my sister is wonderful. she wrote this wonderful thing. she's been away writing many wonderful things, maybe she will send me copies of them all before she leaves for london / jerusalem / home.
one of my last nights in egypt she was distraught and i was peaking out her dorm room door at the stack of old books in a cardboard box that was being crushed by the weight of them all. i'd been watching them all week, unmoving, and was convinced they were being thrown out. so i went through them all and found the good illustrated physics textbook. i sat on her lumpy bed and tore pages out as discretely as i could while she worked away. i tore out enough pictures -- pictures of things like exploding rocketships -- to cover the wall above her bed, and wrote things on them -- "i know sometimes it feels like this" -- to just be a reminder that i would be there even though i was gone.
i remember it all now today as it rains beautifully in richmond virginia, as she packs to leave cairo egypt, because she has reminded me of the tiny one somewhat hidden in the corner by the nightlight with a picture of a crocodile in a creek with a person trying to cross it with math. "when dealing with sticky sexual situations, a word of advice: watch out for crocodiles."
take pictures, reema. come home. we all love you over here too.
i suppose i should say something. there is a fair amount to share... i have been trying / not trying to keep track of it all. there is a fog over richmond. we are wet all the time. it keeps us from seeing the tops of buildings, but at least we can see across the river.
1 car wreck. car. wreck. the other driver with a lady in the passenger seat, a little kid in the back, and no driver's license. and me with no bumper, no grill, and green stuff spilling out of what i'm told is or er was the radiator. everyone conscious and okay, but still i watch as they all get taken away -- the driver whose name was charles and then william and then darnell but actually really just plain old john smith handcuffed and arrested, the others strapped to gurneys. me on the side of the road at 5pm....
2 road trip. road. trip. i called all around, to all the rental car places, to bargin about miles. i had to get the smallest car possible so i could have it the longest time possible so i could rack up the most amount of culminative milage possible, so i can use it all to get to minnesota. minnesota.
3 joshua's wedding. on a farm in plainview, minnesota. jonathan and adam and i are bringing our backpacks, sleeping bags, tents, and nice clothes. i am looking up the maps right now. one week. one week until next friday. bear with me until then.
if you haven't heard from me, these are the reasons. these are the reasons you will not hear from me.
there is an eroticism to my body when i am all alone. something in the shapes now that i am impressed by. which is new. a new good feeling. so this is twenty-four. something i have felt coming on for a while now. anyway.
the house is quiet. beezus and i drink sweet milk together, as she was clever enough to shove her tail in my first mug of it, thus laying claim. milk and farmers' market strawberries... that is where i work now, which i realize now i have not told you. on the second floor of a tiny orange carriage house building at the end of the 17th street farmers' market. where the show is run. anyway.
all this in the way of...
i am developing a ruthlessness towards inanimate objects. they ellicit little if no sense of loyalty from me. mostly i look at them and scowl, am made upset by their presence and my responsibility for them. they are not, i have decided, on my side. anyway.
my birthday was good. a lot of fun. much merrier than my tone here tonight writing it down. i took my folks to croaker's spot, dragging them through their hesitation when they learned it is a soulfood place... a seafood soulfood place. but they had a lot of fun: we drank electric lemonades and ate a ton of fried fish. at the end of it all, the big bartender scooted up bedside me in the tight booth and said "happy birthday, birthday girl, your dinner's on us."
and then there was the drinking tea on top of church hill with all the friends, the more tea back at the house with the dogs and homemade challah bread ben made for me, the walking in the cobblestone alley home to my little house. it was raining, i was wearing highheels, and i thought: well, here i am. this is it and here i am.
