Geographic History

I was born on Long Island. My mother, a Brooklynite, and my father, from the Bronx, left a little apartment on Staten Island to find a suburban home with full amenities for my sister, two brothers and I. A yard, a swing set, better schools, a red and yellow tulip-lined driveway, etc.

Putting aside their good intentions, whatever it is I saw or experienced on Long Island in my youth lead me to sneak off to Manhattan as soon as I could. To me, Manhattan was a sacred place. It validated my contempt for sheltered suburban life and all of its accompanying pitfalls. It’s vibrant motion both consumed me and sustained me. Often I would call my mother from the Jamaica train station (I LIRRed it to Jamaica and took the subway from there to save some money) and ask her to call me in sick at school. In exchange for this I would hide the Stern's credit card bill before my father got home to see it. I spent my Burger King paycheck on really expensive t-shirts at Patricia Fields and X-girl, vinyl at Kim's and Second Coming and falafel off Thompkins Square Park, rejoicing in the availabililty of food, fashion and music that I found appealing.

These trips to "the city" were an escape, just as sometimes driving east would be as I collected a would-be portfolio of isolated landscapes in eastern Long Island (The parts the strip malls hadn't reached yet.), just as funneling my emotional energy into various unworthy vessels served to inject a bit of romance in the monotony of my life. But sooner than later these excursions and vessels proved to be not enough. I needed to leave the Island for good. Why? Ask anyone else who scaled its walls to freedom. Or ask anyone who choses to stay there. There is often a world of difference between these two individuals. So I wound up 3,000 miles away in Seattle, Washington (Ok, White Center) armed with not more then the under-developed social skills of my past alienation. Considering this, I didn't last too long out west. I also missed New York like an old friend, kind of how I miss Seattle now like an acquaintance I never had the chance to really know.

Where am I going with all this? I don't know. Christina inspired me with her blog about returning home to Texas. I guess I realize now that wherever you go, there you are. The same old you. So my loving NYC is more a love for who I am now. But damn, I love me some of them big soft pretzels.

Hypothermia & Tofutti

Early AM last morning the notion of spontaneity, a couple of nursed Brooklyn Lagers and praises to the seasonal start to jacketless nights delivered some friends and I to the suprisingly soft-sanded shore of Coney Island to splash about in the Atlantic Ocean before the season ripened or the sun rose to show us just what we were wading in. Surprisingly there were other oceanic worshippers who were tempted by the tide though they were far more excessive in their rejoicing the chill of the 50 degrees temps.

What could proceed the climactic follow-through of an idea in haste born upon a rooftop in Williamsburg? Tofutti, ahh tofutti, where are you when I need you? Tofutti Klein-ein-ein-ein...


Alliteration points for this post = 10.

Grant Stayton III quotes = 1.

Resting and Peace

Joey departed for Detroit this afternoon. Someone who was very special to him passed away. Kinda makes my newly kitty-nibbled house plant and 3-hour final last night seem trivial. And of course they most certainly are. I have no real problems. I am healthy (and superstitious, as I knock on my formica desk), have a rather bulbous cushion of constant love from a darling man, an only moderately dysfunctional family, an adequate social pool of interesting and lovely beings, a semi-tolerable job with a host of perks and an outstanding gpa, trimming the hedges of my real career path. I get my catharsis from music and movies and occasionally books when I have time to read about something other than pedagogy. Each limb of my being is extended and soaking in Palmolive or being tickled by a feather. I'm green when it comes to loss.

There are plenty of people I have known that I would be perfectly content with not seeing again for the rest of my life. Some who have known me intimately or put forth varying degrees of effort to do so. Some who I've loved, in the most loose translation of the word, from the sidelines or through my rose-colored glasses, the sometimes-victims of my circumstance, my introjects. There are others that seep through. They claim whole chapters in your life and remain a vivid image amongst all the clutter. Those who, if lost, can shake the foundation of one's head, heart and soul. I know that that is how Michelle was to Joey.