June 2009
49 posts
“Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and...”
– Joan Didion
Waking up
After spending two entire days in Prospect Park, waking up on a Monday morning feels like waking up from a dream: that groggy, stretch in my sheets, wiggle my toes, and smile sort of wake up. Like something Puck-induced, like something straight out of a memory or family photo album. Because this weekend was entirely dipped and soaked and lathered in sun, and that feeling of sweat on your brow, and...
DFW@Harper's →
booktumbling:
skybarn:
sometimesagreatnotion:
davidfosterwallace:
All of David Foster Wallace’s writings, as featured in and around Harper’s.
Dear vs. Hi
In the next couple of days I will write a letter to one of my favorite writers. And I hope he answers, but I don’t expect answers.
She's just a girl who claims that I am the one
we were in search of the perfect happy hour bar for post work forgetting, good beer, and benches. dear summer, present yourself please.
we walked up and down in zig zags and circles, for the sake of finding just the right place, because it was one of those evenings where the right place was vital. do you understand? i think you understand.
and on the way, each bar, each restaurant and car, each...
“What we all hope in reaching for a book, is to meet a man of our own heart, to...”
– Henry Miller (via booktumbling)
&
moments ago, the UPS guy came to work and delivered a giant ampersand.
logograms in the mail.
conjunction in the mail.
this, i like.
Sesame Chicken
things learned today, while at work, while babysitting.
1. in sims three, you can pick and choose and play with genetics, and make a child based on whose lips and eyes, nose, and hair color you’d rather have from each parent. you have to feed the family regularly or else they become lazy. and no longer function. and there are no garbage trucks; somehow, miraculously, all the trash gets...
CWYR: Choose What You Read NY, underground library... →
monday
complete list of things purchased today, tracking my day, sorta.
-bottled water, walked eight blocks through muggy, sunless, streets. (had gotten off a stop early because i thought i’d want the extra walk. wrong.)
-thirty-nine dollar fee at clinic, stood in three seperate lines for this but was told to return for an appointment later. got an undeniable smile from a baby in a stroller...
news!
phone calls these days about plans for later that day or cancelled plans for later that week. calendar calls, calendar calls.
but the best phone call to receive is from someone dear who has just accomplished something and wants to share the news.
Edison, Bell, Manzetti, i think that’s what they had in mind.
only so much rain
today, the longest day of the year, and yet no outstretched summer sun to boast an extra hour and strain itself a little longer and make everyone feel a few years younger.
booksignings v. kindle →
notes on the underground
this morning on the subway there was an old man sitting beside me doing a crossword. he was so involved with it, so involved that he could have, might have even, missed his stop, or missed the woman leaning against the poll in front of us. she was wearing the most oversized black rain coat i’d ever seen, like the sugar plum fairy, like those paper angels we hang from the tree with red-round...
Iran election. "divine miracle" wtf. geese... →
Watchcould never do a cube. never cool enough.
can’t juggle either, or tie a cherry stem knot in my mouth.
patience
things to consider in the waiting room:
1. how long has it been?
2. how much longer?
3. remember to listen to the first opinion carefully, even though you know you’ll get a second one.
4. wish the tv was on so you could shout jeopardy answers
5. watch the elevator door as if with each new ding, a new guest at your party
6. stare idly at magazine covers, repeating the headlines over and...
craigslist's hemingway
if you go to the FOR SALE section on craigslist and click on the FREE tab, many entries read very similar to hemingway’s famous six word story “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”
buying things impatiently for use immediately:
cashews and dried cranberries
and a book for the train
i used to do the same as a kid, and put on my new sneakers in the store and wear them home,
but sometimes,
just because i wasn’t allowed to wear shoes inside the house, i’d keep the new shoes in the box, and wear them IN the house, and IN bed. it was never comfortable sleeping...
weather semantics
when it snows, we call it a snow day, and somehow with it comes connotations of FUN! of snow angels and no school and movie marathons, of cake for breakfast and pancakes for dinner.
but when it rains, it’s a delay. rain delay, tennis match on hold, umbrellas up, picnics moved til later. we rush for cover and cancel our day at the beach and look drealily at our summer closet.
to delay, to...
always say hello
she people watches from her window with a pillow propped under her arms and elbows. her elbows like round knobs, her stare, unwavering and warm, like a neighborhood watch, like an owl.
i like to imagine the spontaneous. at any moment she might shower the street with confetti, or empty a bucket of soap. she might break me off a piece of her banana and throw it down and hope that i catch it. she...
when the city gets you down, get up. this was a... →
Franzen just can't fail. →
the city is our playground.
Weekends in the summer are half kid, half grown up. Inevitably, my childhood and all things related to being seven, related to scraped knees and Popsicle stains, surface.
Examples:
1. Ordered margaritas after a long walk in and around Mccaren Park. They were served in white Styrofoam to-go cups, with a lid for safety and a straw to slurp. To slurp like we slurped on Slushies after school. The...
like Goldilocks
house sitting is the closest i will get to living in the movies. i am existing seamlessly as myself in somebody else’s world. i am entirely there/here among nothing that is mine.
like trying on your mother’s clothes when you’re a child, her shoes, her flowy lady things: no curves to fill the dress, and feet too small to walk with grace. and so, you stomp in heels, funnily, that...
wednesday night.
long day that ended with the sort of sigh, the sort of collapsing punctuation of idly hailing a cab and falling into its seat. glistening oil-spill-wet-streets and a cab driver who’d just ordered some fish and rice, who told me that on slow nights, he eats, and worries that he’s gaining weight because of it, and that his lady will be upset with him if he gets fat. he struggled to find...
“On n’aime que ce qu’on ne possède pas tout entier”
– Marcel Proust
"all happy families..."
i love this. a friend of mine tells me how it goes when his parents bring him and his younger brother to dinner parties.
he says, “my dad gets a little tipsy and soon he’s telling my brother and i how beautiful his wife is.”
there’s an undeniable dynamic to certain families.
