every

"I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind! The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building."

--Charles M. Schulz, afterthought to Dana Adam Shapiro's the every boy

i almost cried a tear when i finished this book. brilliant and brief, the sweet adolescence of shapiro's narrative hit me hard. i never had a henry every growing up. i always wondered about jonathan and wiley, if there was ever any truth in adolescent obsession. note-writing and furtive hand-holding in darkened hallways was as far as i ever got. danny stole an unmarked bottle of perfume from his mother, and nick made me a bookmark with a few school portraits and permanent marker hearts. when i hit age 11, i got braces and cut my hair, and the dreamy days of boys pining for my quick wit and loud mouth were over. they had wised up, grown out of me, and so i retreated into books i almost couldn't understand (portrait of an artist, too intellectual, secret garden, a former true favorite of mine, a bit mundane) and wrote blindly on lined pages.

henry wrote and color-coded his ledger - my entries are never as precise, nor as complex. i crave the expression of a written word, and so i write, not knowing what comes next.

"ratatouille," though it lagged at points, was simply delightful. the scene where he is chased along the seine reminds me of the night i tripped on a rat coming down some stairs with a certain someone. except the rat in the movie charmed the heck out of a gloomy, stubborn food critic. the one i saw just made me shudder.

teaching flute to caitlin this weekend, but this time i have a sweet ride, a silver honda fit. it still smells new, but it's half-mine. i keep it locked with a purple club that i hope will keep it from getting nicked in new york.

here's to discovering the smallest, darkest salsa clubs (that don't persist in playing crappy bachata and too much merengue) in new york city, and maybe an african dance studio specializing in congolese dance.