Easy-Bake-Oven

"You're a weirdo. You don't watch TV and you don't know how to use a microwave." True claims. I'm about sixty years behind the wave. Having said that, I recently heated up some puttanesca [see microwave] and then watched Desperate Housewives [see hulu]. I thought DH was going to be repulsive [see awful acting and hot moms] but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I jumped into the sixth season, in which the neighborhood boy morphed into a psychokiller. I'm talking cake in the kitchen and then strangling on the street. Bizarro. I've never kept up with TV but I think there's something to it. It's a playground, a dreaming medium for all sorts of dark fantasies and comedic routines. I may buy a box of pop tarts and hold all my calls. What's a toaster again?

Olive Branch

I was once a delinquent Jewish scholar. Let me explain. I received a letter in the mail from my mom today (bless you, Wendy Sue), and enclosed was a b&w photo from my bat mitzvah. In the image, I'm inches from crying, sitting next to my Hebrew tutor. We'll call him EB. EB was a serious man, with graying hair and a parrot named Chick. In the evenings during our studies, Chick would mosey down the table, sometimes walking near my tea, sometimes sitting on my papers, careless. In his thick accent, EB would call to her and extend a finger, and she would alight onto his hand. Those vesper sessions frightened me: would the bird peck me? would i ever sing the prayers in correct intonation? I made so many mistakes in those days: showing up to temple in sandals on the sabbath, procrastinating on anything and everything religious. I was a hot mess. Even now, thinking of EB's clean square nails and deep gaze gives me a little shiver. I think I'll write EB a note, check in on the bird. Maybe she's flown the coop, or maybe she's waiting for me to extend the olive branch. As of now I'm a bagels- and-lox Jew but it might be nice to dig a bit deeper, see how things have changed.

A Walk in the Garden of Delights

If last weekend was a succulent piece of fruit, let's say a Florida orange, then this is my attempt to squeeze it dry of all its nectar. I should have written everything down in my little notebook, recording it for posterity and my future children, but I was too busy adventuring to stop and open my backpack. It was my third Spring Fair (an annual tradition at Johnny Hop) and my most epic yet. Thursday night was the kick off, and lemme tell you, nothing says fun like weird girls from chemistry lab riding a mechanical bull set up in a public quad. Onto Friday. The day was beautiful, warm and golden, and the opening of the infamous Beer Garden. The President's Garden, buttoned up as it usually is with coy pond and blooming trees, is momentarily transformed into a den of sin, complete with kegs, booths, inflatable cacti, drunken students, and Baltimore hangers on. It's glorious. I had never been before and walked in eagerly with bracelet and tickets, ready to booze. There we sat, drinking Twisted Tea and Coors Light for hours and hours, basking in the grass and gossiping about every meathead who walked by. The drinking was punctuated by trips to the freshmen quad for turkey legs, deep fried oreos (you can deep fry anything apparently), pad thai, or indian sample platters. Yum yum yum. Saturday passed in much the same way, with lots of drunken hugs and dancing in the grass. That evening was the first ever "Underground Dance Party." The Spring Fair committee orchestrated a rave in a campus garage, complete with glow sticks, police force, and DJ Scotty B. It was kind of amazing: droves of students showed up with hazy eyes and a fierce need to PARTY. I got in, bopped to the speakers, and promptly heard "Yo, the Baltimore police want to shut this bitch down!" We left and headed above ground. Sunday morning, us eco friendly kids boarded a bus outside Mason Hall headed for the DC Climate Change Rally. The event was on the National Mall and featured Passion Pit, The Roots, Booker T, Bob Weir, Joss Stone, James Cameron, Bill Clinton (on skype!), Margaret Atwood, etc etc. Thousands of people showed up with water bottles and linen bags, eager for music and believing, if just for a moment, in their own capacity for change. We stood for hours in the blistering sun, waiting for Passion Pit, wiping the sweat off, and joking about the Vegans encroaching closer. My boy Yip threatened to put on bacon deodarant just to stave them off. Vegans aside, the rally was an iconic moment for me. DC is a gorgeous city and I enjoyed the eclectic mix of students and bohemians, conservationists and kids. Mr. Nate Byer got his sister and I back stage passes (you rule, Nate!) and so we sat with legs dangling over the scaffolding's edge, watching Sting and Trudie, Questlove and John Legend. I was elated, I won't lie, to see celebrities up so close. I even ran over to a guy in a bowtie and took a picture with him, having no idea he was Dhani Jones, Mr. Football Extraordinaire. Sorry, Dhani, I totally love your muscles. Post rally, Alex and I went for Ethipoian food (conclusion: delicious honey beer, terrifying spongey bread) and explored the city, dancing with politicians and gay boys in cardigans. We finally crashed late, the cat Babs at our feet. And then it was Monday. Today. We roused ourselves, ate some omelets, and took the MARC back, bright and early. The train ride back was the perfect cap to a perfect weekend. I lay with head against the glass, ready for the eventual nap/recharge/adventure ahead. I'm a sleepyhead but it was an excellent weekend, a walk in the garden of delights.

A presto, blogosphere.

Wouldn't It Be Nice

Breakfast at Tiffany's- a tale of American reinvention and style. I read Mr. Capote's story recently and I'm presently inspired by Miss Holly Golightly's tawny hair and spontaneous beauty. I was recently described as a 'chic tomboy' which made me question my pension for jeans and tee-shirts. I'd like to be the type of girl who uncovers her cocktail dress under the bed and spritzes herself with perfume, one foot out the door. In honor of Miss Golightly's soap and lemon joie-de-vivre:

"I went out into the hall and leaned over the banister, just enough to be see without being seen. She was still on the stairs, now she reached the landing, and the ragbag color of her boy's hair, tawny streaks, strands of albino blond and yellow, caught the hall light. It was a warm evening, nearly summer, and she wore a slim cool black dress, black sandals, and a pearl choker. For all her chic thinness, she had an almost breakfast-cereal air of health, a soap and lemon cleanness, a rough pink darkening in the cheeks. Her mouth was large, her nose upturned. A pair of dark glasses blotted out her eyes. It was a face beyond childhood, yet this side of belonging to a woman."

Let's get glamorous, y'all!

Leaping

Down/ down/ down the bed sank, crashing through the wooden floor. There she lay, naked in chalked grass. A tractor appeared from the trees, rolling over the field to meet her. Cowboy drove. They took a tour of the place: the gas station, the ice cream parlor, the insurance corp. He spoke Chinese and she didn’t understand but he smelled nice, like ripe oranges. They stopped in front of a church. It was gray and crumbling and offered SPAGHETTI SOCIALS on Tuesday nights. They alighted to the ground just as the neon sign switched on: REVELATION IS HERE.

Ye Old Corn

The contents of my fridge are disgraceful: old corn, eggs (Molly's), stick-o-butter, and wheat bread. It's the age of the re-re-re-mix so I'll look up some recipes with the epicuriousapp and throw some veggies in a pan. It's all very bohemian anyway, right? Luxury gadget speaking to molding cheese? A no-waist line and a timeless dress.

The Smoking Nun

The Smoking Nun inhales, cigarette dangling from religious lips. Is she smirking cause she knows something Divine? Did she skim the sublime with those ashen fingertips? What's she thinking? If I lit a cigarette and covered my hair, would I plug into the Cosmic Computer, the one filled with microchips and coded beauty and equations for grace? I'll hire a sherpa and climb on his back, traveling to the mountaintop with a woven backpack and a Menthol burning to the quick, lighting the dry air, illuminating the toxic, the golden dust. I want a truth to hold close. I want to run across Fellini's black and white beach and drag in the unblinking sea urchin, the one held fast in netting, but emancipated by the ocean's truth.

Please Don't Stop The Rain

Geez,I haven't written in ages. I apologize, loyal readers. I've been lacking in inspiration. I could talk to you about Dogwood trees, days of rain, the babies BBQ-ing, the emails overseas, the vegetables growing, the dead decomposing, the clothes in my closet, the semester that's ending so quickly, the life that's about to be lived. It seems that as I glide into the future, I'm arrested in the past. Rome Rome Rome. I miss Via Annia and our tiny balcony and the Signora screaming at her dog and the wandering wandering wandering and the feeling of endless bliss overtaking me. I was swinging free, we, me, a little eternitee. I'm fiending for the past, for marble steps leading to anywhere.

Tap Dance

I'm breaking pieces from a chocolate easter egg and listening to Frank Sinatra. The joints in my hands hurt. I should go to sleep, let the cells regenerate and all that. I had a dream the other night that I was in the backseat of a Buick, lying across the lap of a man named Anxious. As a car backed up, he said "wait up, Divine." You never know what's waiting for you in sleep. A tap dance with Fred Astaire?