Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

 Sitting an ocean away, on another summer of work via escapism (or is that vice versa), I've finally slowed down to process the past year.  The threats to unalive me from students, my resignation from there, my words being taken out of context (perhaps purposefully) in my day-to-day life and not even personally, to a three-word text, and being back together two weeks later, to being ghosted in the cold squalls of mid-February.  My head still spins at it all, especially with how busy I've been this year.  Though, as these things go, dreams and missed ones cross the mind's eye.  I'm still numb and waking up from the emotional coma.  It's not the emotional coma of 2020-1, but it hits different without a coherent definition or design.     While in France, I found a sense of peace one day.  I was so at ease and comfortable while kayaking that when someone asked where I was from, I answered something else.  Girls on the kayak away respon...

 At twenty-one minutes to midnight, my phone said, "Annessa, We're over."  I couldn't breathe, and I felt my heart stop.  My heart hasn't beat the same in the days since.  Like a country song, it hurts to breathe.  A handful of messages later, after I begged, he called in the cruelty of it all.   Our lives have been playing like a video reel in my mind, and us laughing for no reason while we rolled through yellow lights touching his Jeep's ceiling, driving down from Denver as darkness covered and snow fell. We wondered how anyone in Colorado got out of their driveways alive; we joked they probably weren't from there anyway. Our dogs carry beef rolls in the yard like cigars. Him popping out his elbow for me to take his arm as we walked down streets, across parking lots, or nearly anywhere. Him picking me up at the airport nervous, him picking me up at the airport and wrapping his arms around me to say, "welcome home." Our seemingly endless days an...

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'...

A couple of days ago, Tuesday, to be precise, as I walked down 186th with my dog, flashes of an old memory hit me so hard I nearly fell over. In the five or so minutes it took to get to Broadway, I found myself reliving a long-packed away memory of my sister and her long-gone motorcycle. It was a Honda, as I know someone will ask. Beyond that, my friends, it was silver, and I don't know anything of the makes, models, and snazz of bikes. Yet, I went to see my sister in the summer of 2000 when she first showed me her bikes. Well, they belonged to her and her then-girlfriend.   As sisters will do, the older one convinces the younger to go for a quick ride. Honestly, that wasn't hard. What she didn't realize, and was floored to learn, it was not my first time as a passenger. Though, for me, it was a complete shock that she rode bikes. Look, you all, my sister loved her truck, but she was never the type to devote an intense amount of energy to the road. She loved her speed, but ...

While in Greece, I have clambered down a gorge, floated in Poseidon's waters, probably tempted the wrath of Zeus (this is me after all), wandered aimlessly, made a friend or two (I think), and nearly forgotten what the word trouble means.  Then again, I did say nearly . . . yet, along the way, the biggest thing that has awakened me is the shelling out of a disproportionate amount of my budget on new clothes.  As in, I went to a few big box stores and bought summer attire.  I shelled out some dough at local, Greek shops too.  I mean, I have certainly given more than my fair share to the Greek economy this summer.  I'm here for a few more weeks, and I'm certain local coffee shops (like the one near my flat), some restaurants, and maybe another bar or two will see my cash.  Tis the nature of life.  Yet . . .  I won't say I'm a skinny mini.  Hell, I've never been that.  In high school, my junior year, there's a pic of my Dad and me at the JR...

The view from my terrace.  Do I ever have to say goodbye? It's funny how a language comes back in an instant.  At the end of June, I hopped on a Turkish Airlines flight for Greece, and in that course of life, I found my barely used Turkish coming back as I heard the stewardess talking to each other and passengers.  On that flight, from NYC to Instanbul, I was in the middle seat between two dudes taller than me.  They were both the most polite and kind passengers I've encountered in . . . well, forever.  One insisted on helping me schlep my tote bag to the overhead compartment (my bag of medications, yes . . . and that's embarrassing to have that many prescription drugs for two months).  The other made sure I was left a flight bag and water when I dozed off.  In essence, it was a good combination.  I read, slept, and watched some blah movies.  We all did.   As the flight carried on for nine hours, I responded to the stewardess in Tur...

Two years roundabout, I published a little piece on naked yoga, life, dating, and the dances we all do. The zine is now gone, as these things happen, but I have the rights back. As June tries to swallow me whole, with good things and a swarm of busyness I can't fully comprehend, I thought it would be fitting to re-publish this here.  I'm days away from two months in Greece, with writings, books and plans, and a million other things on the fire. Will I end up naked in Greece? In the shower, certainly. Elsewhere? Who knows. This is me, after all, the perpetual Lifetime Movie in the making.  This piece has remained one of my favorites--aside from a novel I'm hunting for an agent on--and as it's crossed my mind, again and again, I still ponder the simplicity of it all.  It was a perfect evening, one that was meant to last for a moment--as so many relationships and vignettes of life do--but it served a purpose outside of its intent.  It reminds of freedoms and inte...