here am i

back blogging in new york, amidst the heat and wasps and clever mice. things start anew tomorrow, i should hear about kobe by the end of the month. i spose it's about as likely as winning the lottery, but i will start to look at chant de linos and perhaps memorize cpe bach anyway.

tai sophia was reposeful, even through the last few weeks of revamping and shelving. the store looks beautiful - props to the crew (david, bien sur, john boland and sharon) and the newbies (christina and kimbra). hopefully they'll live through the rush without me.

the house is quiet, for the moment, and i have a ball of yarn just itching to be started into a scarf. clio felt sicky, so i did a little yoga and am in for a little tv on my computer over dinner before practicing.

cosmic karma

i don't believe in all the "woowoo" or "wuwu" stuff, howeveryouspellit (rushdie-ism, you've caught me cherry-red handed), but i do hold some confidence in karma. i don't read my charts every day, but i feel like something greater is puppeteering my life. ever get that?

i read a lot, sometimes i get lost in it, submerged, mindfully less than capacity. my eyes hurt from staring at the screen. my finger has stopped bleeding, stopped feeling so numb, but i'm still reluctant to leave the bandage behind. it's a symbol. why don't oboe players constantly cut themselves with reed knives?

people i know are traversing the globe, playing with good people. ô when?

art happens when you're convinced you're doing it. tadeu coelho wasn't far off the mark.

words for thought:

pablo neruda
"ode to ironing"

Poetry is white
it comes dripping out of the water
it gets wrinkled and piles up
We have to stretch out the skin of this planet
We have to iron the sea in its whiteness
The hands go on and on
and so things are made
the hands make the world every day
fire unites with steel
linen, canvas and calico come back
from combat in the laundry
and from the light a dove is born
purity comes back from the soap suds.

[trans. Jodey Bateman]

richard will find something on long island. sean is in love. clio is in germany.

i am here, now, and it is enough.

humming

i've raided the public library and wake from sleep as from a deep stupor. once my dream had a soundtrack, which was weird because that never happens. you'd think, of course! she musicks all the time, but. it was in florida, reinecke's ondine, romantic and turbulent.

i've been remiss, needlessly. sometimes i have the attention of a fruit fly. the headache from 10 hours in the tampa airport remains. james paced in circles, my dad slipped in and out, groaning at my requests for help with puzzles, i stretched yogically, practically still for a few hours at a time, thinking, trying to stay awake.

i remember once i was walking home from school, 14 maybe, spring-ish, i was lost in my own as usual, singing something to myself, and someone passed me and said "nice voice" and i snapped out of it, quickly. people are listening even when they're not.

another time, i slipped and fell backwards on the ice. my backpack weighed maybe 50 pounds.

i need to go back to paris.


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Now playing: Nellie McKay - Manhattan Avenue
via FoxyTunes

edge

it's a process- clearing out the clutter, holding onto what sticks, not going blind in the process. on the docket: tolstoy's karenina, pinsky's the figured wheel (am i in a place than can again fathom prose poetry?), and perhaps a dose or two of faulkner.

i crave the quad-ruled, bound pages of the french, the rambling ways of atwood's narratives and foer's plots, the gentle arpeggios of segovia in concert, a clear path in the carpet for a yoga mat.

i want sara bareilles's album little voice for days that are unbearably, unforgivably hot (and it's only early june...), lavender-mint candles for my soul, and a cool breeze on warm skin. no simultaneity necessary.

soon to be: road trip (ish) out to see micah and some nyc-ish kids, in no uncertain order alex conway, tito, justin wolf, nora krohn, and dave vasold, if he can ever come up for air from rebecca's.

here's to friends: alison melville; alex conway; and the incandescent scribbles of sean.

letters

i speak of cold purpose because the words don't flow like water from my pen anymore.

home is a familiar fog, blurry and bittersweet. people are growing up all over the place, nathan to penn for law school, jane to med school in baltimore, hannah deferring to both of her top choice colleges and trying for a job at tomato palace. i somehow thought (in vain) when i went away that everything would crystallize.

seeing kevin was brilliant; reminded me of my roots and who i was once. he's grown his hair without abandon...and i've chopped mine and now it stands untethered.

i heart a few things these days -- simply orange juice, pomegranate dark chocolate chip haagen dazs ice cream, avocados and fuji apples in salads.

tonight: indian food chez moi followed by the new indiana jones movie in the theaters. attended by my parents and richard the blankman.

Pablo Picasso
Guitar, Sheet Music, and Wine Glass
1912
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio

audrey's gone

and michelle's basically moved out of our casa.

this week:

• today...café mozart with the lovely lisa cohen, clio's viola recital at juilliard, afterparty in the bronx
• tuesday...dinner for derin and cesare (ratatouille! among other things.)
• wednesday...guggenheim with kevin lubrano (!) then dinosaur bbq in harlem with some purchase kids
• thursday...packin'
• friday...lunch at jean-louis, possible shift at rebecca's
• saturday...cookin for some waitstaff (black beans and rice, homemade guac, sangria?)
• sunday....skippin town.

and that, my friends, is how we go out in style.

Cai Guo-Qiang, "Inopportune: Stage One" (2004)

soon to be

back home in the not-quite-paradise of columbia, md.

today:

• ride to nyc on the big yellow buses (tyler wore my hat to keep warm)
• concert with pso at symphony space under maestra tania león
• quick trip to the store where i not quite raided the produce section for bananas, blackberries, blueberries, yellow and green bell peppers, italian eggplant, onion, and salad greens
• dinner of pasta with eggplant, tomatoes, green/yellow pepper, onion and copious amounts of garlic plus some grilled chicken i had in the fridge, plenty of fresh ground pepper and dried rosemary + a salad of mixed greens, blueberries, scallions and dry toasted pine nuts with a white balsamic/dijon mustard vinaigrette (could have been better with warm goat cheese à la bar harbor, maine) while watching a rerun of "reaper"

tomorrow, last shift at the library...*sniff* and lunch parties with fellow circs and tutors. last meeting with carol bankerd (it's been an intriguing semester) and an evening of bassoon music.

i am reluctant to box my stuff up because that would mean that i have to start looking for places to live again. can't i just keep the kitchen and my bed forever? the set up is pretty sweet.

thoughts on projects to come: working for cirque du soleil seems amazing...but what do they look for, exactly? who is ideal? i feel conventional.

i need something to work towards.

when i was in paris, at first, when i felt like a fish out of water (different pond to be sure), i would read tintin comics every day. they had all the old ones in the bedroom. just picture me, in my little lofted bed, reading aloud old french slang.

taken at the hergé centennial exhibition in paris last year. meredith, dina, bevin and i were there!