we be brave

5.29.2011

oh, good.

I call this chart “Dating in Brooklyn, NY”

-iwalktall

Found here, via Cup of Jo

5.26.2011

5.25.2011

for which I am grateful

magnolias
a healthy love of bluegrass
a new awareness of race in america
thicker skin
urban outdoors
a tolerance of humidity
roofs, low buildings, uniform skylines
change

we have all seen too many movies

We think people are going to be beautiful, that their beauty will surprise us one day, but the beautiful people have already been found, and they are all in the movies. Or we think they will be flawed, imperfectly flawed, and we will love their flaws and that will make them beautiful, but in movies the flaws are always lovely and easy, like this person cares too much, or this person always wears the same charming overcoat, or this person can't decide what she wants but how cute is it, the way she wrinkles her nose and considers her options. "I could live with that," we think. I could love that part of them, too.

Our flaws are not elegant. They are ugly and cruel. This person fucks around and lies about it and never feels guilty. And we are not beautiful, not truly. Maybe in that way where everyone is beautiful because everyone is unique, but we do not have chins that are sized right for our faces or small, dainty collarbones. We get food in our teeth. We bulge from the tops of our pants. Why does that never happen in movies? In the movies, people dip their noses in sexy dollops of foam. People do not get whole leaves of arugula between their front teeth. In real life, it is always the arugula.

I do not mean to say that movies make it seem easy. They don't. In the movies they fight and scream, but always in full sentences. It comes out right. Or they toss things, like drinks - has anyone ever actually tossed a drink on someone? In real life? And they sit there, dripping, mouth agape, and they throw down their napkins and race for the door, and the misunderstanding comes to a head in the middle of the street where it rains and rains and will rain until they make up again, see each other clearly, drenched and beautiful, so beautiful, wet like they mean it. In the movies, it is always worth it. It is so rarely worth it in real life.

random act of bravery

Check that post below.

See photo (of me!) highlighting almost everything I dislike about my body: crinkly eyes, overbite, pale skin, unending freckles, weird pudgy arm thing (what IS that?), 6-month-old dye job, sad, lifeless hair.

WOMP.

You know what it is? It's that I look so happy, and I was, and I am, and seriously - it's time to get over it.

Yesterday I had the thought: "I need to lose 5 pounds before reunion."

REALLY?!?

Do you REALLY!?!?

Leaving aside that I don't actually need to lose 5 pounds, this is reunion - this is my five year college reunion, this is a house in Vermont, in June, my friends, a shortage of beds, green hills, cows, this is the place where I was the happiest I've ever been, surrounded by people who love and accept me even though I am a freckly, overbitten beast. Sure, there are people who will judge me, but I never liked them much, and besides, I'll judge them right back.

There was a time when I thought I would one day have the money to get all my little freckles zapped off. I think, finally, I'd rather use that money to go to Vermont, every June, ill-fitting bathing suit, barbecue, pile of books, the loves of my life. The freckles can stay.

5.23.2011

up on the roof

Apparently all it takes to get out on the roof is a quick slip of the screen. It's a minor tragedy that it took us over a year to realize this. Now our evenings are spent climbing out of windows with wobbly glasses of wine, with books, with cameras, with bowls of guacamole (my dad's recipe) (when we're feeling ambitious). The kids in the alley play basketball and swear at each other viciously, but I could (and do) sit out there for hours. The tar on the roof turns the soles of our feet black. The light goes down behind our trees and it is perfect, perfect, perfect.

(Freckle alert above. I'm trying to embrace it.)

5.20.2011

a few things

trying to capture the light, my favourite time of day in my favourite apartment

ranunculus, from me to me

local asparagus at dusk

roommate, long sundays

dupont circle

Random act of bravery this week? Maybe just facing it. Putting one foot in front of the other. I finally hunkered down and made a master list of all that needs to be done before the move, and of when it needs doing. Bought my tickets to reunion. Applied for more jobs. Did the laundry. Cried a bit, which is seeming more and more like an act of courage in itself.

There's a good weekend ahead, and only a handful left in this city, so let's do it up.

Good things: Bangable Dudes in History (hello, naughty Lewis Powell), this bloggers & cats series, last night's cheese pupusa, a new bra (in a size that made me weep and curse my buxom ancestors), a chateau, the new Bon Iver (and the accompanying concert ticket + fantastic mid-week dream of antiquing with Justin Vernon), finishing this delicious book with a few good tears.

5.19.2011

public service announcement

A secret? I'm frustrated. And filled with self-doubt. And angry, angry that I can't seem to figure this out, that I keep making the wrong choices, or questioning the choices I have made, that I am unable to get it together, that even six months after my breakup I still feel beat down by loneliness and the frustration that my life is not as good, not as rich, as it once was, and why can't I just get over that and move on already, and -

Mid-rant, the phone sticky against my cheek, she interrupts:

"Can I ask you a question?"
"...Yes?"
"What if, instead of beating yourself up about this, you chose to be kind? Because you're my best friend, and I love you, and when I hear you talk about this move I don't think, 'What an idiot, what a terrible choice,' I think - oh, my sweet girl, my dear one. This is so hard, and you are doing so well, and I am proud of you."

I question this move - a lot. Every day. I fall asleep thinking of red-tape and sublets and the inevitable, looming failure on the other end of this hot summer. There are times when I wonder what on earth I'm doing, choosing to stay in a country with whose values I generally disagree, choosing to stomp down roots thousands of miles from a family I love and miss, choosing the path of most resistance, throwing myself into the swamp of immigration law, and then I remember - -

Oh, right.

I'm staying because I have found people who love me, and if you were lucky enough to have friends who will take your broken, lost, confused heart to Disney World not once -

but twice?

Wouldn't you also do everything in your power to cleave as close to them as possible, for as much soul-soakingly joyous time as you are allowed?

on the way back from New York, one month past

Yeah you give me the space/so I can feel whole again

Headed back from NYC on a bus packed bottom to brim. I sit at the back, over the axel, no protection from the jolts and bumps. Iron & Wine on the ipod. There is a yellow gerber daisy at my feet. Beside me, a sleeping German girl with fantastic glasses and a terrible new tattoo, just beginning to scar on the back of her neck. A couple speak sign language across the aisle. I nap when the three cups of green tea wear off. I interspersed my interviews with caffeine today. The boiling water felt like meditation. Then came the rush. I ate chickpea and sesame soup for lunch. I shared a milkshake in a diner and beat the Sunday Times crossword into near-submission. (It took three days. Haters don't hate.)

The trip was not easy. I won't lie. There were disappointments, many, and I've never been good at the display that is necessary when interviewing. What happened to just looking someone in the eye? But amidst all of the stress, there was a moment in my dear friend's apartment, as she discussed puppetry and music and the language of gesture, when I looked out her window on the sun slowly going down over the river and saw the whole city spread out before me, and I thought - yes. There is space enough here.