cold weather blues. to the train! a gonzo journalist infusion and (more) dreams about cats in the cradle jumping over[under] the [full]moon. an exit. adieu.

the corolla and i go way back.
into the city and out the other side. over the bridge, or how the interstate hwy made me surrender my seed money. i like pennsylvania. i hate pennsylvania (really only in the dark). the 70E debacle and the miracle entrance into maryland. and then

coming out of the woods
and onto the mall
to see the
washington monument lit up like a beacon which has been saying all along,
"there you are.
we knew you'd get here
someday.
we've been waiting.
breathe."
a museum or six,
and a wrought-iron gate.

brooklyn & the Q.
blue moon.
i'm in the city again and the streets eat me up (they love me so), while the fog hovers and hopes around the chrysler and everyone we've ever been has come forward in the rain to see through THESE NEW EYES.
new days.
everyday.


all of that, and ice cream for dinner.

the way i romanticize my life makes me sound like a hipster.

fifteen things i miss about before:

1. dinner parties that revolve into dance parties that end on the kitchen floor, hysterically.
2. having a spot, and a sandwich, and recognizing everyone who comes into Espresso.
3. talking to eclectic strangers about Ganesha. and smoky quartz. and listening to Allen Ginsberg recordings at work. sitting on counter tops and watching the world come in and out.
4. sleeping on your couch. walking home in the cold.
5. the light in the kitchen during summer rainstorms, whilst learning how to fry tofu in tamari.
6. workshops.
7. riding my bike in a city with a scarf on.
8. tension over banana waffles, served with a smart mouth and a side of anarchy.
9. staying up 'til it gets light with the whole sick crew.
10. jambo with etri. math in the nighttime with wotje. jolok-ing iien with belisa & wilpina & batrick. watching baulina & limama & lowa walk around on their hands for half an hour. making angel food cake with sera. biking to the airport, coconut potholes, oogling lakatus, rabid canines and all. birthday parties at adma's.
11. drinking tea on the steps while bigote makes breakfast.
12. bird observing on the river bank.
13. riding around in boats (anywhere).
14. taking the horses out after the lessons are done. talking to Ben, humoring Willa, and watching Sox try to flirt with all the girls. Wren & Dover. Agatha. eating ramen in the clubhouse, covered in mud and half-numb. Dom, always.
15. singing in the nighttime. and then eating crab and roasted coconut. and then walking home in the dark, covered in marshallese love.

{well, this time tomorrow |where will we be?
in a space ship somewhere, sailing across an empty sea?
this time tomorrow | what will we be?}

stalemate

{yeah the city's old but it never seems to get tired
no sally don't get down, cuz I've been lookin all over town
for a brand new set of wings}

shed a little light (foy vance)
moonshiner (r. zimmerman)
slim slow slider (van morrison)
where we gonna go from here (mat kearney)
love (the coup)
darlin' do not fear (brett dennen)
i shall not walk alone (blind boys of alabama)
ohio (damien jurado)

we are the lost generation. lost to the wayside, the rest stop, the porchlight, the backdown alley. say hello, little girl. we ate all our ideas and walked home every night under the drunken golden street lamps of philosophy, mentally framing each square of cement because
we'd stood there, once
and it had to be remembered when
the world got
light
again.
our blood thrummed.
but we couldn't run around forever, feet free and walking on water.
which of us will learn to swim?
they'll dig up our bones, and call us the
lost generation
because you can't grow a bleeding heart back.

drinking too much coffee. getting my heart broken by the twinkies. sleeping in yellow sheets. reading tom robbins. wearing houndstooth and trying not to be too cold. giving in. counting woolly bears. pretending not to notice. contemplating life as a townie. reverting. missing jendrik in the nighttime. living the way we do in october.

tell it everywhere you go | you're outta reach

new beginnings

so this is where we begin again.

all my life, i don't know what this means. how to do this. where to go from here. i want to be one of those people in the crowd on the sidewalk, moving forward down the street with a blue cloud of cold air escaping all around me. since i was fourteen, this is all i ever wanted.

okay, so maybe that isn't true. but that's where i always figured it would start. my real life, i mean. on that sidewalk, in that city. with the cold air, and too many people, and the hum of the underground trains buzzing between my bones. i have to get there! i have to. i am wilting here. angry, in a silent way. i am wilting, stuck in this city.

this city is dangerous, and here is why:
the curve in the road on west river parkway. especially at night, when the moon is big.
the ease of settling.
small, cluttered yoga (physically)
a lack of establishments resembling: genna's. himal. nachtspiel. the terrace. montmarte.
and, a severe case of writer's block.

i am bored, and mulling, and growing rather numb. will an exodus help me to escape what i have become? i don't like who i am anymore; i am dull inside my own skin. even my taste in music seems to have gone to pot. what i wouldn't give for a little...just to hear a few symphonies emanate from the ordinary, you know what i mean? it's like i'm on mute or something. i can hardly breathe the world is so quiet. what i wouldn't give for a little crack in the planet.

things that are still the same
only skin & emily [ j. newsom]
my person and our lovely 60 [thank god]
a penchant for black clothes, black cloves, black russians, blue soul.

things that are different
everyone else.
driving at night.
me.