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Morals
I went to the movies tonight. It was kind of an action movie, so I sat in the seat and bit my nails to the point of pain. I'm not certain that it was the scenes on the screen causing the tension, but attribution is an art, not a science, isn't it? Walking in my front door, I said into the phone, 'My lifestyle isn't healthy,' and then I rushed to ( Read more... ) -
Modern Air Transportation
Fear of heights runs in my family - if that sort of thing can be hereditary. I can still feel the mud sliding against my socks as I ran my mouth on every topic I'd ever wanted to be pompous about to distract my sister from descending a hill. When I slid and plopped a few times on the climb down, I can call up the feeling of anxiety for her, not for ( Read more... ) -
Ocular Adjustment
For my sister's 1 month birthday, we bought balloons and a sign with a big number '1' next to a rocking horse. I wore a red cable knit sweater, a red skirt and the requisite headband, giving the illusion of taming my long, thick hair. My dad took pictures, including a head shot of me, sans pesky hair accoutrement, laying upside down on the floor ( Read more... ) -
Coda
I took clarinet lessons in seventh grade. I had developed a fervent desire to be musical, to produce something lyrical and take back my young childhood or whatever nonsense I told myself, having realized that we could now afford it. My dad bought me a top-of-the-line clarinet, and I was proud of it. I took good care of it, wiping down its ( Read more... ) -
Secrets of an Early Summer Evening
Living in a tourist area is contemptible. It's as though visitors have on 3D glasses that make your kitchen a Michelin restaurant, and they won't stop elbowing their way to the best table. On the first truly nice day of the season, you emerge from your cacoon and inevitably realize the eating out mentality is pervasive. You sit on the ledge from ( Read more... ) -
Celebration
I spent a summer in Grant Park. The orchestra rehearsed during lunch in the Gehry bandstand, all curvy shine and warm sun on my back as I sat in an almost-empty amphitheater and heard the violins flow. I know that park, and I know that lakefront, and I can think myself through the commute home like those 100K+ people in the crowd last night ( Read more... ) -
Ostensibly, An Ode to Commerce
I hate shopping. I realize this makes me an anomaly among females, but so it goes. I've never loathed it so much as I have over the past year or so. Right now, I'm in fairly dire need of an excursion. Nonetheless, thinking about heading out to the stores, even my favorites, ranks up there with the process of doing laundry in NYC. (For those ( Read more... ) -
Tilting
There's an expression people throw around: a love-hate relationship, separated by that easy dash, as though it were a balanced scale. But you can't have a love-hate relationship with a person, because there's no such thing as parity when it comes to people. Love-hate is a way of expressing loving against your own better judgment, it's a way of ( Read more... ) -
Aries
There's a little store across the street from my office building - the ghetto deli, everyone calls it. It's all 1998 lettering and questionable choices behind the counter, next to my black glass skyscraper late night abode. I am early one morning, beelining from the subway exit inside its clear doors for yogurt parfait before tackling my inbox of ( Read more... )