sometimes i wish i smoked. just for the hell of it. just for the flagrant imperfection and impropriety the very act signals.

most of the time i wish i'd stop apologizing. for my thoughts and my actions and the pursuit of those things that actually make me happy. for my love of that which rings the fringe.

i wish i was bolder and less afraid. wish i more easily settled into my own skin i am in new situations. which i acclimated faster. wasn't such a late bloomer.

i fell asleep on the subway last night

i fell asleep on the subway last night. riding the long R train into brooklyn.

i've lived in new york for going on eight years now and this was a first.

turns out i'm exhausted. in the good kind of way. where life is busy and full and new. but also in the way where you fall asleep on the train and clean laundry eats an entire corner of your room and you wake each morning with no sense of what day it is and where you have to go or even if you've got your head screwed on properly.

so busy that exhaustion takes hold in uncomfortable ways and food choices go to hell.

i had leftover banana bread in my tote bag that i had no intention of touching. but on that R train, engaged in a battle between sleep and sense, losing to the deep, i half-consciously groped for the tupperware and the promise of its leftovers.

if i couldn't sleep i would eat.

and i'm gonna level with you, that choclate-chip banana bread was damn good.

i've been meaning to write about food for a while now. i've certainly sat down to do it several times. and somehow i get distracted or overwhelmed or maybe even a little embarrassed by the prospect of sharing where i am in the life-long fight to eat well, and so i've left half-begun, half-finished drafts littering my desktop.

so here goes.

i want to write food and the value system we attach to it.

i said this to a friend recently and she said, what do values have anything to do with food?

sigh, deep breath, gather my wits.

let's start here:

we certainly attach a value system in this country to fat and thin. do we not?

instead of that, let's redirect. let's focus on what we put in our body and feel good about that, trust that, and then let the pounds fall where they will.

playing the numbers.

sometimes i have to pull out the really rational (and, i fear, underutilized) part of myself--the part that knows life is just a number's game.

the harder i work, the more i fail, the more i experience, the more growing-pains push me this way and that, the more i come up against what i fear and the more i don't get what i want, the longer it takes to meet this person or that person or get this or do that, well...

the chances of the good happening--of that one thing or one person or one job or one moment that could turn the course, dictate the path, illuminate--the chances get better each day.

it's a number's game. my chance of success increases each day it doesn't happen.

sometimes it's hard to remember that when my head is stuck in the mud of a very busy block of weeks and the universe seems to have just thrown a few things at me that while livable, feel like what-are-the-chances, cruel twists of fate.

a few months ago i was lying in bed, terrified by the idea that i might actually get what i want, and there was this thought: too soon. too soon, it hasn't been hard enough yet.

(hasn't been hard enough, yet?! bite your tongue, ms. fee, not a helpful thought).

dearest universe: i'd like to take that back--that thought, if you might be so kind as to allow me. okay, well, not take it back, but amend it, or just altogether change it. not too soon, it's definitely been hard enough. perhaps that particular story isn't finished yet, and that's okay. but some of the other stuff, not too soon. not too soon. 

i think i'm ready. i'm ready.

so i'll do my best to keep showing up, and if you wouldn't mind just fudging the numbers a bit in my favor? well, that would be swell.

okay. deep breath. onto and into the day...




image: brian w. ferry

scribblings in a moleskin:

beginning of june, three guys rejected me all at once. the span of one week. for a month thereafter, i began every story with that preface.

things is, i owe each of those three men a thank-you-note.
....................................................................................................

the languages of love.

mine will be memory. i will remember + record.

b/c i won't be good at voicing the i love you's, the kind words. i won't offer up compliments freely, and i won't take them humbly. but i'll remember it all. your shoes. the cut of the light across the floor.


.....................................................................................................


it begins under the skin. gets caught in the throat. lines the undersize of the collarbone. lodges below that first set of ribs. trickles down to the stomach.

it's only when it gets there--bottom of the belly--that you're sunk. in deep shit, so to speak. or just in deep.

......................................................................................................

october 20.


i took an elbow to the boob at work tonight. boy did that grant some perspective. big picture. means to an end.

getting into the cab at 2 am. it reeks of cigarette. makes me think of that one guy. that totally wrong one. he's married now. i hope he's well and happy. i hope time and a new love...

...........................................................................................................


she wanted to tell him, he was her christmas morning.

..........................................................................................................

to try + compare our beauty to someone else's is a moot point.

all we strive for is to fulfill our own capacity to be beautiful--it signals worth (reproductive +...)

to say i'm more beautiful/ less beautiful than her is a waste of energy. waste of time

..........................................................................................................


she didn't want to say it. didn't want to give voice to it. to answer his question. mutter it aloud, make it real, create a boundary--a set of rules, gift a road map that would mean more lives must pass before they'd see each other again.

but the truth always surfaces. it must

at the age of twenty-four, having just broken up with a man who it'll end up taking you far too long to get over, you'll visit a card reader who will tell you you'll lead a beautiful life. believe her. the guy wasn't worth it. everything after him was.