Bering Strait Expressway Saturday, Dec 30 2006 

the luminescent grey that woke me up at nine this morning reminded me of a half-moon window on torch lake and the tragedy of time zones. i am lying on a cerqu-air mattress, wet hair tangled in a towel, while peter breathes and bundles into the pastels. last night, with bernice’s gps-fantastic aid, we went to a hookah bar in downtown cleveland, with disco lights and would-be sexy girlfriend belly-dancers in target boots and jeans with no back pockets. our hookah was retrofuturistic red and the peach made my lungs sleepy. it was a spirograph like i haven’t seen in months. christina stole the spotlight and made the dual frumpsters gaze down frumpily into their mocktails. kate received a team member with a small head and atrocious facial hair that framed his face like a skinny toilet seat cover. they played sandstorm.

later, at the house, emmet went all-out fred astaire with boo-boo, cookies became cookies, and i ate a lot of carrots. who knew there was so much gluten in a slim jim? companions come in tomorrow; they will be smothered and fed and shorter than all of us. late december is all about alliances.

Gingerbread Electric Men Wednesday, Dec 27 2006 

i lay on the dock for so long earlier this week that my freckles began to reemerge. the trio has upped and offed to annapolis to meet with one of the world’s premier sports medicine doctors, because god forbid leigh should miss a season of softball. i do sympathize; her kneecap has been wonky off and on and refuses to stay where it should. i counseled her in the car, however, to take a break from all of this athletic frenzy, join the choir, and try a stint in Magalia. perhaps someday in the future i will look back and realize that the only thing worse than rabid soccer moms are a capella eurythmics covers with full hand motions.

coffeei have been banish-ed in consideration of the burly, grunting repairment who have descended on my house, rendering our electrical system unusable and highly dangerous. given fifty-five minutes to dry my hair and use the toaster, i took a zombie shower and dried my hair over wheaties. really now, who buys wheaties? but tomorrow is the day. i shall not say for what lest it interfere, but i have so many blessings. for now, coffee shop respite. a little boy was too shy to borrow my second chair. i wish i could thought-speak.

p.s. oh my god, nikol is engaged.

L on Purpose by Accident (Another Year) Tuesday, Dec 19 2006 

birthday parties rememblered.

on a narrow, well-traveled road, somewhere in the wooded hills outside of hagerstown, i finally got to do “the thing.” the thing entails pulling over to the side of the road for emergency vehicles; the surprise was the taste of metal in my mouth as the ambulance screamed by. i had envisioned firetrucks and fido — but i will never forget this fear. it was a sibling-retrieval mission that sent me there, eight hours of the mid-atlantic and the most promising reunion. things have changed, as i babysitter-daydreamed at fourteen while wicker chairs and scissors flew at my locked door. we are friends. weird, weird, friends, with irreconcilable CD collections, but who share something so obvious and unnerving that it brought me to tears on the southern span of the bay bridge. also, i generously blasted akon on the penna turnpike, for at least one track, or until i tried to pretend i had a lowrider (?) and almost killed a member of the roadside chain gang.

winter has brought us scarfless days, and i have wandered philadelphia with a bare, pre-florida neck. i miss the bracing mornings, but city streets and my father would suffice. i used to beg geny gomez to let me run to the edge of the block to hide behind the azaleas so i could walk the last minute home with dad. there is an unfarmiliar program tutorial on my computer with the default information filed for a woodland drive that makes me miss our trembling banisters. the two of us drove together but parted at the parking garage, days in the district beginning coolly in the shadows of eye street. i questioned my own age at the shoe counter, confused by my reflection in the polished silver trim, and almost bought a ridiculous pair of manolo blahniks to prove something.

despite the chocolate fountain, which flowed like an exploding candy spinnaker, i am still very young. fuck nineteen. trial two: reaching younger. maybe the discomfort there will relieve me.