Outside My Window

Underneath these layers, I'm bound in white spandex bandage.  I sit still and tall, and when I lean forward, I feel the bandage tug tight against my ribs.  Last night, in the car, she takes the key out of the ignition.  "And why," she asks, "are you doing this to yourself?"  It's about my energy and my art and my person in general.
Yesterday, after my ribs cracked like knuckles, I was stuck.  Propped up in my bed with my sketch pad in front, I, lacking precision, quickly etched the view outside of my window.  It was an in-between rain, not torrential and not drizzle, just a substantial amount of water splashing down and splattering.


Who dressed in layers of classic Mexican costume to conceal her twisted ribs and limp leg?  Was it Frida Kahlo, who, bed-ridden and crippled, began to paint? 

Cinema Bar

According to Yelp, it's a dive bar with live music.  The drinks are a bit over-priced and the venue's a bit stale, but it's the perfect location for the two of us to lean against the jukebox.  We dissolve into the background, her and me, discussing this and that, but mostly this, sipping our Fat Tires and, at times, momentarily quiet, letting the music color in our empty spaces.  We're, hands down, the youngest and there's a lady in hippie dippy garb twirling in circles.  In between songs, the dancing stops, and she sits on her stool at the bar, and gulps her cocktail.  "Another one, please," she motions and back to twirling.  "Nice pantalones," says the singer and the dancer nods and keeps on twirling.
After one drink, we call it a night; it's a mutual decision.  "It's gone flat," she says and, showing me the remaining liquid, gives the bottle a good shake and takes a final swig.  It's one of those nights where you spend more time getting there, than you do at the actual destination.  Most of the night, in fact, was spent in the car, fidgeting with the radio scanner, listening to the end of songs.

Ambiance

Chabad Telethon: Behind the Scenes

Backstage at the Chabad Telethon:
Mordechai Ben David is warming up and Jan Murray is looking over his cue cards.  It's chaos and producers with running shoes and fanny-packs (filled with menthol chapstick and used tissues) are walking fast, frantically speaking loud on transportable radio mics.
Rabbi Cunin is up front and all six cameras are on him.  His pointer finger is pointing and the Rebbe's portrait (oil on canvas), enframed in gold wood, is looking straight ahead, staring deep into the camera lens, and maintaining sturdy eye contact with thousands of viewers at home.  Rabbi Cunin is speaking; his black hat and black coat, his silver beard, and his wide spongey feet.  He's talking about mitzvahs and donations and in fifteen minutes, he promises, we'll do the tote and Jon Voight will come out and dance with a bunch of rabbis.  The phones are ringing off the hook and white script like "Mr. and Mrs. Charles Karp from Tarzana, CA just donated $180 dollars" are being scrolled onto the bottom of the screen.
It's two hours-in, 7PM, and we've got five hours to go.
Back to Mordechai Ben David, the show-stopper, who is bobbing in the corner, looking like he's davening, getting his game-face on, stoic and confident, his pais rolled behind his ears.  It'll be his first song of the night, a beautifully understated, father and son duet with a kid from the L.A. Boys Choir. 
The Rabbis' wives sit in the audience with their offspring (a bunch of Menachem Mendels and Chaya Mushkahs), shoulder-length sheitles in place, and draped, head to toe, in purple fabric.
The fanny-packed producer radios into her transmitter, "Intro the tote."
Jon Voight's getting ready to dance.

Desert

There's something very biblical about the desert.  It's where the prophets go and sacred rituals take place.  It's Native American and peyote visions and cacti and red mountains.
The desert is where people go to retire and play golf.  The heat heals aching tendons and the land is flat and vast, except for towering mounds of sedimentary rock.  It's quiet and distant.  A light breeze whistles.
Going to the desert is a task.  The highway lanes are wide and empty.
Coleman, who we always called Norman, who lived next door to us in the desert, who gardened and swept his front door's curling pathway, isn't here anymore.
In the desert, you come and go.  It's cyclical and never-ending.

Epiphany

Around 4:15 this evening, I realized that I, severely mistaken, was attending a senior-citizen yoga class.  I partook anyway and sweat a lot, stretching my lower back and neck.  It was a bunch of senior citizens and me... and one overweight twelve-year-old.
Lying on my back, feet flexed, legs lifted up onto a metal chair, staring up at the stretch-marked ceiling, hearing old people and one overweight twelve-year-old breathe, I had an epiphany.  Actually, today was jam-packed with epiphanies.  But, this epiphany was special as I was exhaling into my hips, just like the teacher said to do. 
I can't recall my epiphany at this moment.
I lost my wallet today.
My dad came home from the hospital.
I shared a joint with my mom and talked about Bournemouth and her brother and willow trees.

Observation Unit

I hate the sterile smell of hospital.  It's like an airport, but more hand sanitizer.  It's egg-shell white and muddy gray and the humming of electronics.  He's hooked up, and there are tubes jutting out of his nostrils and pins inside the bend of his arm.  He's a machine and he's eating his mashed potato and gravy dinner.  There's an unopened apple juice carton.  Christopher comes in, apologizes for interrupting, and starts taking blood.  His heart's beating and the computer screen behind his head is beeping; green lines jump up and down like aztec scribbles.

Half-Staff

There's no wind and the flag is at half mast.  It's halfway up the pole, hanging down, tugging at a tight string.  It's quiet too.  If you're sitting there, you can hear cars parking and planes flying eastbound. People walk past you and their pockets jingle.
Otherwise, it's quiet.

On the bus, earlier this morning: it's how she walks up onto the platform, smiling, and says "Good Day."  She talks about the weather, about how it's perfectly warm, but she's wearing her sweater anyway.  The bus driver nods, but, "it was cold this morning," he says.
"Oh was it?" and she smiles.  "Well, we need the cold," she says.
We sure do, he agrees, "and the rain too."

The difference between Is and Was

Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head 15 minutes ago...
It was headlined on my yahoo homepage.  I clicked on it and now I'm writing a blog.
The yahoo article's been shared over 500 times via facebook, after being published precisely 13 minutes ago.  Her wikipedia page is already past tense.  It begins, "Gabrielle Giffords (June 8, 1970 - January 8, 2011) was the U.S. Representative for Arizona's 8th congressional district. She was a member of the Democratic Party."
There's no time to digest the happenings, it's just fast food consumption that's skimmed in a blurb, on top of a homepage.  It scares me because one moment you're present tense and the next, some anonymous identity is editing your wikipedia page, changing "is" to "was."

UPDATE: Wikipedia re-edited Gabrielle Gifford's page back to the present tense.  She's currently in surgery and the digital world awaits further word on her current condition (which is, hopefully, stable).

Colonization- a post that was written three days ago

It comes in untimely huffs and forced yawns.
My lungs are tight and my chest is crooked and my back is hunched.
It started in class this morning.
I noticed it when the bald Canadian was lecturing on American Art; I was sitting in my chair, palms on my thighs, being extra conscious of my breathing.  And then, when I was driving home.  And then again at yoga class.  It was in yoga class when I couldn't breathe.  Just relax, she says, but my shoulder blades are tensed and raised and I'm yawning and can't stop thinking.
I come home and everyone's in the living room.  "Tomorrow," they say in unison like a Greek chorus, "the house is going up for sale."  These molded peach walls and long slabs of wood.  Tomorrow.  "Okay," and I give a thumbs up and yawn.  And that's it, right there.
And then, everything continues spiraling down.
Breathing's a bitch.  And I'm reading about the British colonization of America.  About Ralegh and Barlowe and Grenville and White.  About the skinning of Indians and shipwrecks and gold plates and spoiled foods.

And tomorrow my childhood home is on the market.

Cactus Plant

"My cactus is dying in my room."  And she's devastated.

He's in the other room, on his computer, and the sound is muffled.  "What," he barks.

"My cactus."
She waits.
"It's dying."

"Oh," he says and he goes back to typing with his two index fingers.

For Sale

Home.

I think it's because we weren't expecting it.  You can see it, driving up the hill.  Actually, it's the first thing you see and as you near and your silver SUV creeps further up the hill, the sign grows taller.

It's this big white post and this narrow white sign.  It's staked into our green lawn, piercing right through the soil, balancing straight up.

And for a very small second, everything becomes quiet.  The radio stops.  The car stops rattling.  Our nostrils clear.  And then everything begins again.

"It's okay," she tells me.  Yeah, of course it is.  And we park on the street and walk up our oil-stained driveway.  And that's it.

Clean Lentils

The New Year begins with a bang and a buck. 

It begins with us cooking around the kitchen, the girls, with blue flames on the burners and tarnished pots spilling over with bubbling liquid.

Ziggy's from Eritrea.

She teaches me how to clean lentils properly and what I like most about Ziggy is that she cooks with her hands.

She turns on the faucet and water spills into a glass bowl of dry legumes.
"This is how you clean lentils," and she uses her hand as a stopper to block grains of orange lentil from tumbling out the bowl and down the drain pipe.
She turns the faucet back on and repeats the process over and over until there's no more foam.
 It's that simple, but I like watching her do it because there's something very maternal about the process.

This is going to be a good year.

Injera, the sour sponge bread, and brick-red chili powder and cloves of peeled garlic and neon yellow cumin.

It's the tart fumes that lift from the stove-top and waft throughout the house, down the hall, and up the chimney.  It seeps into our fingernails and thickens into our hair.

"In my country, the women cook and we talk and share stories."
Around the stove, stirring lentils and spices and minced onion.

The next day, the house is full.

Ziggy rolls the injera and organizes them onto a white serving plate so that they look like moist towelettes.  People sit cross-legged on the ground, talking about their New Year's resolutions, eating this food that boiled for so long.