Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

I've been back from my summer away for nearly two months. I finally put all my jewelry away that had been sitting in a lock box. I'd fish out a piece every now and then, but mostly I'd been wearing the hull I'd pulled out for the summer. That's how these things usually go. Yet, as I pulled the pieces from the box, I wasn't prepared for the memories woven into silver and stone. The black beaded chocker I wore to a friend's Vegas wedding, for which I was the Maid of Honor. She and I don't speak anymore, yet I can't pass on the necklace I've long not worn. It hangs on a back hook in the jewelry case, so I rarely see it. Memories of our twenty-year friendship linger, pervasive, and are here to stay like a roach infestation that baffles the best Orkin man, yet I won't reach out. Read a few posts back, as my heart doesn't have it left in me.     I don't have jewelry from my sister. There's a ring I bought for my Dad to give her. It'...

The snow falls, daffodils bought last week droop from the mason jar long wilted, dried flowers--from the fall--still stand in another mason jar providing another touch of me in this space as dried bouquets have long intrigued me, the lone orchid stands dying as a reflection of my mood and life as of late, my foot aches in the backdrop, and music no one wants to listen to plays.  Sad songs.  Moods and memories.  In the shower, I notice a new bruise on my shoulder.  I wonder when it came to be, where it came from, and why I didn't see until now.  Did I do that in my sleep? Was it someone on a crowded subway? It's the wrong shoulder for my handbag. I wash my hair and forget about it.  Riddled with aches of Lupus and arthritis I do yoga in my studio.  I can't make it out for a run, as my post-pneumonia lungs are still reminding me of things of I should not do, and pole dance is planned for Friday.  I play mixed songs, of a favorite playlist i...

The daffodils are starting to arrive, as the shop's windows are beginning to show.  Well, hidden behind the layers and mounds of red roses for the upcoming lovers holiday the colors of spring edge through.  None-the-less, I found myself procuring my first daffs of the season as I near annually do.  As in years past, the rain and snow have poetically encapsulated the buy.  Yet, this year, I found myself buying them on a seemingly bright, sunfilled day.  In reality, it was all trickery, as the cold winter wind remained blustery and I could feel slithers of a sharpened frigid blast under the hem of my parka.  Daffodils are fleeting, and the moment of joy of their annual arrival is a glimmer into the wispy darkness that winter brings.  This year the hope and joy eluded me.  The bright flowers, filling my air with their welcoming aroma of fresh life, act as forgotten tchotchkes on the shelves around me.  Those shelves are holding ...

As I rock along the subway line, and pass with throngs of others up and down the stairs, escalators, and ramps, and pour onto the city streets, I can feel the hum of the urban hive.   Its rhythms, its rhymes, its pulse.   It's heartbeat.   These are the things I see.                On an average Monday, with mid-fall overcast skies and leaves beginning to change, billows of steam erupt from the sewers and rooftops.   Those from the lower domains carry the odors of the city, those that out of towners notice and I've long learned to ignore.   The ones from above, I look at them and wonder if they are the cast off dreams of New Yorkers awakening to find themselves in the cog again.   Or, I wonder if they are the cast off dreams of New Yorkers who find themselves awash in regret the morning after, in the middle of, or years into the game.   Are they the bellows of exasperated parents bemoan...

As September cools, and fall begins to awaken, I sit here looking back with a trigger finger gettin' lose and ready on the match.  September, far worse than August, was a surly little chic in too small heels.  Okay, that's a little kind.  She was a surly chick in too small heals needing carbs and a puppy for all the attention she demanded.  Y'all, September needs its own zip code for the love it needs these days.   August might have tried my soul, but damn at least she gave me some breathers and pleasant moments of remiss.  You know, like when the one-time beau met up with me in Denver with a lolli instead of flowers. Yeah, in an aside, pot is legal in Colorado--if you did not know--and so that lolli was a mango flavored THC laden fairy princess ride.  Of course, what I should also remind you is that when one consumes a lolli one should not partake of the entire thing at once and while alone.  Okay, you can . . . But, ya kno...

There's an adage about looking into someone's bathroom cabinet to see a portal to the soul.  The neatness of shelves, the products within, the nature of the hidden beast.  In theory, you'll find the not-so hidden caches of hillbilly heroin and combos of STD creams and fungal disinfectants.  I, like scores of others, don't keep my pills in the bathroom cabinet.  For reasons of science: the changes in room temperature can distort the little gremlins I pop daily to the fact that I keep them on a dresser to see when I first rise and last lie my head every day.  Though, that adage .  . . It's about the secrets, the components, and and the matrixes that make a life. Perhaps my medicine cabinet looks run of the mill.  Perhaps it's a tale of the weary soul . . . an ice bag, band-aids, dental floss, vapor shower tablets to breathe when the next round of bronchitis sets in, heat pads for muscles unable to move on their own, q-tips f...

In the larger realm of all things white people, there is little funnier than a white woman--usually of the clean cut appearance--throwing down to gangsta rap.  And, in that regard I mean messy bun, old sweats fuzzy with holes in them, a white Hanes tee that's probably snug up top as it's from an old lover or some such, and that hair . . . yeah, that's like three day old hair that hasn't been washed.  Yeah, when that woman throws down, starts dropping gangsta signs, slipping out motherfuckers, dicks, and tits while jumping around her house in pure single girl, moment alone, who gives a shit fashion movies always tell us that shit is about to become epic. In that regard, that has been my week.  Epic.  Coffee, bun, sweats, and mother fucking gangsta rap.  Yeah, I dropped that out earlier this week and people who claim to know me jaw dropped like a fat kid salivating for cake.  Except, they weren't wanting cake.  Instead, they were downright flabbergaste...

“Mom.” “Yeah?” “I’m pregnant.”  Tho s e  final four words from Rory Gilmore  have now  erupted  shock waves across the internet, phone lines, and social gatherings.  I, like a large score of others who loved the  Gilmore Girls  show for years, am no exception.  I gasped, I laughed, and I logically saw it as an opening for another revival.  But, as I sat on my bed,  my  knitting falling from my hands, staring solo at my television I couldn’t help but feel a strange mix of nostalgia, anger, let down, and longing wave over me.   For months now I’ve been working on various feminism projects, and in the midst of that I’ve found myself re - watching  Gilmore Girls  as the show has always been my feel-good, go-to, comfort food of no calories.  That combo is hard to find, and about four years ago when Netflix released the entire series I was one of those  mid  thirty-year olds who spent the better p...