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'...

It's been a while, is an understatement.  Then again, those who know me remember last year.  2019 entered with double pneumonia and quarantine for a false TB scare, a month later I broke my foot and double tore the plantar fascia, the hits kept coming, and in December I had surgery to repair the foot and ended the year with influenza. Last year tried my soul, nearly killed me, and I was barely standing when it ended. Damn. I shut myself down, and I compartmentalized to survive, to find a laugh, to capture a sight, and to carry-on.  Then, by late February, I was finally coming out of the ashes, getting life back, moving again. I got back into shoes and some heels, made it back to pole dancing classes, but then the world stopped. COVID-19 hit. Well, it came. Hard. First, the suburbs of Seattle--my first hometown--and then it grew. Now, as the world knows, NYC is the US epicenter, and Queens is the epicenter of the epicenter. I live here. I call this ten-story town...

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...

Perhaps it is this time of year.  Perhaps.  Though, this time of year typically means I've bought myself daffodils.  Ironically, I did not buy them in the rain this year.   Someone told me a few weeks back I was very Wadsworth with the daffodils.  Perhaps.  The English Major for Life in me wants to agree with his own English degree self, but the feminist in me wants to knee gut that shit.  I think I'll step back and take the romantic imagery of Wadsworth instead.  "A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze." Indeed, probably one of the more famous poems of the language I type in.  "I Wandered Lonely on a Cloud" was one I recited back in my undergrad days for a lit professor I once had.  All that was a lifetime ago, scores and hundreds of daffodils purchased have come and gone.  As another arctic vortex swoops in, threatening to freeze me in my solitary ex...

As January is only eighteen days in, and I'm failing at life and 2019, I sit here wondering when the swells of damage will subside.  Perceptions will always fool you. In seven days: I lost one of my emergency contacts as she made it clear she wanted to know my contingency plan.  Well, it was never for her to take care of me.  So, I won't bother her again.  That one rips me to my core as I've never asked anyone to take care of me.  I'm done being there for people, as in the end . . . Had someone comment, more than once, that we've known each other for a long time.  Well, we've known each other so long that he lied to my face.  Even more: he doesn't know me.  At all.  He doesn't know my brother's name, my favorite color or flower, doesn't know that he's a big reason the occasional date usually ends as a dud as the dude across the table falls flat in comparison.  He doesn't know I still remember the day he told me to call him by his...

I stopped writing for a while.  Well, here I did.  Writing, though, is a daily occurrence.  There's a new novel in the works, even though I'm still committing guerilla warfare on trying to find an agent.  Or something like that.  More like they are committing omission by silence or bizarre notes of "we love what we read, but we can't take you."  Sounds like the story of my life.  Always.  Auto, rinse, repeat. There's a new academic piece coming out next month, or this. . . Depending on the press's literal press.  There's a new academic piece, part of the forthcoming monograph I have a soft offer on, coming out next fall.  My last monograph should hit paperback next month.  There's a short story under final review.  Wouldn't that be grand?  The one aspect of my life I haven't broken into the publishing world on that I always said was what I wanted to do. As of recent, I'm waking up from seven days in the hospit...

As the air chills, well freefall to six degrees above freezing, I find myself drinking tea in my favorite NYC cup with fuzzy socks on and my favorite university pullover.  My hair is up in a messy bun, and since I'm not planning on washing it tonight, the said style should make it bouncy for tomorrow.  Or . . . Or it will be a dry shampoo Monday, which sets an entirely new tune for the week.  You probably think I'm listening to rap and white girl rolling it out.  Not today, my friends.  It's late on a Sunday.  Sunday's are no place for rap.  Mondays, now, are a different story.  Instead, I've got an even whiter mix of mellow and slow songs going that I've had on repeat for two days.  I make no apologies, as sometimes we just need the same twenty songs to move us along.  Sometimes.  This is all sounding pretty white bougie right now.  I probably shouldn't tell you I had a gluten-free blueberry bagel this mo...

Last month, in what has become a yearly tradition, I replenished my soul in the Rockies.  Climbs along trails, falls along paths, and miles alone, and one hike with a partner all brought me endless doses of vitamin D and countless moments of elongated breathes and moments that will bounce in my mind's eye for days and years to come.  Sometimes the weather, the gods, and the universe align.  As I've alluded before, the Rockies and Colorado tend to bring out the universe aligning for me.  That being said, along the way I'm reminded of things.  Well, more than just things per se.  A couple of years ago I published one of my favorite pieces.  Yeah, I know . . . I shouldn't play favorites with the writings, so please don't tell the others.  But, my little piece on the transcendence of the soul in Turkey still rings true on many levels.  Even more so, or more of a side note, every time I head to the Mediterranean it turns into a comedic sideshow ...

As life goes, last summer I found myself looking at the heartland's horizon, and this summer I'll be duplicating and extending some of these travels.  And with that, I have thoughts.   Yes, I was in the American Midwest, rolling my economical car forward, with iTunes blaring, and some flavored water at my side.   In a poetic manner of speaking, I woke up and found myself on the road.   Though, as we all know, the realities of life don't afford for that.   Instead, I had spent weeks planning, crafting ideas in the wee hours of insomnia on my Pinterest boards, and I had prepped my car.   I had ample data for my GPS, I had a cooler with bottled water and a couple of sandwiches, I had carrot sticks, and I had a somewhat curated playlist.   What that came down to was my asking friends for road trip songs and adding their suggestions to my questionable music library.   I planned to stop and see some old friends, from college and before, but as...