Pocket Heart.

Spring Fever came and went with a cool breeze, and Summer Fling reared its pretty little head with little more than the standard sunburn. Now here it is, Fall, and all I've got, all I suspect to see- unless something in me changes like the leaves soon will- is this set of light bruises where my skinny hips met his. Whether it was the weight of him on top of me hoping for more against my relentless foreplay-to-nowhere, or the weight of my disinterested mind seeking solace in dreams of someone else that pressed me into the mattress and actually left them, I'm not sure, but all the same another man left some impression on me.

I pitied him for embracing my disinterest. I know he sensed my mood shift like you can tell the first Fall temperature drop. He could feel my mind weave in and out, his heart searching for mine, even if just to engage me a little more in the moment and make me change my mind about getting a little bit more undressed.

Perhaps some people think that hearts are available if you just reach in the right pocket. But some pockets are sewn up, no matter how hard you try rip the stitching. He dug around a few times, but came up empty-handed. I suspected it wouldn't be worth it so just nodded my head "no" and watched his face fall like a little boy whose just knocked his ball into the neighbor's yard and would rather let them bring it back then go and get it to keep on playing. A little saddened by his defeat for a moment, I was relieved and tired of playing too.

Maybe I need a better pick-pocket. Depending on what I wear, sometimes those pockets are just hard to find.

Here kitty, kitty.

They say curiosity killed the cat... well I think that damn cat was just bored.

The So-Called Day of Rest

Sunday.

I feel funny about Sundays. Like the way you feel about a man you just don't trust, an ominous cloud in the distance, the too-quiet office, a Chinese place that serves hamburgers and Philly Cheese steaks. Somethings just not right. Some of my best days have been Sundays, and some of my worst. I forget a lot of things, really its terrible; but Sundays I just can't shake, like a fucking bad habit.

I used to spend Sundays with my ex - almost two years tangled up in the ritual of it all. Breakfast in and out of bed, NPR, showers together, conversations of futures, orange juice and coffee, music. Complete with a little afternoon delight and his isolating state of anxiety and inexplicable depression. Turns out he was just trying to figure out how to go back to his former life and didn't know how to break the news to me. I guess that can bring a perfectly good Sunday down for anyone.

So much time has passed since then; but even now I crave that ceremony in my Sunday; and yet want to bury it. I have new Sundays, new rites, but some where along my lazy day those hours spent with him rear up like the memory of a sin in church. Perhaps being a good Catholic girl has the same implications. I don't know what that means exactly as I have long attended tradition burials instead of Masses, but I continue to keep my spirituality undead (I suppose that implies that my faith is a vampire? Hmm.).

Every Sunday after church when I was a kid, we went to Nana and Granddaddy's for lunch to eat a big Southern meal prepared by Nana herself. Mac n' cheese, creamed corn, green beans, mashed potatoes, pot roast, jello pie. The cousins, all 17 of us now, played in the yard, built forts, hid fake money, learned how to win at cards. The adults talked about adult stuff until they got bored enough to teach us something cool. Just as we never lacked in sustenance, we never lacked in love, and every Sunday we surrounded ourselves in food and thanks for the many and plenty of our brood. Those Sundays are now reserved for birthdays and Holidays and infrequently occur on the actual day of rest. People pitch in and make a dish - each time cheapening the recipe with canned this or frozen that instead of fresh.

Much like the recipes, the family is changing too. People have died, are dying, live far away, somehow don't make it home again. Another Sunday ship sailed off the map. For the so-deemed day of rest I seem to find little of it.

Today, however, this Sunday, I do find comfort in knowing that I have a fridge packed with fresh okra, squash and tomatoes that I plan to cook tonight for my own Ex-Patriot Southern dinner. I find it in that I did not spend my Sunday with a man I don't trust. In that, there is not a single cloud in the sky while I sit on my porch writing this post. In that, I have an unidentified spirituality untied from built ritual that is mine and mine alone. In that, even though Sundays make me feel funny, they make me feel fine.

Welcome to the Oven

Sylvia Plath would be disappointed, there's no gas in this oven. Its just pure, hot summer, baby. I mean, we ain't in Austin, but the Swamp's getting to people; making 'em cranky. I met a girl the other night who wouldn't shake my hand for a proper introduction because she was too sweaty. Come on now, I understand fore-going a hug goodbye, but damn, no handshake? We are all sweaty. We are all glistening, dehydrated, shade-seeking, ice cream-craving, arm pit-stained, hair-stuck-to-your-forehead-in-the-most-unattractive-way, swampy complainers. But damn, when you meet someone new, you shake hands. Make it official, man.

I don't think she was Southern (I say with an Elvis lip-curl scowl). I'm just sayin'.

My trip to Austin felt like I got dropped off in the middle of the flames of a brick oven, and my fingertips exchanged pleasantries with more palms than I can recall. Not that Texas is necessarily the South, but its something all its own and I liked the part of it I got to see. And that was June. Its now August, and hello...

Other things I find hot as hell: an August wedding in Tennessee, even at 7pm; booking it down the sidewalk on Park Street, late to an appointment because I jumped on the metro in a hurry- the wrong damn way; having to blow dry my hair so I don't look like a mushroom; Shia LeBeouf... mmmmm; making out in the pool to get hot (and keep cool).

Speaking of keeping cool. That's a good one, too. like the AC blasting all the time; listening to music when I walk down the street and hearing a song that makes me walk a little taller; a great haircut; an idea brewing; even on like reaching in the fridge to grab jalepanos as the last spicy topping on Black Bean Soup, just before discovering that your roommate has eaten the last of them. Oh wait- not cool.

"Live and Let Die" by Guns n' Roses

I sit, well I lay really, listening to bands I love cover songs that I love from other bands that I love. I feel at once warm by the compilation and yet betrayed by the break in pacts and packs of creativity. I am haunted by these covers, falling into my past, unsure if I want to be tucked in.

Smelling these crisp clean Spring sheets reminds me of Sunday mornings - sleeping late, twenty pounds ago, eating cheese grits, bacon and scrambled eggs. These voices seeping out into the night remind me of your stupid self. You're not unlike a cover song, charming yet dis-alarming.

I guess being in the covers of the past while in your favorite present isn't all that bad. I do love Guns n' Roses version of "Knockin' on Heavens Door" and "Sympathy for the Devil" - seriously. I might as well love my past and tuck it under the covers to go to sleep with my warm toes.

The Weight of Wishes

I put a wish on Yoko Ono's Wish Tree at the Hirshhorn yesterday, but I'm a little unsure about it.
You're supposed to walk up and, with a little pencil like the ones at miniature golf, write your wish on a designated piece of paper with a special little rope, then tie it to a tree (that strangely looks like what I imagine a Dogwood would if it were unripened fruit and not a tree).

Although I feel mixed about Yoko, as any I pick John over Paul Beatle fan, I liked the look of it, and the idea. And despite being out of paper tags, I indulged in her artistic expression and took the little pencil to the tree to find the empty back of an already -placed wish.

Others around me had led the way, but I some how felt guilty of tarnishing someone else's wish. As if somehow the weight of my wish on the back of theirs would prove to pull it down and offer it less of chance of coming true. Like the kid at the party who blows out more of the candles on the cake than the birthday girl in a daze of excitement, nostalgia and desire for another wish.

I found one I liked, now not recalling what moment from that stranger's stream of consciousness poured onto the little page, and cradled it in my hand gently, as if plucking an eyelash off their cheek upon which to wish if it landed in the right finger, and began to write on the blank back.

I wish for truth and love. I blushed and turned awkwardly.

As I walked away from the little tree with its little wishes on little paper, written with little pencils, I felt how very big those wishes are. My wishes. And there were two of them. Great. I added baggage to someone else's wish, and then to my own. My guilt crept slowly... as I pondered whether it would matter to if I put more than one, if my greed would deem one more fulfil able by the universe than the other. I know that is absurd, but the mind races when confronted with wishing.

Then I thought about it today. I'm already surrounded with love. Maybe I could use a little truth to guide me back to it. I may have laid heavy wishes upon heavy wishes...we shall see. Until then, I think I'll stick to light wishes on stars, if I can see any through the city haze.

I saw a Baldwin today but was too distracted to take it in.

So, I was walking down 17th and P and out of nowhere came a fucking Baldwin. I think it was Stephen, the really weird one that was in Bio-Dome with Pauly Shore but has now given up acting to be a psycho-Christian. He looked strange, I think, fake teeth - caps probably - but honestly, I didn't really pay attention because I was
a) talking to my mom on the phone
b) arriving at my destination of the bar and
c) worried that my red pants indeed give me a camel toe.

So, unless its the hot Baldwin, I ain't stopping.