shoe lust birthday boots!

the last pair in my size in the COUNTRY, gifted to me by the amazing, amazing Jam Guy.

Yeah, meant to post this nearer to my actual BIRTHDAY instead of nearly eight months later, but better late than never. I have been wearing these almost every day--literally, like, there might be one day each month I DON'T wear them--for the last almost eight months. Thank you, honey!

lava carves its own path.

i was in an abusive relationship for a long time because sorrow and shame fit into me like a key, because the door to me was built early to open much too easily to punishment. when hurt came my way, i couldn't help but let it in, it felt so made for me.

but now.

now i am with someone who wants to melt me with the caution and patience of some old sage of metalworkers, not to resculpt me into something built to open to him, but to leave me an unformed flow, molten and dangerous and free.

thoughts during the journey homeward from Tampa

These all are harbingers of the onrush of older age: when I am tired or overwrought, I run my hands all over my face (maybe to hide the fatigue or fright I used to wear more openly and willingly, like a Girl Scout badge for Strength in the Wilderness of the World); I reconsider the martini at the airport based on the early hour in the city I am flying home to (where once anywhere near noon in my destination city OR departure city OR layover city would have been enough reason to take my place in the lineup of throat-clearing, awkwardly displaced travelers in a bar where nobody knows your name and you know you will likely regret you came, if not when a stranger begins detailing his last week of fishing triumphs to you, then when the martini rises sourly in your throat during takeoff or landing or turbulence); and I spend three and a half days with my father and do not once feel throttled by rage fueled by grief (and feel, instead, only the originating grief, and though it is far less bearable than the rage, do not wish to exchange it, preferring and choosing the inevitably forward motion of truth).

I married a man who says,

"Honey, why don't you grab your beer and watch your show?"

SCORE.

As though I needed another reason to love him

Sidewalk Monkey, sitting next to Jam Guy on the driveway, eating the ham sandwich he's made for them during a break in a long hot day of gardening: Oh my god. This cheese is amazing. What is it?

Jam Guy, frowning: What cheese? Oh--that's not cheese. That's a slice of butter.

Today we saw a peacock behind a chain-link fence. He had his tail all fanned out, trying to get the attention of a completely indifferent peahen. He rattled his tail at her a few times, like a man in a sports car gunning the motor when a pretty woman walks by--Look at me! Hey! Pretty lady! Over here! Look! Hey!

When she passed him by, he did a long and elaborate peacock dance for Adam and me, no doubt hating for his dazzling charm to go to waste, and appreciating at least having an appreciative audience. His tail spread above him like a stained-glass saint's halo in a Romanesque cathedral. He faced us, glittering, and then, with deliberate, precise steps, turned in a full circle, showing us the slivered profile of the splendid fan, the almost-hidden wings folded along the back, the incongruously fluffy, ducklinglike bottom. He turned back to us and stood statue-still, allowing us to admire him. He turned in another circle full, slow circle, in the opposite direction this time.


We made fun of him a little on the way home, because of how much he seemed to enjoy the attention, because of his comical failure to interest the hen. But I still can't get over how incredibly gorgeous he was, like a burlesque dancer, like a god with a hundred eyes, slowly fanning the drab, gaping humans with the transformative heat of his beauty.

Today I was walking around downtown doing some errands

and found myself walking behind a girl who works at the news and magazine store where we pick up our coffee beans twice a week.

I have always noticed this girl because 1) downtown Santa Rosa is not a big place, and you see the same people over and over again even if you don't frequent the businesses they work at, 2) she is really, really pretty and 3) she looks ethnically ambiguous with a South Asian lean, like me. Or maybe she's Filipina, I'm not sure. But there aren't a whole lot of ethnically ambiguous brown people like me here in Santa Rosa, so I take special notice of each such person when I spot one.

Today this girl was walking with an older woman who I knew at once was her mother. I could tell because of the way the girl leaned slightly away from the older woman and the way the older woman leaned slightly towards the girl: it was a mother wanting to convey something that seemed important to her daughter and a daughter not wanting to hear it. The mother looked a lot more East Asian than the daughter, but they were definitely related--they had the same walk, they wore their exasperation with each other with the same body language, and they were exactly the same height.

I am having a good day with lots of good news and beautiful weather and everything; Jam Guy drew a happy face on my egg and rice this morning with Sriracha; our fruit trees, which have struggled through a winter of weird extremes (for Northern California, anyways) are covered in tender little springtime buds. There is no reason not to have all the hope in the world today. But seeing that mother and daughter walking together made me feel so lonely so suddenly.