From the fiery hills of Maui
to the dry Canadian brush
from the flat lands of the delta
down to Texas on the gulf.

The weather’s downright awful
you can hear the people say,
summers sometimes take bad turns,
but it’s never been this way.

From the tall pines of the Great North West
to the Louisiana shore,
from Florida’s boiling waters,
to California’s reservoirs.

The weather’s downright awful
you can hear the people say,
With the heat domes far above us
Montreal’s hotter than Bombay.

From the fiery hills of Maui
to the dry Canadian brush
from the flat lands of the delta
down to Texas by the gulf

The weather’s downright awful
you can hear the people say,
everyday the heat breaks records,
how long can we go on this way?

From the tall pines of the Great North West
to the Louisiana shore,
from Florida’s boiling waters,
to California’s reservoirs.

You can feel that something’s different,
you can hear what people say.
It kind of makes you wonder,
how long can we go on this way?

(There’s a song for this: ‘Confessions’ by Sudan Archives)

I remember it like it was yesterday (it was yesterday).

I arrived on a cool (42°f), blindingly sunny New Haven afternoon. It was as if they’d opened up that troubling ozone hole just for me.
I was as happy as I’ve ever been to be back. It was as if New Haven actually meant freedom.

I’d opened the door to our suite, dragging every bag I own.
After intense hugs, I'd said, “PIZZA - NOW.”
So, Lisa, Sunny and I, after some debate, selected Town Pizza.
Town Pizza’s specialties are those thin, gourmet pies with crust-free cauliflower crust, oil (not environmentally problematic tomatoes), topped with panda cheese and tofu.
In a shocking development, I got the cheeseburger special which I hit like a vape. †

SO, the three of us were there, happily devouring. Not bothering anyone, when this guy stopped at our table to offer us salvation and introduce us to - whatever (yadda yadda yadda)

I didn’t catch the entire pitch; I may have momentarily dozed off.
“No, Thank you.” Lisa said, politely but dismissively.
Not taking the hint, he reached into his cheap shoulder bag for pamphlets and began a new tac.
“Go away.” Sunny said, unblinkingly, but he jabbered on, showing the unaware persistence of long covid - like we were interested or tolerant.

“I’ll show you my bra if you’ll shut up,” I said, with my best deadpan face. Lisa and Sunny shrieked with several kinds of outraged laughter.
He became a statue, like a Twilight Zone episode where time stops for one person. A second passed during which he didn’t blink or breathe. “eheheheheheheh* I toned, like a buzzer.
“Two late!” I gameshow said, shrugging, “You didn’t verbally accept, sorry, I don’t make the rules.”
He shook his head and walked away—with Lisa and Sunny giggling and waving him off stage.
Our mission was accomplished. We’d defended our water hole like lionesses.

A few minutes later Lisa said, “He DID shut up, I’m not in law school, but I think you owe him a flashing.”
“I guess he wasn’t in law school either.” Sunny observed, between bites.
“I’m taking this to the supreme court,” I promised.
“How did the supreme court get to decide every ******-little thing?” Lisa asked, biting her abomination flavored pizza.
.
.
slang and notes…
devouring = eating like barnyard animals
Twilight Zone = More, so much more, than the most creative moment in man’s evolution. *
panda cheese = Ok, I made that up because it sounded gross.
† the author, in no way, endorses vaping, vape-related consumables or accessories

Today was the first day of class.
You should have seen all the people.

Everyone couldn’t have had class, some of them must
have been gawkers, the types that slow to watch
flat tire changings and car wrecks.

Some were carrying maps - freshmen.
Like student drivers they clogged the paths,
drawing a few looks.

They gaggle together like geese,
Jeeezus - shut UP and get ON with it, freshies! I thought.
Not ungenerously - I remember being lost - back in the day.

I have class, myself - in both the intrinsic sense - of style -
and in the “research for credit” ‘check in on the first day,’ kind.

Still, we’re parading, and I’ve always loved parades.
My one regret is that there are no mimes or elephants.

ok.. poetry..
Stress is somewhere in my propinquity.
See, it’s known to stalk this vicinity.

I’m not a freshman, so it hasn’t struck yet,
but when it does, and it will, you can bet,
that initially, it will shake my tranquility
and end our start-of-year festivities.

It will creepily creep, destroying my sleep,
until I prove my scholastic resiliency.
.
.
Songs for this:
Violently Happy by Björk
Schoolin' Life by Beyoncé

The grand ambition of love is to find “the one.”
and, of course, to be the one.

It’s a hard combo.

Finding someone amiable, who’s the best lover, your best friend,
confidant, emotional companion, intellectual equal and soulmate.

And, of course, it helps if ‘the one’ likes to dance
and has a little piña colada money too.

And when do you know you've been successful - in year 50?

It’s the holy grail, the age-old dilemma of love and desire.
.
.
A song for this:
Bullet and a Target by Citizen Cope
Wait Another Moment by The Bingtones

She’s a flower of burned dirt
with pale and bony legs
- her emaciated thighs
etched with scars.

She’s been cutting to the music
of an inner, minatory choir
- a song of spite-filled sorrow
and perpetual farewell.

Christmas in the shadows
the hopeless hollow-days
in the kind of barren places
where our savior made his way.

The angels mark your passing
and they understand your pain
- when the roll is called in heaven
seraphim will speak her name.

It's the weekend (Friday night). Lisa and I are hangin’, music’s playing, and we’re rummaging through my suitcase, for an outfit option, for me, tonight. Call it cliché, but we like going out - and getting ready to go out with a friend, beforehand, is one of the rituals of beauty culture.

Let’s get poetic!

If the sun is gonna shine
in an endless blue (climate-changed) sky,
if the temperature’s going to climb,
until eggs on sidewalks fry,
then it’s lighter, summer-wear time.

I made sure Lisa and I had two days, in Paris, to shop the Rue Saint-Honoré. ***** 5th avenue, the 1st arrondissement is la capitale of fashion - after all, it’s Coco Chanel's old haunt. Now, we have Armani, Chloe, Dior, Michael Kors, Hermès and Versace - just to name a few - I mean, gag a fashionista.
Looking for bargains? You’re in the wrong place.

If you’re down and thinking the world is turning to.. well, something bad, then you NEED some fashion, some beauty and some elegance. You don’t even need to buy anything - browsing is sumptuous.

The boutiques are sound-proofed - so the world won’t intrude - and thickly carpeted so even your steps are muffled - or marble floored, polished to a fractured brilliance under the lit spiderwebs of fallen-star-lights. And the fragrances - no cap - the very air is different - it smells like aged money - that was a joke - they take new money these days.

What’s important, in these palaces of style, are the whispered promises of unattainable beauty. Just browsing will up your game, because inspiration is everywhere, in sheens that put butterflies to shame, supima-cottons as soft as a sigh, and dresses that swirl like magic - and so many accessories.

Lisa and I are young and easily ignored. Sales staff in these boutiques wear a leotard of arrogance, that fits like skin - the arrogance of people talking down to lesser folk.

Lisa gasped when she saw a delicate, white ecru-cotton and silk-poplin mid-length shirt-dress by Dior. “Look at this,” she said softly, running her fingers along the delicate hem. I checked the tag, it read: €2770 ($3000).
At that moment, a salesgirl - who looked to be 25ish - stalked over with a "look but don't touch" vibe that implied we weren’t worthy to touch the merchandise - or maybe be there at all.

I bristled for Lisa, who’d withdrawn her hand as if burnt. I fished my phone from my clutch (it has a card-carry-case attached) and waved my black Centurion® Card (which can serve as a fu^k-you passport),
“Have you got this in a French-36?” I jibbed, obstreperously (of course I know Lisa’s size). If my return-rudeness stung the salesgirl, there was nothing she could do with it.

An older lady that I assumed was her supervisor joined us, all smooth smiles and low honey voice, “Hello ladies,” she said, as she glided around us like a wraith. “Go see (about the dress),” she told the young clerk, dismissively.

The original salesgirl gave us a brittle smile that came and went like an eye blink, “Oui,” she said, smartly, while spinning away like a top.
“Would you like a glass of wine or champagne?” The supervisor purred.
“Non, merci (No thank you),” I said, smiling curtly.
“We have it,” the original sales girl announced a moment later.
“We’ll take it,” I pronounced.
“NOo,” Lisa said, jerking as if electrically shocked.
I waved my hand, as if scattering dust, “My treat.”

Lisa insisted on trying it on. It fit like a dream and she looked like a supermodel (My dress needed tailoring - the bust taken in sigh). So, at least we know what she’s wearing tonight.
.
.
songs for this:
Glamor Girl by Louie Austen
Baby You’re a Superstar by NuDisco
Comme ci, comme ça by ZAZ  
.
Our cast:
Lisa, (roommate) 20, Manhattanite ‘glamor girl’ (who’d bristle at that description but it’s hundo-p true.) - my bff. A fellow (pre-med) molecular biophysics and biochemistry major.

Ok, gimme me your best day, take your best shot at perfection.
Our minds take experiences and press them grape-like,
into the intoxicating liquor of memory.
The vivid ones linger - unaltered - like youthful Internet mistakes forever posted.
Someday to beckon us back, teasingly - like bright, neon signage.
.
Peter’s off again to job interview (second round, in Geneva), he was only here two days but something of him remained behind. Oh, fingerprints for sure - but memories too - like scattered Christmas wrappings - or a poem.

I have to laugh - watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade from Lisa’s 50th floor Central Park South windows, is like seeing it from a jet landing at ​​La Guardia airport.

People watching in Iowa have a better view.

I pray to that know-it-all Inter-web
- that I can book a safe beach vacation.

That I’ll meet some nice cahtholic boy online
- without **** fueled expectations.

Weber-net, without undo downtime
- please address my ongoing frustrations.

I need my Christmas loot on time
- and not priced-up by supply-chain inflation.

AIs, who are listening, it’s time to send me a sign
- beep or whir to let me know you heard my small rogation

We’re no strangers to perceptible sacrifice
so, we’ve put all flavors of fun on ice.
Einsteining overnight - alone - is
about as exciting as a windows phone.

But I’ve been-to-the-show as a pinckney,
and in my years of parental-stalking analyses
the juice is definitely worth the squeeze.

Soon holiday parties will be made gold
by candlelight and champagne cold.
We’ll decorate with reds and greens
and surrounding ourselves with tinseled things
we’ll sing songs of angels and newborn kings.

But not just yet, no, not now - now tis the pre-seasoning -
a time of unrest, stress and testing - and God help
you if they’re not impressed with your reasoning.

My mom, with the green
witch's casual, sour malice,  
can verbally ****.

But she is easily
deceived by disguise
- my body is a mask.

My submission is
but a costume - my calm
the offered lie.

I detest my own
pale, small, adolescent
answers - my weakness.

Something’s happening, let’s call it sunrise, for now,
and summer vacation in Geneva, in umm.. 10 hours.
My heart-beat is spiking, like a flag or kite flying.
I’m leaving an empty room - making one last pass with a broom.

I’m stuffing my bag, with the last few things, for escape on aluminum wings.
My dreams, woven in bright, butterfly tapestries, are rolled and folded -
packed between urgent fantasies and harsh, time-sensitive practicalities.

I know you’re there, a quarter-world away, good news, pegasus awaits,
to streak gulf-stream high, over choppy oceans wide with mechanical fire,
its ice-cycle crystal contrail will point, like cherub cupid's arrow, toward you.

Forget pixels, tech instruments, remote lifeline connections,
and prayer-like whispers over thin, criss-crossed wires.
I’m making my move, coming compass-needle true,
to press up close, reintroduce, extemporize and ******.
.
.
music for this:
Someday by Sugar Ray
sunburn by almost monday
This Charming Man by The Smiths
Heaven by Los Lonely Boys

The Heraclee sky was a lurid, neon blue but the morning was surprisingly cool (at 54°). The antemeridian sun managed to cast sharp, surreal, black-hole shadows, giving the world a baroque art look, as if we were strolling through a Rembrandt painting, where everything is defined by shadows.

The lavish breeze, coming up off the Mediterranean Sea, seemed compressed and frantic, as if trying to flee the choppy, sapphire water. Tall marsh grasses waved back and forth, as if to unheard music, reminding me of 60-thousand swaying arms at the Taylor Swift concert.

Higher up, the wind played with feather-like clouds, making them seem to rise, fall and spill over each other in their race for the horizon. On the beach, there were ten or more colorful, elaborate kites - the French love their multi-wired stunt kites.

There was a dragon, a multi-color WWI biplane, there were bird kites, an octopus and a swooping butterfly. We watched them for a while, from a hill. “I’m going to get one of those,” Peter said, dreamily (for use on the Malibu beach his parents' modest home overlooks).

A little later, Peter and I decided to bike down to the beach from the hotel. The idea was valid but the bikes, seeming leftovers from World War 2, shook and rattled like percussion instruments as we made the death-defying plunge down the steep, uneven stone-laid path. We were laughing, screaming and half convinced we’d die by the time we reached the bottom.

Once there, a snooty concierge said, “That is NOT the bike path.” Which seemed hilarious. When Peter replied, dead faced, “We’re American,” as if that were an internationally understood pass for being stupid. It made us laugh so hard we couldn’t look at each other for a couple of minutes. I don’t know which hurt more, my bottom or my side.

As our guffaws were dying down, Charles arrived on the bike path.
“Why’d you do THAT?” (take the wrong path) he asked, with a tone of irritated censure.
“There was a sign,” I argued, gasping for air from my still doubled up laughing position, “that said ‘Bike Path?’" my voice rising like a sarcastic question.
“You didn’t notice the ten-inch tall, blue arrow under the words pointing to the bike path?”

Sometimes Charles can be extra over - as in overprotective and over-reactive.

As Cherles and I wrangled away, Peter stood patiently by, waiting. He doesn’t argue with Charles, he says he finds the 6-foot-3-inch, retired NYC policeman a little intimidating.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, dismissively, “he’s a big ‘ol teddy bear.”

I sat in restless chairs
I breathed stilted air
what feeling compares
with feeling squandered?

I’m not sadfishing,
I was bored at a 5-star hotel.
I’d swum the Atlantic - in the underground pool
and I felt like I was marinating in boredom.

It was as if the loudest thing in our suite was
the sound of my eyelashes flapping up and down.

I wasn’t in solitary confinement,
Lisa was there too - and just-as bored.
She didn’t complain, 'cause she’s ‘New Yorker’ stoic.
So I started complaining for her - for the team.

We’d filtered every boutique,
sampled every eclectic café,
there’s just nothing to do in Geneva.
It is an implacable reality.

Peter (my bf) was at work all day and we were on vacation.

It’s different when he’s around.
He walks into the room and I feel like
a phone that’s been placed on its charger
- the world lights up and I get - charged.

“We should make a list,” I'd announced, “the pros and cons of boredom.”
“No,” Lisa said, “Let’s name fun things.”

“Fruity Pebbles popcorn,” I started.
“Girl panda makeup” Lisa offered,
“Foot massages and bubblegum”
“Cotton candy and sunflowers”
“Holidays and sparkly things!”
- we went on and on and on and -
“kittens” I updogged dreamily, before I switched the subject completely.

“We need to go to Paris!” I pronounced, excitedly.
“Oh yeah?” Lisa asked, with a little side head-bob.
“Actionable intel,” I whispered, “Grandmère wants to see me.”
Lisa gasped, adding, “You’re in TROUBLE,” drawing the last syllable out slowly.
“That would be a first,” I laughed.

“Kisses!” She exclaimed, resuming the game.
I remembered the first time I thought of kissing Peter. The thought was a flash, an emotional Rorschach test and I smiled. It was like a movie kiss, an abstract heaven - not the breathy, ****** kisses of real life.
“Where’d you go?” Lisa asked, grinning.
Some emotions are too thick for words.
.
.
Songs for this:
Good Luck, Babe! by Chappell Roan
Disco Boots by Gavin Turek

What was I up to while we were locked-in?
I was busy contemplating sin.
I had months and months of moments to spend,
Ms chaste without, misdeeds within.

Lust, like seasickness - upends reason
and it burns like underbrush fuel.
So dust my DNA, and ID my ***** dreamin'
am I guilty of breaking some rule?

(Senryu poems about crushes)

That awkward moment
when you're caught day-dreamily
staring at your crush.

You know that tingly
feeling when you start to crush?
It's common sense leaving.

The fantasies that
you indulge about your
crush are scandalous.

You can’t ******
your crush because self-worth
crumbles up close.

Everything’s been frantic since the break.
What people don’t tell you about college,
is that you’re just tired ALL of the time.
I’m so tired, yawn ‘scuse me.
So if you’re planning to talk to me, bring coffee, make
some effort to be interesting - clap your hands or.. something.

Work piled up on me while I was sick (I missed two days!)
and it radiated across my.. everything, like nuclear waste.
In New Haven, you have the inalienable right to fall behind.

ok, let’s put it poetically..

The microorganism was as fast and brutal as a twister
and it spun, tricksily, out of a clear blue day
leaving me weak, in shock and totally focked.

I needed things that come after a natural disaster
- wailing sirens, to clear the way for organized relief
but no volunteers can help me pick-up the pieces.

I guess I needed another challenge this term.
Sure, my roommates check in, but they have their own traumas
and they’re like those slow, drive-by accident-tourists that gawk.
Too bad there’s no such thing as missed class/assignment insurance.

There’s a saying (cleaned up), here at Yale, that goes:
It’ll get done because it HAS to get done.

It’s Saturday morning, and even though it’s Thanksgiving break, Lisa and I are in her bedroom, in NYC, studying.

“Ok,” Lisa stops, looks up and says, “give me a *** symbol.”

“I.. I don’t have one on me.” I say, apologetically.

“NAME one.” she clarifies.

“Are there “*** symbols” anymore?” I say, with air-quotes, “Who’s “Marilyn Monroe” today - Kim Kardashian - oooo - or Kendall Jenner?”

“I read Emily Ratajkowski refer to herself as a *** symbol the other day.” Lisa says.

“Is that the model that said she was groped at a naked photo-shoot?” I ask, as I google her.

“Yeah,” Lesa nods, “but it was a naked music video shoot.”

“Do you think I could model?” I ask, as I pose vampingly. “Be unflinchingly honest.” I request.

“Hhmmmm,” she considers, framing me in a finger rectangle pretend camera. “You’re like Marilyn Monroe,” she says, “in a training bra.” We burst out laughing

“Back to the subject,” Lisa says, “name a guy you think of as a *** symbol.”

“Humphrey Bogart!“ I say.

“Humphrey Bogart?? No!” she rejects him, wrinkling her nose, “too old-timey and dead, besides, he was a MOVIE star - come ON, a real one - SAY!”

Michael Gandolfini!” I offer.

“​​Michael Gandolfini??” she says, sounding stumped as her fingers google him.

*I make a dreamy “mmmm,” yummy sound.

“Oh, my GOD,” she says, and looks up for confirmation. “Humphrey Bogart and Michael Gandolfini - HONESTLY, you have the WEIRDEST taste!”

I was shocked, “No, seriously, don’t you think Michael looks kind of soft, cute and.. LUVable?”

She groans, “You’re going to marry an ugly man someday - aren’t you?” She pronounces, shaking her head.

“AM NOT!” I responded, throwing a pillow at her head (a pillow fight ensues).

Our needs are boundless -
our wounds sensitive -
better not to bare them
- lest we invite opinion,
debate and comparison,
or worse yet, sympathy (euuww).
.
.
Songs for this..
Musta Been A Ghost by Próxima Parada
Everything goes my way by Metronomy
If You’re Too shy (Let me know) - Edit by The 1975

I’m laughing this morning, spontaneously. We’re not studying anymore. Our sophomore school year is over. I’m giddy, giggling, like a 9 year old on sugar.

I think I just finished the hardest class that I’ll ever take - my last pure-math class, ever - and I got an “A.” Just barely - by two-tenths of a point (.2). That’s by the skin of a bacteria, the thickness of a sigh or the weight of a glance. Yeah, and I’ll take it very much.

We’re gathered, with two extra-large NY Pizza Supremas, around Lisa’s parent’s long, white kitchen island. Lisa and I parked on tall bar stools and Peter, lounging on a nearby couch. The playlist we’d had going, had just ended. We’re looping a lot of T.Swift because we’re going to see her in concert in TWO days (May 14th 2023). Leeza (Lisa’s 13 yo little sister) is here too - but she’s in a mood.

“You know what I want to hear?” I offered.
“What” Peter asked.
“The other side of the door” I said. Leeza groaned.
“OH MY GOD,” Lisa squealed, “ANAIS, Anais!!, I KNEW I loved you, I already knew!
Lisa turned to Peter, “Anais and I we, we have this string - some might call an invisible string”
“Yeah,” I laugh. “tying us to each other,” Lisa continued, laughing, “and sometimes I get so shocked when she reminds me it’s there.”  “right,” I agree.
“And you’re so real for that - it’s so true.” Lisa finishes by starting the song.

“Taylor Swift’s  “the other side of the door” plays, Leeza stomps out, taking half a pie and when the song finishes there’s silence.

“Wow” Lisa said. Peter looked up from wherever absurdly boring physics article he was reading.
“Sorry,” I told Peter, fanning myself, “we’re recovering. That song has the best outro in the business.”
“Cause you just expect a song to end on a chill fadeout” Lisa explains, “and end nicely.”
“This one just ends, BAM!” I laughed. “BAM!” Lisa echos, laughing as well.
“It’s trenchant - the little black dress - you just have to shake your hips every TIME,” I say.
“It eats, it eats every TIME,” Lisa agreed.
“It eats so much I forget he cheated on her!” I laugh, “I don’t even CARE!”
“I don’t even care,” Lisa chuckles, “in the outro,” she tells Peter, “she’s takin’ back her man because he got with some girl in a little black dress.”
“It’s a hard lyric,” I say, “the beautiful eyes, the conversations, the lies, are all I can think of.”  
“I like Taylor’s version the best,” Lisa said, “you get the emotional maturity and her voice is more mature.”

“Of course,” I said, “I grew up with that album - I think it came out in 2008 (I was 5) - but I remember, about two years ago, maybe three, I was in high school, some friends and I were driving to the lake and it was a full-on Swift-sing-along. We finished singing it, and I thought, “WOAH, that song EATS - how had I missed that?”
“I know,” Lisa echoed, “her music just hits at different stages of life and still comes off fresh.”
“Like someone discovering the Beatles,” Peter said, “who were - 60 years ago?”
“Yeah, or David,” I said. Peter looked confused.
“David - from the Bible?” I explained, “THAT was a long time ago too. Have you Godless Californian’s ever read any of the Bible?”
“No,” Peter said, sarcastically, going back to his reading, “but I saw the movie.”

The recent lockdown certainly made family the center of everything - from fun to daily irritations. But after a month of being at college - which I know, objectively, isn’t long - those memories seem like echoes from another life.

I love the sudden privacy college has provided - like I’ve personally rediscovered something seemingly new.

I get calls from high school friends who were close as skin a few short weeks ago and there seems to be a disconnect which certainly isn’t because they’ve been “replaced” with new friends.

I’ve always been slow to mesh with new people so I’m trying hard to look engaged in social situations. “Get OUT there and meet people!”, everyone tells us. So I’m working on it - practicing my best fake, friendly smile in mirrors for when deep down inside I want to run.

At least I’ve hit it off with one of my suite-mates, Leong (thank god). She‘s from Macao, China (the “Las Vegas” of Asia) which is about 41 miles from where my family used to live in Shenzhen. When I started talking to her in Cantonese she shrieked with joy - now we can evaluate everyone and everything with delightful discretion.

My classmates are SO smart that classes move really, REALLY FAST.
“Everyone got that?” the professor says, no frantic hands waived “Moving ON!”

If I daydream for 30 seconds - I come back and - “WAIT, huh? - what are we talking about?” It’s not like high school at ALL - it’s actually scary.

So I’m moving on.

I tried to draw the attention
of the disinterested God
who builds the weather.

“Send us snow - just a few feet -
make our Christmas fantasy complete”
I pleaded, but she never interceded.

Angels, that will-less posse of hers
only seem to watch earth’s slaughter
as the wind carries a warm disregard.

Life at 21, do you remember it?
Things rush at you, hit you, from all directions.
Any small decision can turn into a major plot beat.

What are our lives anyway but the sum of our decisions?
Opportunities contract and expand around us, like breathing—
and what fills those lungs are our test scores and faculty opinion.

College is a land of dreams—we’re all dream catchers—on our own paths, but the paths are mazes shrouded in haze, tumblers in need of combinations, variants that we must learn and memorize though it drains our communal blood.

At test times, the silence in libraries and coffeehouses is deafening,
full, as they are, of hunched-back phantoms toiling on books or blue-lit screens. If it sounds stressful and dramatic—it is. It’s not a time to get raddled—it’s all a big test.

Your world contracts to the sterile and dry— the facts and the moments needed to gather and order them.

That’s why we love breaks. Fall, Summer, Christmas, Thanksgiving—any flavor—break.

In fact, Lisa and I are on break now, I’m typing, on a MacBook Air, in a helicopter, screaming towards Manhattan.

If we don’t die in this shaky, 250mph, 3000-feet out-over Long Island Sound, cricket-like contraption, we’re going to have a great time—if we do nothing but sleep, hug our families and eat turkey—a great time.
.
.
Songs for this:
Little Hercules by Trisha Yearwood
Constant Craving by k.d. lang

We were at a small
bar, the place only served some
older regulars.

An elderly guy
in an old jean jacket was
talkative, friendly.

“What do girls learn at
Yale?” He asked. “We’re taught things, like
expressions, smiling,

pomposity, snark,
whatevering and stuff-stuff.”
I bragged shamelessly.

“Sure,” He chuckled, “sure
- but it’s worth the money I suppose,”
he gave me a toast.

Limiting yourself
can, in fact, set you free - try
writing a Senryu

Like a martial art,
a tea ceremony or
classical music

They are a tight dance -
controlled, disciplined, focused.
Other styles can drift.

A Senryu is like
a Haiku except it deals
with human feelings

As we finish dressing the table, the room is dizzy with aromas
and the turkey teases with a golden, honey-like translucence.

Candles, nestled in poinsettia settings, provide a flickering, golden,
almost magical light that’s refracted in windows, crystal and white tablecloth.

I hear Leeza nearby, swinging the living room with laughter. Everyone is giddy from drink, mouth watering hunger and near impossible expectations.

I wish you all a safe, Happy, Thanksgiving.

We're at a hospital emergency room - no emergency for us, my mom's a doctor and she's consulting about something. It's 4 pm on a Wednesday - after school. I'm in the waiting room - playing chess on my iPhone. I hate standing around in hospital areas with my parents (both doctors) listening to endless medical-trade jargon.

The ER room is almost empty. A wino-******-looking guy comes in and sits across from me about two seats down to the left. I'm ignoring him, for the most part, but he's all shaky and his fidgeting draws my eye now and then.

After a couple of minutes, I think he's watching me.
Yep, he's pretty much staring at me, shaking, tapping his right heal like he’s sending Morris code to the aliens and wiping his mouth with a ball of toilet paper.

And NOW we've made eye contact - he smiles - two or three of his front teeth are missing. I return my eyes to my phone and try to concentrate on my game.

But he's staring at me, I can feel it.
I put my phone in my lap and look at him for a moment. What sad humanity.
His head is sort of nodding - like "I see you seeing me" with a slight grin.

"Why do you do it?" I ask, in a quiet voice, sitting up a little straighter.
His head bobs backwards in surprise - "Do what?" he slurs innocently.
I roll my eyes, to say, ok, never mind and start to bring up my phone.
"I just like it", he says, with a little wheeze and a touch of attitude. "Better than anything else"
I nod, to say "OK" Then after a second I go back to my game.

My mom comes out a couple of minutes later and naturally, I get up to leave with her. I pause and look back at the.. ***??
"Good luck", I say,
He sort of half waves
My mom holds up her hand a little to encourage me to come on with her.
As we go through the automatic glass doors she gives me the side-eye.
"He IS a person", I say defensively.
Three beats later, we both say, at the exact same time, "A ******* UP person!"
"Jinx!!" I say a millisecond before her. I give a savage fist-pump-of-victory.
"I want Ice cream" I say.
We both grin as the car unlocks.

(Inspired by Carlo C Gomez’s ‘The Lacemaker‘)

We’re manufactured girls,
designed to be beautiful and pointless.

Everything we tell you has to be true,
we feel we can open up to you.

We’re decorated and prepared for sacrifice.

We can touch your tender isolation
and reinforce your inadequate truths.

We can mirror your internal struggles
and help you shape your damnation.

You’ve caressed our powerless distress
a thousand times, with sleep's dark hands.

Don’t feel your destroying something beautiful

You know, when privately accessible
in the darkness of your man cave
our soft, immediate shapes
excuse extraordinary behavior.

That’s all we want.
.
.
A song for this:
Genesis. by RAYE

I traveled almost everywhere, growing up. It took years. The landscapes, flora and fauna, the art, music, cuisines and curse words all seem to blend together in my mind.

Mount Fuji, the Rhine, the Himalayas, the Chattahoochee, Shenzhen, Washington DC, the Alps, and Appalachians, Moscow, Beijing, Dublin, Portland, Paris, Atlanta, London, St. Petersburg, Tokyo, Rome, Wuhan, Berlin, the Yangtze, the Mississippi, Saint-Tropez and LA - are all jumbled up in my brain, like old, wrinkled maps in a glove compartment.

My mom has total recall - she can remember every day of her life since her mama handed her a faded yellow and blue rattle when she was 6 months old - God gave me the glove compartment.

Still, some things are unforgettable, like an electrical storm breaking around Mt Everest, the lights of New York City, at night, from a helicopter, glittering on the horizon like a queen’s crown. The Danube, from a riverboat under a too-bright moon and the elegant poverty of Italy.

In some ways, I grew up like an exile because we moved every couple of years and I’d have to start my social life all over again - usually in a different language. Every place we left seemed a lost paradise, and each new place seemed cold and harsh.

Speaking of home to harsh transitions, November recess is over and we’re back in New Haven - with two weeks before final exams. Welcome to exhaustion week (weeks).

This morning I started going through my syllabuses, and after a week of holidaying - they seemed like indecipherable relics from a different world, a world of papers, tests and stingy-fun. I’ve so many things to wrap-up, my brain can’t seem to contain them all, I’m a gadget that’s out of memory.

I used to take my books on vacation, to remain in the ‘game’ mentally and stay ahead of the grind. Not this time. Hey, growing up, I’ve had my moments of ‘developmentally appropriate’ rebellion - in this case - I wanted memories to hoard, like inoculations against the coming work and loneliness cycles.

My best friends are “there for me.” Each, in turn, presents their partial list of people who’re upset with me - with my “social suicide” decision to opt-out of my senior year and go, instead, to university.

It seems that by forgoing 12th grade, I'm rejecting their way of life, attacking mass production or committing an act of terrorism.

I try to explain this obsession I have, since the pandemic lock-down, to get out and into the world.

The great pandemic isolation scraped away at me, left me feeling ransacked and empty. I can’t ignore the call of freedom any more than I could yank out my heart and continue living.

They can’t seem to hear me - it’s like I’m mumbling, speaking in tongues, or talking to myself.

Kiss me, cuddle me
arouse me, befuddle me
time albates with seduction
enkindle, caress, slowly undress,
resist all other disruptions.

Soft light plays on
my shameless, lipstick rouged
lips - it's a party.

I hear OverDoz
advocating a “last kiss”
somewhere in the night.

Some faces always
find a favorable light
- like the movie stars.

He’s gorgeous, with a
new iPhone-like appeal
- the consensus choice.

I’m looking through glass
at a candy I can’t hope
for this Halloween.

I watched King Charles’ coronation this morning.
I’m not British and some things confused me.
For instance, they kept saying “The new king.”
New? The guy’s a boomer - at least - right?

Apparently, he is, at once, the oldest king
ever and the newest king yet.

Can we talk about the old lady with the crown?
The wrinkled one on the right of him, in white,
the crypt keeper, with genuine platinum hair.
At first, I thought that it was Charles’ mother.

But apparently, the old Queen died.
Has anyone looked into that?
Anyone who’s read Shakespeare knows
how brutal royals can be and successions,
over time, have earned a sketchy reputation.

Anyway, I wish him well. I wouldn’t want to live a life
where everyone around me moves up a notch
if something sudden and nasty happened to me.

The night was rainy, hot and humid. It was the kind of night that populates steamy, black and white, noir movies where someone is murdered. The stars seemed reduced to sloshing behind moldy gray clouds, as damp and listless as seaweed in the surf.

“Let’s go see a movie,” Sophy suggested, as she brought up the Fandango website on the 70” smart TV. This quickly drew a brouhaha of excited interest.

“Ooo!, Bullet Train,” Anna said. “Elvis!” Lisa gushed.
“Where the Crawdads sing!” Sunny gasped.
“Super pets!” Leong declared, pointing - producing groans all around - THAT was a no-go.
“Maverick!” I said. “I could do that,” Sunny agreed, “he’s crazy but I’m a Cruise fan.” she added.

In the end we decided to do a movie marathon with “Maverick” that night and “Elvis”, “Bullet Train” and “Where the Crawdads sing,” on Sunday.

As we ordered our treats at the theater concession stand, a tall, skinny, spotted, teenage boy attempted to flirt with Lisa. He smiled at her as confidently as a lizard, but sagged, like a shirt whose coat hanger was removed, when she pointedly ignored him.

Christmas, Yuletide, Noël, Nativity, Saint Nicholas, Mary, Prancer,
Santa, Elves, Yule Log, Eggnog, Reindeer, Turkey, Presents, children,
Birthday, Bells, Jesus, pumpkin pie, Navidad, Kriss Kringle, Dasher
Ornaments, stockings, sugarplums, Holidays, caroling, gifts, Comet
Christmas Eve, Scrooge, cranberry sauce, sleigh bells, Rudolph,
Christmas lights, Cinnamon Apple spice cider, wassail, Angels, list,
Christmas tree, Blitzen, Mrs. Claus, tinsel, jolly, snowflake, Dancer,
Blitzen, North Pole, snowman, wreath, candy cane, gingerbread,
Merry Christmas!

We’re (Lisa and I) back in Athens Georgia (hometown USA), where it’s the halcyon days of summer. The south used to be the home of summer heat - not anymore. Now everyone has their little ‘heat domes’ and temperatures well into the hundreds. Show-offs. In Athens, we creep into the low 90s, some days, between daily thunderstorms. Oh, well.

My parents are here! I haven’t seen them in the flesh in almost two years. Each time I had a holiday, they were off doctoring without borders. Every time I’ve seen my mom this week it seems like a surprise. I’ll walk into the kitchen or see her in the den. I hug her every time (Step too). They seem grayer than I remember, it’s scary and it makes me sad. When I mentioned it to Brice (on facetime), he just nodded noncommittally.

Earlier today, my mom, Lisa and I went shopping for our junior year of college. I don’t actually need anything; shopping was really a chance for us to visit and do what we like the most - malling. I like college gear, the clothes, tech, the odds and ends. College clothes are simpler, more utilitarian than I’d imagined back in high school. I’d brought a trunk of Anna Molinari designer clothes to Yale, but I only ended up wearing those at events.

Being home reminds me of how I’d dreamed of going away to college, especially back in the covid lockdown days. I still dream about college but now they’re stress dreams where next semester I get all the wrong classes, I’m placed in the wrong residence, or my roommates are all gone.

My mom’s still my mom and she wants to know all about Peter.
“How’d you end up with Peter?” she asked.
“Well,” I said, shifting dresses on the store rack distractedly, “we met in a coffee shop freshman year, then I saw him on campus a few times. I was drawn to him,” I confessed.
“How so,” my mom asked.
“I like tall guys and he had an unkempt, scarecrow quality that gave him a.. vulnerability. He wasn’t all muscular or fratty.” I further defined, making a yuck face. “And he obviously needed fashion help (my specialty).”

“And,” my mom prodded me after a moment.
“But he was a doctoral student,” I sighed, “and I was a lowly freshman. I mean, why would he be interested in me?” Mom gave me the side eye. “Sure ***, maybe but I wasn’t looking for THAT.”

My mom and Lisa were shuffling through racks of dresses too, each showing me the occasional standouts for themselves or me. My mom stayed quiet and just watched me. She wanted more but, as if I were still a high schooler, I was inclined to give her the minimum info. She broke me down by eyeing me.

“Eventually though,” I began spilling, “we got to talking and when we talked, he seemed like a person of substance. I mean, he was working on his PhD.” I shrugged, “He’s a serious guy - forthright, no-nonsense, shy and lowkey funny. We actually got ‘together’ at the beginning of sophomore year.” (I’m hoping he’ll come for a visit but I’m holding that for now.)

“Annick told me he’s from California..” My mom followed up, “Have you met his parents?”
“You know,” I leaned into her confidentially, “I’m working on my emotional and behavioral independence.” She Laughed and let it go - for the moment - I have no illusions about that.

Meanwhile Lisa and I are out on the lake early every morning water skiing. Charles is in his element, skippering the boat while Carol (Mrs. Charles) mixes coleslaw and grills bacon cheeseburgers. In the afternoons, we’ve begun studying for a couple of hours.

Lisa & I are both molecular biophysics and biochemistry majors. Our books for next semester arrived the same day we did, and we’ve started to read ahead. Everything about Junior year is extra. Our classes will be full of Biochemistry and biology labs, psychology, statistics, and research for credit class with names like “Quantitative Approaches in Biophysics and Biochemistry” and “Research in Biochemistry and Biophysics.”

I’m already set to continue my hospital volunteering and we’ll need to begin to study for our MCATS (Medical College Admission Tests). Next summer we apply to med-schools!

Of course, my Mom, Mz ‘I know everything about med-school admissions’ has a list of every other conceivable requirement for med-schools, like reference letters and God-knows what else and she’ll drop that list on us, like a ton of bricks, with the least hint of encouragement.

But she gets her hugs anyway.

Mary, the daughter of some parental friends, is on her high-school-senior college-tour and my mom (on Face Time) told me their plans called for them to be in New Haven over the weekend.

Mom, “Would you mind taking an hour to give her a campus tour?”
I rolled my eyes saying, “I barely know the place myself.”
She waited silently with obvious, parental patience.
“I’ve got a TON of homework,” I pleaded.
“I’d owe you,” she said, encouragingly.
I sighed, struggling with my new and heavy burden, “ALL right,” I groaned.

Mary and I know each other from hospital events we couldn’t avoid (her dad is an emergency surgeon) but we’ve never hit it off.

I take some pride in being able to talk about anything - from football to politics or movies to fashion but Mary’s one and only interest is guys.

Mary’s one of those girls who HAS to have a boyfriend - like there’s a municipal ordinance requiring one - and just about any guy will do. She didn’t even have to particularly like them but they had to be Instagram pretty.

So any time I’d see her (we didn’t go to the same school) she’d have a Tom or Ed or Frank in tow, filling that boyfriend requirement and due to the high boyfriend turnover rate, she’d constantly and embarrassingly flirt with other potential boyfriends right in front of Mr. Now. It was enough to shame my gender.

A typical Mary conversation:
“Are you dating anyone?” She’d ask.
“No,” I’d admit.
“You’re just shy,” she’d say, “You just need to put yourself out there.”
She was positive and encouraging, even in the face of increased competition.
“I used to be shy,” she revealed. Which I doubted very much.

Anyway, once they (her Mom joined us) were certified vaccinated, we got a student volunteer for a real Yale tour. I love the “Harry Potter” look of old campus. (COVID restrictions limit where visitors can go).

I find I already have a sense of “ownership” here and I secretly hope she ends up somewhere else. I waved as they drove off, wishing her a bucket of instagram smiles.

High school's like a jury - let us all be judged
the righteous and the wicked and especially those in love

The jury's always watching - it has a thousand eyes
it's in constant deliberation and it hears a million lies

some think there's popular immunity and that's how the system works
but celebrities are piquant targets - it's one of the systems quirks

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury - I address you here today
to plead the cause of justice for a girl who was drugged astray

I know this girl’s not popular - she's known as "what's her name"
But the prominent guy who “seduced” her used methods vile and lame

I work cloud-like opinion and gossip pointedly outside stalls
I direct lunch-time chatter and I'm "overheard" in busy halls

I'm a regular Bader Ginsburg - you WANT me on your side
and If I'm coming for you - there's no fu*king place to hide

“How does it feel, studying for your first exam of the semester?” My sister Annick dug at me, via Facetime.
“Oh, I’m miserable and no one even knows!” I exclaimed excitedly.

I already miss summer’s sense of infinite time and space, and life on the lake, with its big, wet, melancholy summer rains. But most of all, I miss the travel and delicious, swirling, excesses that form the dark side of long holiday freedoms.

I’ve been called excessive, I accept that and I have to check that aspect of my nature, from time to time.
“Don’t you have any brakes?” My roommate Leong once asked me, like I was some runaway train.

I remember last summer, how we almost eased into fall. As summer had faded, things changed and slowed down, as the European students turned back to their serious, ordinary lives. The bars and streets became deserted, carousels stopped spinning, arcade games were turned off, yachts sailed away, the eager summer wait-staff vanished from the elegant hotels. Brightly lit, summer-gaudy Saint Tropez became just another faded seaside town, where the paint everywhere suddenly seemed chipped and cheap.

This year, we sped up, by spending the last couple of weeks in flashy, frantic, fluorescent Manhattan - oh, man.

Then BOOM, we were dropped, as if from a great height, back into university life, back to cafeteria lines, shuttle buses and the scholastic gridiron - which oddly enough, has a lot in common with the teenage world. It was going from a-hundred-mile-an-hour adult freedom, to dealing with all the old teenage issues, like homework, tests, studying, the endless clock-watch scheduling of to and from classes - you know, the physicality of academics.

It sounds rough, I know. We’ve been told that as seniors, we can expect an even more important and frenetic emphasis on social life. Yep, we’ll be stepping things up to a whole new level this year!
Woot!! Maybe I’ll even get to wear some makeup!
.
.
A song for this:
September by Earth Wind & Fire

You don’t just love a person,
you love who you are with them,
the you, you see reflected in their eyes
you love the vision of your life with them.

When it’s gone, you have to mourn it all
the whole ecosystem of connectedness.
Old realities can look shabby in comparison.

Bili’s one of my two best chums. She's exquisite, cagey and ferociously funny - compared to her I’m tomboyish.

Her hair is a straight corn-silk that shines like black-enamel. When we watch movies, I get to brush it. Her heritage is Japanese, she has perfect, warm-ivory skin, but she’s as American as sarcasm or gun-violence.

When she talks to me, sometimes she’ll be flirtatious or motherly, but always jocose. She bullies me, good-naturedly coaxing and chivvying me onto the trajectory she selects.

I’m jiggered - I enjoy being treated like a pet. I’ve been so harried lately that it’s somehow calming. I think I’m going to spend the rest of the summer, blithely letting her arrange me.

I met someone exciting the other day. We’re in an English class together, twenty of us, the class is really about chaos. Attraction can spring from nothing (talk about chaos). We had split into discussion groups and we were next to each other.

The abruptness of it surprised me - I felt the realization, a tingle that ran through me like a wave. I actually twitched, shivered really.

I’m still getting used to people, after the great pandemic separation. I know there were people who carried on as if it weren’t real. My parents, both doctors, took it very seriously. I was “sheltered in place,” like Rapunzel, with shorter hair. For over a year - it seemed longer.

So I haven’t felt this way in a while - this crushy feeling. Near him, my whole body is a receptor, very aware of everything about him - the smell of him alone saturates my senses. Everything about him seems vibrant, revelatory.

He opens doors sometimes, he brought me coffee - twice. He’s started covering the seat next to him and clears it when I arrive so I can sit next to him. He asks questions about my life. He’s polite but persistent, like a newspaper reporter. He’s from Nebraska, a farm boy (19, a man?), he has a dreamy accent and he’s funny.

I wish I could be around him more. Even thinking about it makes my heart race as though I were confessing a secret. But the fact is, it’s impossible. It’s too soon, we just got here. The wish itself is a burden.

Why do I have to be ruthlessly practical all the time? It *****.

You have to admit, the future's looking bright
- with corona seeming to fizzle out a bit, with
cryptocurrency, the metaverse and the futuristic,
kiss-your-sister quality of lab-grown meat to
save the planet - yep, things are looking up.

(A Christmas vacation vignette)

Lisa and I choppered onto Manhattan island yesterday morning. We’d both felt toasted—so we took naps—and yay! We awoke recharged.

Later that evening, Lisa and I were at the ‘Elsie’ Rooftop Bar, in Manhattan, waiting for Lisa’s boyfriend, David.
Ok, man-friend? More age appropriate I suppose, he’s 27, but that description doesn’t have the same bf slap.
Dave’s a Wall Street M&A guy and they’ve been together for over a year - a future for them seems very real.

Slinky, jazz-like versions of secular Christmas favorites were playing somewhere and it’s a groove I slipped into immediately. We had reservations and I’d misbegottenly hoped for a five-star, breathtaking city view, but the indoor tables turned out to have these uncomfortable, high-backed, bench-like seats that face away from the windows—***? I made a mental note to check website pix in the future. The place is in need of some serious feng shui-ing.

Disappointed, I asked for a side table where there was, at least, a pitiable skyline view and I placed my iPad, volume down, on the table so I could side-watch the Thursday Night football game—hey, I’m not meeting MY boyfriend, ok? As the official third-wheel, I figured I’d need a little entertainment.

After a few moments, a waitress came by and she paused to look us over with a cat-like indifference that signaled she was better than me, better than us really. She was just cooler.
I was delighted—why am I drawn to people who look down on me?
I suppose I need years of psychoanalysis—but who’s got the time?

I glanced at Lisa. We know each other at a cellular level. With a milli-second of lash flutterings and eye dilations, I asked “are you getting this?” And she affirmed that she was. Because we’re cyborgs. A couple of cyborgs.
Just kidding. We’re not cyborgs, neither of us. We wish we were sometimes—think of the advantages, you could complete college in a blink—wirelessly.

Anyway, back to the narrative. The waitress reminded me of when I was starting high school and my mom and I toured colleges, how snooty the Harvard people were, even though I’d been accepted and offered a free-ride scholarship—I mean, shouldn’t we all have been one, big, self-congratulatory snooty-group together?
(Of course, I chose Yale because the people were totally friendly).

“I better get used to it,” I side-bar’d Lisa, who got the reference to my upcoming, year-long, master's program at Harvard—because we’re cyborgs. I handed ‘Laura’ (our snooty waitress was tagged) my Black American Express card, which got her attention, and said, “start a tab please—someone will join us—run a 40% tip too,” I added with a smile. She practically jogged off to get our drinks and hors d'oeuvres and I turned my attention to the game, you know, to catch up.

I love Pro football—it’s not really fall without football—is it? Even though Tom Brady retired. This all goes to say that I’m a pro football ******. Lisa likes it too, though she’s not totally obsessed.

Just after Laura brought us our martinis and ‘poached lobster’ slides, a random, well-dressed man (he was wearing an expensive Brioni, wool linen silk suit), 35-ish, receding mousy-brown hairline, high-ball glass in hand, took the opportunity to stop by and chat. “SO,” he said, in a deep, jolly, ice-breaking salesman’s voice,
“You girls like football?”
I decided that the suit was too shiny for a Brioni—was it a Zegna?—I idly wondered.
“We’ve boyfriends,” Lisa announced, almost apologetically, nodding to include me—in case he missed the plural. Undeterred, he swiveled my way—as if he needed a second opinion—and asked me,
“What do you like about football?” He sounded somewhat condescending to me, so I did what I always do with condescending males—I played the ‘ditzy-girl’ card, “The costumes,” I answered.
“The uniforms,” he gently, fatherly, corrected—before rocking back a little on his heels and sipping his drink.
“And the hats,” I updogged, but before he could digest my reply, David, Lisa’s man-friend, arrived on the scene.
“Sorry to be so late,” he said, giving me a little, jiggly, 4-finger wave, shedding his coat and giving Lisa a smooch on the top of her hair.
The salesman wordlessly took his leave.
It’s a night on the town—let the 3rd-wheeling begin!
.
.
Songs for this:
Diamond Dave by The Bird and the Bee
You Belong to Me by Vonda Shepard
.
.
And a Christmas Playlist - because the big day is 8 days away!
http://daweb.us/xmas/Christmas_24.mp3

Sudden kisses, in ***** stealth - warming as morning sun - unmasked favors to allure and added heat to deep affection.

Those eyes, fair heaven should be spangled with such stars - and those radiantly concupiscible lips perform witchcraft.

Slow hours of marriage-like joys soon followed - lover’s tongues tanged from the sweetest flowers not of the field.

In that dear company, I surrendered, like eve's apple, that treasure - peevish, proud and idle whose natural enemy is man.

What I find now haunting my sleep are the nights, the years of lost and unused benefits - knowing that fault was mine.

Last night, Lisa, Peter, Leeza and I were in her father’s 50th floor study watching New York City. It’s a corner room with glass walls from floor to ceiling. He likes to watch the city himself and has a small, 5 seat sectional couch facing the view.

The left wall window looks across Hell’s Kitchen to exactly where Sully Sullenberger crash landed flight 1549 in the Hudson river (it was 3:31 pm and no one was home). The right window overlooks Central Park and Upper Manhattan. Lincoln Center, almost dead center of the corner, looks like part of a toy train-set.

The view is a wheeling, ever changing and mesmerizing panorama. Well lit ships, barges and boats move glacially against the ink black Hudson. Jets in expressway-like holding patterns (Newark Liberty, and Teterboro airports left window - LaGuardia, right window) blink, like waving angels, helicopters buzz below like insects and the traffic, far, far below, forms a living chain of red and white lights which can erupt with nugatory hues of police blue at any moment.

While we watch, we’re playing a game of “Would you rather.” It’s a game of situational trade-offs, like “Would you rather listen to the same 10 songs forever or have to watch the same 5 movies forever? Of course, most people say the movies - because they last longer and there would be fewer repeats.

We take turns asking these critical questions - pausing, occasionally, to point out things below.  
“Would you rather be in a crowded elevator with a bunch of noisy high school students or pinned in with a bunch of judgemental, middle aged men? The girls chose the students, even though high schoolers can be mean. Peter chose to be with the men.
“Would you rather find your true love or a suitcase with 5 million dollars?” We all chose love.
“Would you rather hike or camp?” Both were unpopular if they involved going to the bathroom outside - which creeps the girls out.
“Would you rather give up your computers or your pets (forever)?” THAT was a stressful one.

During our recent, year-long pandemic imprisonment, my room - which, objectively, is a very nice room - seemed to transform, late-nights, into a tomb. I had to open all the windows just to feel like I could breathe.

Night after night, when the lights were out, I’d lay perfectly still, perfectly awake until all-hours, listening to crickets. There must be a billion of them in Georgia.

Persistent consciousness can drive you mad.

“Why are your windows open?”, my mom would say, hurrying to close them in winter (to save heat) and summer (to save cool).

I wouldn’t argue - I’d just shrug, wordlessly and reopen them once she left. I seldom argue anymore - I surreptitiously do whatever I want to.

It was Friday afternoon and we’re discussing weekend plans. “You know,” Anna said, introspectively, “we were different people last year. We (Sunny and Anna) went out both nights, Friday and Saturday - for weeks. We got a taste for it, we were absolutely feral.
“True,“ Sunny admitted, “but we were high school nerds, we had to go a little crazy.”
“I can’t imagine going to the frats this year.” Anna said, with a quiver of revulsion. “Not that we’re living the nun-life, exactly.”
“Not exactly,” Sunny confirmed with a chuckle.

In fact, it’s been very quiet in our dorm suite recently. We’ve been ASMR-ing 24x7 and I have to say I like it - there really is something pinequal about it. We’ll be on campus somewhere together talking very softly with our heads pressed together - we get looks - but we’re not the only ones - it’s a trend.

Another trending is “That’s why I’m the way I am” where you have to tell an off-beat story about your pre-college self - ending with “That’s why I’m the way I am.” All in whispers, of course.
We’re all sitting on floor pillows around a large, low rectangular coffee table where we usually study.

Leong, whispers, barely audibly, as we all lean-in and strain to hear. “One time, when I was playing softball in high school (this was in Macau, China), I got benched and I started planking on the bench in protest and somehow, the other girls thought it was hilarious and it started a trend at my school, of planking if you got benched or something and the school administration thought that attitude seditious and threatened to stop the playing of softball altogether if players didn’t behave. That’s why I’m the way I am”

I take up the game with “I had this evil French teacher in high school, Mrs. Chew. She hated me because she knew I didn’t have to try very hard in her class to get an “A”.
One morning, Mrs. Chew was being a real *****, and she asked whether I was dyslexic.”
“Well,” I answered, innocently, “I got into Yale.” (With an implied air of - “f*ck off”)
“That’ll be a lunch detention,” she said, one-upping me, it was unfortunate and tragic. That’s why I’m the way I am”

“I started this whole kerfuffle yesterday,” Sophy said, out of the blue, “by saying “THE” Ukraine.” “GOI,” I snapped, “THE United States!!” And I think I crushed THEM.
“Have you been spending time at the med school?” Lisa asked, “Did they give you something?”
“If so, share,” Anna laughed.

Leong gasped, “Did you guys hear that car last night, cruising back and forth by the dorm dubbing? The fricking stereo was bassquake - I was ready to **** by the time they drove away.” “Yeah,” we all groaned.
“Let's hope THAT doesn’t trend,” Leong added.

I’m learning a lot, dating Peter. For instance, I have a whole new awareness of how clueless older Americans, like people in their mid-twenties, are about things in the modern world.

I think Peter’s learning things too. Like the other night, I was 30 minutes late because I was gluing little, glittering rhinestones to my eyebrows. Was he mad? Yes, we had a little drama, but that’s just because he hasn’t learned to respect my lifestyle choices.

“Don’t be mawkish Peter,” I softly advised him, while fixing the caller of his shirt, “look, let's just pretend that we squabbled over this, and I won?” I suggested, helpfully. “It’ll save us time and WOW, we’re running late, OK? Seeing some small, lingering irritation, I promised, “We can still makeup later.”

The rhinestones looked spectacular, I got a LOT of compliments and in the end, I think he liked them. You know, sometimes I’ll catch him looking at me, like the moon or something, like I’m out of reach.

Guys are so.. (searching for a word).

Paris, earlier today. It’s a (vaccinated) summer family reunion and I’m catching up with relatives I haven’t seen for AGES. Like my impeccably dressed (three piece suit on a warm, un-air-conditioned, Saturday) 83 year old great uncle.

We cheek kiss

“STILL searching for love, Uncle Remy?”

“Forget love. My dear, I’m an old, self-absorbed narcissist. What I look for is someone young and frivolous whose most complicated desire is fun - specifically fun that can be bought - that’s an important distinction.”

I gasp and pose.

“You’re looking for MEEEE!,” I squeal.

“Oh, if I needed a spoiled, over-serious, temperamental, unappeasable rich girl - I’d think of you.”

“You GET me!,” *I beam with pride

The pressure to create constantly
makes those creations feel disposable