deep laughs and old friends.

this is my friend rob.

we met on our very first day at juilliard. the very same day we had to wear body-skimming clothes for our alexander technique photos (acting school is strange) and when the time for his photo came rob stripped to nothing but tighty whities. 

we've been friends ever since.

(get your head out of the gutter, it wasn't like that).

rob and i haven't seen each other for a while. so last night we made a date for dinner followed by swing-dancing classes at lincoln center (there is so much to do and take advantage of during a new york city summer!).

and when, at that moment during dinner, i pulled out my camera for the cursory pictures he made some peter parker comment (classic) and then proceeded to fire off fifty at a time (usually i have to beg people to take three in a row). he had me laughing so hard that my sometimes-snort crept back in. it's not terribly attractive that snort, nor are the veins now protruding from my forehead. but at least i know i'm laughing, deeply. i'd take real laughs, deep snorts, and pulsing veins any day of the week if it means a life lived fully.

i read this. and it took my breath away.

Give me the strongest cheese, the one that stinks best;

and I want the good wine, the swirl in crystal

surrendering the bruised scent of blackberries,

or cherries, the rich spurt in the back

of the throat, the holding it there before swallowing.

Give me the love who yanks open the door

of his house and presses me to the wall

in the dim hallway, and keeps me there until I'm drenched

and shaking, whose kisses arrive by the boatload

and begin their delicious diaspora

through the cities and small towns of my body.

To hell with the saints, with martyrs

of my childhood meant to instruct me

in the power of endurance and faith,

to hell with the next world and its pallid angels

swooning and sighing like Victorian girls.

I want this world. I want to walk into

the ocean and feel it trying to drag me along

like I'm nothing but a broken bit of scratched glass,

and I want to resist it. I want to go

staggering and flailing my way

through the bars and back rooms,

through the gleaming hotels and weedy

lots of abandoned sunflowers and the parks

where dogs are left off their leashes

in spite of the signs, where they sniff each

other and roll together in the grass, I want to

lie down somewhere and suffer for love until

it nearly kills me, and then I want to get up again

and put on that little black dress and wait

for you, yes you, to come over here

and get down on your knees and tell me

just how fucking good I look

Kim Addonizio


i first read it here.

in place of my own words...

i'm at this interesting point in my life where suddenly things feel too personal--too close to share. (can you even believe i'm writing this?). where things are moving along. or not.  i'm not even sure, but i must keep these things in my small fists, pressed close to my chest--protecting what little i can.

what i can say, is this: a week ago--oh, was it only a week ago?--i went to see noah and the whale in concert. i put on my new, blue sundress, did my makeup, took the long train downtown, found myself a spot on the floor and then danced and cried and stood in utter awe--all by myself.

and so what i know right now--and there are very few things i do know--is this: i'll look back on this period of my life as a time when happiness pooled beneath my feet and noah and whale's last night on earth was the soundtrack to the return of life's sweet joy.

so today, in place of words, i give you this. because for the moment, even months after first hearing it, i have this song on repeat.

it was the window boxes that i couldn't get enough of...

there is a part of me that can't get enough of boston. a part of me utterly taken by the ubiquitous red brick and dark shudders. the cobblestone streets. window box after window overrun by flowers in bloom. it is lush and small. quiet and complex. 

my brother's not so keen on the city. he's a southern boy to the core and finds it difficult to meet people, finds the girls not terribly attractive (i think it's less about the girls and more about the proliferation of parkas and subsequent lack of pearls and sundresses). but i'm hoping he sticks around there a bit longer so i'll have many more chances to visit. 

after bringing the babysitting phase of my life to a close, enduring a sixteen-day-never-ending-cold, and then three weekends of (1) a mother in ny (2) a bus to connecticut to be with my grandfather and aunt and (3) a short stint in boston i'm breathing a bit easier tonight just glad to be home. glad that for now new york is home. glad to go to the grocer and get my cut of cheese and bouquet of flowers. glad to walk down the hill toward the hudson. glad to feel as though i'm a little more in my skin here than ever before. a little more in a place where anything is possible. even if it's still hard. still terrifying. still deeply upsetting at moments. because more and more it's feeling deeply worthwhile. 

you don't love a person for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear. 

oscar wilde