Everything was perfect. The a/c was working. I had worked till about 8:30 PM. I ate tomatoes with olive oil and salt and some crackers and had a glass of wine. I was ready for bed. I wrote one last email to T. I shut everything down and went to my bed. I read. I went to sleep. THEN at 3AM my doorbell rang and scared the life out of me. I got up. My…
Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you. Feliz Cumpleaños a ti, Feliz Cumpleaños a ti. Sretan rodendan Arlene Sretan rodendan Arlene Zelimo ti svi mi.
When is enough ever enough? I have counted the minutes (34,560), the hours (576), the days (24) of this separation – to think the first leg of it was to be two and a half months – as if! – and I know we will have to endure half this time again soon – and yet, this morning my breath quickens, my heart is heavy, my thoughts feel a dull hammer beating out this mantra…
By August Kleinzahler Copyright 1999 by August Kleinzahler Watching Young Couples with an Old Girlfriend On Sunday Morning – How mild these young men seem to me nowwith their baggy shorts and clouds of musk, as if younger brothers of the women they escort in tight black leather, bangs and tattoos, cute little toughies, so Louise Brooks annealed in MTV, headed off for huevos rancheros and the Sunday Times at some chic, crowded dive. I don’t recall it…
City Park has workers a plenty cleaning up for Jazz Fest. All of the gardens have been planted including mine. Orange cones are appearing around peoples’ driveways. I even heard music and microphones being tested today. Well that could have been from the symphony in the park or it could have been from a neighbor. But the Jazz Fest hum is starting to rise and by Friday this time – it will have entered all…
I spoke to a couple of friends this evening and all of them are stressed with work and relationships and I thought good grief, maybe at some point it should make you relax to know that everyone has some sort of stress and some sort of relationship they are working through – whether out of or into or through – and so maybe you need to have little reminders built in – things that tell…
There was a sign on the bayou – that read YOU WANT THIS CAT! – and went on to describe a rare type of Siamese cat that had been rescued in the storm and who had orange tip markings. I told T – she said check him out – and so I went to check him out. But something about everything wasn’t right – I had shades of Rusty when I saw him – the…
Finally after Mike, then Joe, and now Vince came to fix the air conditioning – I think we’ve nailed it by Jove! Vincent explained in detail, the most thorough detail ever, about how my air conditioning system works – by the time he was finished my eyes had frosted over. But the good news is that it WORKS! Hooray. Tonight, I sleep.
When I was a little girl, adults used to tell me to calm down, don’t get so excited, speak slowly. It irked me. When I was nine years old, my teacher wrote on the blackboard, “Rachel, Rachel, where art thou, everywhere unfortunately” because I raised my hand for every question [nonetheless he adored me]. I am prone to excess. J calls me Zia. What I love about T is that she nudges me towards my…
My mother hoards – her mother spares. My country lends itself to excessive eating – her country rations. My body is voluptuous – hers is lithe. Here we smile – there they scowl. I was raised in an ancient religion – she in a communist godlessness. I am light – she is dark. The differences fade to black when the similarities are so striking.