I am back in the suburbs, sneaking stealthily into the old house, now inhabited by the newer, younger, richer, better ones. I am inside now, cleaning out heaps of family belongings that I had left behind and I am hurrying, hurrying before the new owners show up (they are gone for the week-end). I try to leave no trace, I turn out lights and fold the toilet paper in the bathroom just as they had left it, but I take too long and lo, just as I am leaving with the last armload, I see HER pull in, the new owner in her new Smart car, the Smart car that is environmentally friendly and that I rent in Europe but cannot afford to own here.
No, no, do not make me get up. I know I have an early class, but I have to finish this dream so that it is forever purged!
I am unhinged after that. I get up, turn on the computer and find an email from an old friend in the old ‘hood, mentioning the regular meetings of the book club that I no longer attend because I do not have time to read books. No, excuse me, I read books, but I do not finish them. I used to not finish books that I did not adore. Now I adore them and yet they get the half way mark, no more, because, well, because there are too many books and besides, I blog and writing each day takes time.
…And so I am not surprised to also get an email from Brandon – one of my favorite story bloggers of all time – explaining that the reason he is giving up One Child in a few months is that he lacks the hours it takes to be blogworthy.
To remedy my reading deficiencies, I rush to Borders after work because today commences the educators’ discount there – everything, EVERYTHING is off by 25% and I love so many books right now that I want to have them here next to me, so that they can collect dust and I can dust them off fondly and recall days when I did not blog.
I leave Borders late, except that I cannot leave, because two cars proceed to have an accident in the back of the car I am using and the police ask me to kindly wait until they have resolved their differences. I stand dumbly with my stack of books and watch snowflakes fall.
In the evening, I write to my good friends from the old ‘hood and tell them that I desperately want to see them before I die and preferably this coming week. I insist on driving out there, to the suburbs, to the place I had condemned over and over and over again here in the blog but never in reality. Not fully, that is.
In the meantime, as I am firing emails and making plans for a trip, for it is a trip, back to the ‘burbs, my sister writes from Warsaw and I have not heard from her either, for ages and ages and she tells me of deaths of friends and of singers who came to fame while we were teens. I suppose you could call these dudes Communist-regime balladeers because they sang in spite, yes in spite of the totalitarian regime. And we loved them then and still love them now for their music and for the era where it was actually okay to be a kid. Totalitarian regime and all.
It’s been a long time since I have been out in fancy places drinking cosmos. When WAS the last time I even had a cosmo?
Tonight. I have a beautiful glass with blue swirls on the outside and pink cranberry stuff on the inside, along with the citron vodka and lime juice.
