christmas eve in borough park

If you want to order real lox and not lox spread on a bagel at the bagel shop on 13th Ave. and roughly 48th St. in Borough Park, be sure to ask for sliced lox. Also, I saw a woman enter a shop and fingertip the mezuzah affixed to the door. I had never seen anyone do that before. It is Christmas Eve, and I'm thinking of all of you and seeing us in old women bundled against the cold choosing the best fruit. From my doorpost to yours, love to you all!

LPA

I could watch the old men in headphones conduct the air for hours.

For days, even.

lately, i've gotten this every night.

Salsa Studio

I was walking down Fifth Ave. the other night, listening to music, swinging my arms, and was able to stop and stare for a long while at a second-floor dance studio. I watched couples learning to salsa while I waited for the light to change.

Seeing glimpses into homes, stores, restaurants - I love it.

I wish I had an invisible cloak.

I don't want to be a creep - I just want to SEE EVERYTHING.

I walked for some time, ending up on top of Sunset Park watching the sky turn red behind Manhattan. I could not help but feel a burst of regret about having squandered my time living one block away from the best place to see the night fall.

street walkin joy

chocolate lab prancing down columbus with his nose sniffing the air.

ladies!

heyyyyyyyyyy!

DEATH BY ADORABLE!

This little girl is KILLING ME! hahahahahahahahahahaha

to hear.

hearing jenny read her poetry made me swell a little bit. i guess i was feeling overwhelmed with emotion because she taught me poetry, brought out a little part of me i didn't know too well or didn't want to know. and the world should hear you, jenny. really. the humor is hiding around the corner, pokin' atcha pokin' atcha.

i thought of brattleboro. and the moose we saw. and the coney island teddy bear.

and sometimes i'm so overwhelmed by the people i know, particularly these strong women. really. it is amazing and breathtaking.

this tuna sandwich.

this tuna sandwich, the one i'm having for dinner, brings me joy. it is because i made it and it is so delicious. i'm talking a nice, solid white albacore. celery. mayonnaise. a nice consistency, though. not too dry, not too wet. ground pepper. salt. dried garlic and oregano. all of that hanging out together.

then i toasted one of those everything bagels from fairway. you know those bagels. lots of seeds and such. garlic. toasted up and then i put the tuna, a fat slice of provolone, some tomatoes and lettuce. more pepper.

so. damn. good.

joy.

train as memoryship

This morning, as the train came up from under Brooklyn Cat Stevens' The Wind started playing - perfectly in time with our release onto the bridge.

The light of the morning was not grey nor white - just sort of dulled natural. I stared out and did not really look at everything I could see. I thought of Harold playing banjo on the cliff. Then I thought of every boy I pined for as a girl. I did not see memoryboys beyond faces - flipped through each face. A memorydeck of girlhood boycards.

Floating into Chinatown I thought of this photograph of my Da as a blonde boy - he is maybe eleven - has a freckled goofy face. The photograph shows one beautiful piece of his hair that is being blown up away from his head - is caught in the wind. I thought of that bit of hair; I thought me too.

O.

also.

today barack obama becomes president of the united states. let's pretend we're all together, watching his speech on youtube and weeping.

fog

i am trying to run again. and there is a bridge over the mckenzie river, not so high that you couldn't safely jump if the water was lower and the air warmer. running across it, beneath whatever song i render perfect for the moment, i can hear the rush of the winter current past the dead trees along the shore. even if i do not slow down, on the bridge everything seems somehow paused, posing. the fog lays over the river like a hovering blanket. in the suspended space between the grassy park populated by geese and homeless people and the mall parking lot on the other side, there is joy.

So Michael and Milto are friends

and they write these really weird and creepy sentences for their vocabulary sentences. Example:

the word was coincidence.

Milto: It was a coincidence that the crane operator mis-guided the beams and they fell on pedestrians.

Michael: It was a coincidence that I was just about to call Milto to see where he was and I saw him out my window and he had a bloody knife.



I mean, I guess it's not joyful, but it made me laugh??

don't take me!

The other day on the train I was wedged between two strollers: the baby in stroller 1 sucked on something pale and white and wrapped its legs around the closest of mine and smiled; the baby in stroller 2 cried, heard its father’s sing song, settled and tried to zip its jacket to mine.

this music is changing my life

last night we hosted the Donny McCaslin Group.

After the show I get to stand next to sign-up sheets and thank everyone for coming and smile at them and it's a lovely exchange.

We have a large population of seniors who take the bus down from their apartment complexes along the parksides up and up. One woman came out and was gathering pamphlets - I thanked her simply - said "thank you for coming" and she stopped dead - her arm still reaching for a pamphlet - touching just the edge of a paper and she said

"They were wonderful. This band. Jazz. This music is changing my life."

I keep thinking of that moment. Her face when she said it.

I really believed her.

sun

although i had just left behind the people i most love in the whole world, i got to see the sun slip between the beams of the verrazano as i drove over it. later, it set behind the smoke from the jersey factories. both were so beautiful.

joy jot journal

i guess today i realized how awesome the people in my life are.

but i also realized how awesome photobooth is as it made me laugh really hard when i saw: