More Please

There has got to be more to this summer than sitting at home doing nothing. I could write, I could read, but what does that get me in the end? Not much. I get the satisfaction of writing a story and finishing a few dozen copies of the New Yorker (none of which are relevant anymore, since they're so old at this point), and then maybe I can tear a few up and make something out of the pages. But what does that get me? Nothing. Nada nada limonada, and let me tell you, this is some sour lemonade.

There has to be something I can do with myself. Right now, it looks like I'll be spending my time in the ivory tower, staring out the window at the sidewalk I'd love to be walking on. I'm no better than a baby, or my 97 year old great-grandma; I can't go out without someone holding my hand.

Living dangerously at this point would be to just go outside and sit on the porch. Seriously. I know, I know, this isn't a big problem. In less than three months I'll have so much independence I won't know what to do with it all. But I want it now. I know I don't have it as bad as some people do--I know kids who are much worse off, in terms of what they can and can't do. But that doesn't mean that this isn't frustrating. If I wasn't so scared of getting in trouble, I'd grab my bike out from the garage where it's been waiting all year and take it for a spin around the block, just once, or down to Vons to get some ice cream. Never mind the fact that I have plenty of it in the freezer already-- I want to buy it myself.

I'm tired of not doing anything. Summer has hardly even started, and I'm already bored with it. I read somewhere that someone said being bored was an insult to yourself, but at this point, I don't think myself cares very much. I want to do something more productive and interesting than read another book or an article about some obscure artist. I want to achieve something. This is what I get for being such a goody two-shoes.

I don't like it anymore.

On Walden and Waiting

This is my Walden. This is my self-reliance. This is ironic.

So I'm officially going to Boston- I'm still waiting on two more Boston letters, but I've already got one in my inbox that says I get a plane ticket back east to the beautiful city of Boston. And therein lies the irony. I'm going to a city, not the woods, to live a new kind of life and learn how to live on my own.

It's feeling so much more like spring now. The weather is nice enough that I can wear short socks to school every day now and I don't feel too cold, and I'm developing the annual glasses tan-- and those are sure signs of spring. We're also all getting a little more restless. We're waiting for spring break to start or classes to end or for just this one math class to finally be over so we can go outside in the wind again. We're waiting for something to happen.

March is the month of waiting.

Tylenol y Coca-Cola

When my dad got sick and started coughing all over the house a few weeks ago, we all joked that he had fallen victim to the whooping cough epidemic. After that (staying true to his characteristically goofy sense of humor) he punctuated each cough with a loud, high pitched "WHOOP WHOOP!" It was absolutely hilarious while it lasted and never failed to make me laugh, but then just when he got better my sister managed to catch it too. It hit her harder, meaning that we had to "whoop whoop" for her, since she was so fatigued, and a few days ago she finally went to the doctor. Meantime I had been coughing a little too, but I didn't think it was that bad at first.

And then came the diagnosis: acute bronchitis, not whooping cough. My dad of course panicked and had me look up the symptoms: fatigue, coughing up mucus, sore throat, check, check, and check-- for the both of us. It's supposed to clear up on its own after a while, but for now we're armed with enough hot tea, cough drops, and books/computer games and TV (depending on which one of the sisters you're talking to) to keep us relatively happy while we recover.

The fatigue alone is driving me crazy. I went to the mall with my mom today, and not even a big Starbucks hot chocolate with whipped cream had enough caffeine in it to resuscitate me. In fact, I think it gave me a headache.

Anyways, the Cubans have been calling daily (their gossip is getting worse and worse; it seems that the whole world knows that I have a boyfriend) to check in and see if we're better yet. And I'm feeling a lot better, really, but the exhaustion is terrifically debilitating. It probably wasn't such a good idea to go to the mall today...

If I were a good Cuban, I'd keep a bottle of Coke and a bottle of Tylenol next to my bed at all times. My nutcase father keeps calling it Coca-Cola con Tylenol, not Tylenol y Coca-Cola, because he thinks it would be so much better if they just mixed the drugs right in with the Coke and sold it like that. Believe me, both companies would make tons of money if they understand their major demographic (which is old Cubans around the age of 65 who constantly moan out announcements of their impending death, which is scheduled to occur within the hour.) They could make a fortune. I'll even volunteer my grandma and great-grandma as spokeswomen. They can be like the Miller High Life guy,the one that always goes around taking beer away from people who don't deserve it, only the Cuban Crusaders will snatch bottles of PediaCare and Excedrin away instead and replace them with Coca-Cola con Tylenol, the Cuban cure for everything! (brought to you by the Association of Cubans for a Free Island. All proceeds fund la revolucion).

So yes. I am in desperate need of rest and Coca-Cola, even though I don't like it very much, and so are the Dodgers (because they're all basket cases now-- I think they actually need psychiatrists too, but that's just me.) Miraculously enough, my mom hasn't needed the potent drug for a while. At the moment, she's happily turning our house into the Museum of Family History, complete with one small shrine dedicated to my career as a track runner and another, this one housed in her long pined-for china cabinet, full of Cuban memorabilia: tiles hand-painted with traditional recipes and tiny pictures of ingredients, a shiny silver cafe Cubano-maker we bought at a drugstore in Miami, and the ARCO china that made up my great-grandma's first set of dishes in America. But that's a story for another day-- a day where I'm not thisclose to using my keyboard as a pillow.

I think I'm going to make the arduous journey to the kitchen and see if I can find myself some drugs-- the Cuban kind, of course.

This is Just to Say

that there is a bowl
of red plums on the counter
with two ripe purple
plums
nestled in,
and the best looking one-
the juiciest, sweetest-
still held fast to leaves
so slender and green
that I just couldn't bite it.
So I took the second,
the bitter skinned twin,
and carefully let beauty be.

Head to Hand to Pen to Page: Minimally Edited Poems from a Summer Afternoon

Summer sun hits the sidewalk and my face
in the just same way
harsh
but just right for
ten minutes or more if I'm lucky
if I'm lucky if I'm lucky
I'll be able to handle
the sun for an hour
and your smile in
the just same way
can handle me for ten more minutes.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Dog--
yellow-haired,
big smiling thing,
why do you insist
on clamb'ring atop the table
I'm sitting at and writing on
and then settling there to
be that much closer
to a breathing
being being,
Dog?

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

4 o'clock
the shadows stop
hiding.
5 o'clock
the shadows start
running.
6 o'clock
my thoughts start
wandering.
7 o'clock my thoughts keep spinning,
but the sun's almost done
dipping
and I must start
collecting
blown down papers
fragment words
keeping
them all for tomorrow.

Brave New World/Tired Old Room

I don't want comfort.

I don't want fear.

I want God,

I want hope,

I want poetry,

I want intelligence,

I want real danger,

I want real life,

I want freedom,

I want wings,

I want goodness.

I want to be happy.

I want sin.

I want choices.

I want to know what I'm doing.

448 days left

What are they going to do when their glass box finally breaks into three thousand jagged pieces? When the doll has snowflakes in her hair and wings on her heart?