navidad

The rituals continue cyclical, shifting with age, as we're no longer required to do cutesy little kid Christmasy things like sing "Away In A Manger" to bemused nursing home residents, or plays for the grownups involving costumes made of 1970's colored bath towels and faded bedsheets, until we retreated to the basement to run around and be ninja turtles or whatever, buzzed on sugar.

Most of us are older now, old enough to drink or vote. There's fifteen years between me and the youngest, skinny with glasses and bangs like I once was, her room pink and glittery, an island in a house of sports trophies and pennants. She's a sweet and awkward kid who seems somewhat younger than her tweenage cohort, whose girliness is still ballet slippers and fairies instead of celebrity crushes and lipgloss. She tells me about her dance classes, that she likes to draw, and that she built these fairy houses out of silk flowers and cinnamon sticks for her dolls but seems embarrassed that what she perceives to be her cool older cousin sees this part of her world.

I tell her it's really cool, and I mean it, though I wish her imagination had been stretched even further, that there were more books in the house to be absorbed by osmosis instead of videogames. I wish I had copies to give her of all the fantasy novels I read when I was her age, all the Robin McKinley and Lloyd Alexander paperbacks checked out countless times from the library and read over and over. I wish she had volumes of fairy tales (she'd never heard of Andrew Lang) with illustrations by Bilibin and Dulac and that she'd read the Lord of the Rings instead of just watching the movies. Maybe this will come with time.

I end up missing the vigil this year, because this time we're actually enjoying each other's company and talking about what's actually going on with us even though the ones my age take the cynicism further than I do into borderline paranoia, as we roll dice over a board of the world map and snark about imperialist stoogedom. There is choir music on the radio as I drive home and I commune with the Divine on Route 2 to the crystalline voices floating through the static under the dark skies.

I wake up with scratchy eyes and whisper through the microphone as the others sing, and tonight I find I enjoy the company of pretty much everyone, and as the wine bottles empty, no one's arguing about Iran, but we're talking about books and I don't even know what's on the bestseller list because I've been reading about the Balkans and medieval people and Herodotus so I end up cooing over the baby and trying to speak wisdom into the lives of The Kids who are still caught up in nascent hipsterdom or high school hierarchies remembering when I thought I knew it all.

The drive back to the soon-to-be neighbor's house is quiet, and there's more lonely souls than I remember wandering the street, empty buses, a solitary figure framed in the laundromat window, a pack of young punks scowling beneath the awning of a cell phone shop. The cats are hungry and the street is quiet. A week ahead of sleeping, friends' cats, and packing boxes, feeling like a wanderer with a pile of clothes and sundry in the trunk, grateful for the introversion.

and death's dark shadows put to flight

We were the youngest by far, entering late through the side door past the aged faithful, as the organ played Bach and we settled in on the far side in the corner, lost in meditation gazing up at the blue ceiling, the candles illumining, the scriptures read once more, the chants of Advents past in Latin, the words of hope in a time as turbulent as this if not more, if Josephus was right... overreaching and bloated imperial powers, corrupt local authorities sucking the people dry, religious strife between rival factions, and lunatic fringe groups all fighting for domination, of voices in the wilderness, dreams deferred and hopes longed for.



I don't know why someone arranged O Come O Come Emmanuel in a major key because the whole longing for redemption and salvation in a dark world is lost when it's kind of maudlin, but otherwise, the austerity of a stripped sanctuary devoid of ornamentation was good for my soul that still resonates to the liturgical cycle yet is relieved not to sit there awkwardly during Communion because they didn't have it, because I feel it's disrespectful to take the body and blood if one does not believe it to be such.

We return to her house and drink tea at the kitchen table, pondering the state of the world, our residual Catholicism within our certain ethnic blood as her roommates disappear up the stairs laughing in Amharic, the dog and cat chase each other around the tree, and the time slips deeper into night and I drive home through cold streets revived even in near-sleeplessness.

it still doesn't feel like Christmas

Not that I'm complaining about the lack of snow. It's pretty awesome and I can't help but think of this.

little things

the ache in my jaw, the boxes in the front room, the social obligations of consumeristic holidays, the final exam in three days, all things will pass, and that week of slack is looking less and less like one, but being able to sleep in for a week straight will be a beautiful thing.

dulcet

I have yet to figure out if geekery is inevitable, as me and my youngest sister were raised in the same household and exposed to the same influences as children and I absorbed all the books and music that sent me plummeting down rabbit holes of history and subculture even further, yet none of this never quite caught on with her.

My mom likes pretty classical music: Bach and Vivaldi, and my sisters and I rollerskated around the basement to "Beethoven's Greatest Hits" scratched slowly to death on a plastic Fisher-Price turntable. Since part of my learning process involved home education, she'd take us to organ recitals at Trinity Lutheran or find cheap tickets for the orchestra or Apollo's Fire, and while I'm not so adept as to pick out a composer's work most of the time, it's something I still like, even if my tastes in the non-electrified realm tend to veer more towards the cathartic melancholy of Arvo Part or medieval polyphony.

But I love live music, and old churches, and things that are free so my parents and sister and her friend, and we sit there. My dad falls asleep because he's been up since 3am and prefers Zeppelin, and I soak in the golden glow of the light, the carved marble angels and the perfect mesh of strings, the intertwining baroque melodies, loving that it's not just the older folk enjoying the concertos, but crusty activist kids, and bandannaed bikers and those of us with peon jobs who can't afford the tickets to Severance but like to get our culture on nonetheless.



It makes me think of my old roommate and coming home to her playing Tchaikovsky on the viola, back before everything kind of imploded. I wonder how she's doing. I wish I could feel a sense of closure as the music concludes with carols about God and sinners reconciled. It's hard for me to believe in the brotherhood of man and world peace when it seems impossible to make amends with someone with whom there should theoretically be no grievance and maybe it's the sentimentality but I long to be the peace as much as I can, I've done what I can but it never seems to be enough.

just to wake up tells me, hell I must be brave

As I watched desert warriors play songs of protest and assertions of humanity, the drone of electric guitars, the heartbeat catharsis of calabash and djembe, the voices drawn out and chanted, as the hippies and hipsters and boomers and the girls in hijab sway and clap. They've had lives I can't imagine and struggles I can't comprehend and I'm tired from being awake from so long and zone out with my eyes closed, taking in this sound. Desert Sessions aren't just for swanky stoner rockers, after all...





I wake up exhausted, staring at the ceiling, asking for divine sustenance because it's not in me. Exhaustion and depression, post-quarterlife crisis of conscience and existence, further torpedoed by monumental shifts of power meaning more frustration for yours truly. It's not that it's so bad, but just with everything else, with the pent-up frustration, I ended up in tears today, but thankfully there was class-cutting and city-wandering and spiritual introspection as therapy to put things back into perspective.



And Mia Zapata's fabulous cut-too-short punk rock fury. It still kills me that for all the female-fronted punk bands, the Gits don't get more attention. I loved this stuff as a frustrated art kid, and as I've gotten older and dealt with more suck, it's stuck for me.

the last minutes

Cramming the first draft of a paper, trolling for citations, a brief interlude in Pittsburghia with friends from the old days. We listen to Creedence and the Stones just like old times, watch hockey, laugh, drink, play broomball Clerks-style on the balcony between two houses, walk up to the overlook at Mount Washington to gaze over the glittering metropolis nestled among rivers and hills. This little tradition has lasted eight years now and what I love about this little crew of people is their openness to others, the conversations had, and the way that we keep cycling back into each others' lives every few years.



I'm thankful that others have driven and that I can sleep in the car, lulled by the sound of 90's tuneage, waking up the next morning in need of caffeine, still feeling somnambulant and warm.

And then it's back to the daily grind after the lack of sleep, as we debate kinder gentler machine gun hands in class and I say too much incoherently, but I just can't agree with seeing the world through the binary of men and women, and it means nothing to me. Was I ever idealistic about people in large groups? Even in my days of starry eyes I don't think I ever was.

And the last hour is brutal, piles of things beyond my control and pay grade and ability because I can't be magical and compliant all the time, and I find myself getting angry, feeling resentful being constantly patronized, trying to hold in the angry salt eyes until I can be out of this building because I'm tired, praying for grace to keep calm and put things in perspective, trying to be thankful for what I've got yet resentful for feeling used, though that's the way of life for the peonage. I guess we're human resources and that's what we're there for. It's the ennui of perky holidays and innate nature sneaking up, just two more days til painting and sleeping in and just being away.

turning leaves

The rain so soothing last night, the soft rush of breeze and comforting grey, for melancholy music and the first preludes of the autumnal. Last year at this time as my living situation unraveled, I had driven out to the End of Civilization to stargaze caffeinated with my east-siders, but a year later I find the unplanned more solitude ever more comforting, as I settle in, having been here almost a year now, seeing the garden begin to go to seed, even as the zinnias and sunflowers are vibrant for awhile longer, as I'm ripping out more mint and pulling out weeds grown way too tall, where did August go, do I really miss it all that much...

It'd be a good day for museums if they were open, but it's sufficient for introversion, for reading books and pondering, for fighting the inevitable entropy of apartment life, not having to be anywhere until much later, beginning to tune out the warplanes flying overhead for the airshow at the lake, cup after cup of tea. I need days like this more often.

gatecrashers anonymous

At the beginning of this weekend, I never expected to be in the backyard of a lakefront mansion, learning how to merengue from someone I'd never met whose name I never learned, as a DJ played Brazilian baile funk, salsa, and dancehall before segueing into more wedding-reception-style fare.

For being as introverted and averse to large groups of people as I am, I've crashed more parties than one would think, though this one seemed very open-ended. I went with a married couple, people that I enjoy, but one feels very very single when it comes time to socialize and everyone is older and with their significant others, partnerless on the dance floor even if I wanted to and unable to join into any conversation. I thrive on the spark of dialogue about ideas and places and stories and if I don't have it in a social gathering, I really don't know what to do, wondering if I've made myself look out of place wearing all black in a sea of Hawaiian shirts and red white and blue.

Usually I run into someone I know because like my dad, I've somehow ended up acquainted with all sorts of characters, but these people were all strangers and not so much unfriendly as uninterested and if they were interesting, they didn't let on. If I got a hi what's your name, it was brief and any small talk involved the weather or the lovely view or maybe someone's new car.

At this point, I probably would have bailed out, walked back to my car parked in front of my friends' house around the block, to return home and watch the pyrotechnics from my balcony while drinking tea, but in the interest of literary inspiration and anthropological observation decided to stick it out because as the sun set, I was able to sit back and be amused by the flirtations of the affluent putting each others' numbers in their iPhones, and normally reserved Asian grad students channeling their inner disco divas to "Get Down Tonight." The fireworks were beautiful and I could be anonymous, taking in the scenery and seeing a world that I simply don't exist in.

if and only

The wedding was beautiful and the luscious bits of Song of Solomon quoted. I'm sure most of the climbing the palm tree and taking hold of fruit and making love in fields of flowers among the mandrake went over the heads of the younger ones, but any sense of stress dissolved as I'm less intimidated by the prospect of dressing up (thanks life of peonage!) and there were so many people I haven't seen and missed incredibly that were there from out of town and such, thankfully having no pressure to dance, and got to hear good stories and laugh before ducking out during the revelry to drive home through gorgeous lightning storms.

To have no expectations means that every thrill is precious and unexpected... the walk with a new neighbor down to the water as the sun set, encountering tricked out cars and mafiosi, telling stories of pasts full of unpredictability, ending up as wise older cousin attempting to give future life advice about academia and avoiding the military at all costs. "I love you and don't want you to get blown up somewhere, ok?"

I love summer for nights like these when the blue is so deep I could never replicate the color and the way the heat lightning strobes through the clouds and slices across the horizon over the trees. I drove from west to east and back with Throwing Muses on the radio and the smell of afterburn in my nostrils as the lightning bugs glinted in the grapevines and shadowy figures moved through the smoke, a ghostly spectre in glitter and white booty shorts ran towards my car at the corner of Broadway and 93rd, the fireworks were everywhere.

4th of July is less "whee patriotism" for most people in the almost-hood, though my downstairs neighbor hung up a giant American flag on the front porch, but seeing everyone out and the element of chaos that comes from warm weather and setting things on fire that sparkle and swirl and pop never gets old. I was regretting the lack of travel last year, and now things are unspooling faster than I can see, the movement is welcome.

four strings

As a perpetual wallflower and shy person, it felt good on Sunday morning to not be in front of a microphone thrashing away with an electric guitar like Billy Bragg's born again niece, but to hang out in the back with a very gifted drummer with a love of similar tunes and with the mingling of good voices harmonizing together, I could hold down the low end, letting the calluses harden again on my right hand as my left worked its way up and down the fretboard. I could sing and not be heard

I once resented being relegated to "chick bass player" status playing in terrible teenage bands, but now that I'm not there anymore, it feels good to be there, because I love working root notes into runs, providing something between rhythm and melody. By the end of the second set of songs, his drumsticks were disintegrating, I had to transpose for an unexpected capo, but we finished sweaty and euphoric, because the sensual and the spiritual aren't always so far removed from each other, and there is an incredible feeling when instruments and voice come together in ways that are hard to understand.

To begin the day with that, and driving through the beautiful grey to feast with the Ethiopians resplendent in embroidered white, to hang out with the family before heading back through empty streets to the almost-hood, wondering what kind of drama went down a couple blocks south with all the cop cars, wondering when the seeds I planted will start to come up and what else I have room for, especially if the new tenant downstairs is the lady with three dogs that looked at the place this weekend...

Meanwhile, in more pointlessness, the Rock Hall is doing some lame exhibit highlighting the tired trope of "women in rock" which will naturally feature Lilith Fair acoustic chicks, and boomer approved canonites, and Rolling Stone cover girls.

As a musician with ovaries who digs power chords and loudness, I have to remember that this is the Rock Hall and therefore nothing better is to be expected, but damn I'm sick of hearing about Carole King and Yoko Ono and Kathleen Hanna and pop stars known more for their trainwreck lives, cover girl looks, and wacky outfits (Hello Britney, Gaga) than for producing quality music.

None of this was inspiring to me when I started playing music, as I was neither a burgeoning lesbian or much to look at and until I delved into the underground, my role models were all dudes because I liked their songs better because it wasn't until later that I found out that there were talented females who got by on talent rather than image, that there were even chick bassists that were an integral part of the sound rather than just eye candy. Kim Coletta, four string fiend and fellow worker in the field of knowledge, you rock my world.

we call this Friday good...

The sky is overcast, the weather cold, and a decade of Catholicism still makes me want to be in settings of candlelight and arched ceilings getting meditative and such on days like these, because part of my rhythm is still in tune with a liturgical calendar, though like a Christmas & Easter celebrant, I gave up nothing for Lent and forgot that most Good Friday services are happening right now as opposed to when I get off of work.

"You look like you're in the spirit of the day" someone says, and I guess I do with the black dress-as-tunic, the probably-too-dangly-for-work cross earrings found at a yard sale, but I've been laughing too much to give off any air of gothicity, thanks to Kynge's Brew and the inside jokerye of the peonage. Even in my darkest nights of the soul, there is still a sense of light and hope that sustains me through the many times where things seem too bleak and sucky to keep on living.




O how great is the kindness of the
Savior,
who sets all free
through His incarnation
which divinity breathed out,
unbound by sin.
And thus those garments
are cleansed
by the greatest grief.



Reposted as appropriate. Eliot once more...

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood -
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

the madding crowd

The place of employment was uncharacteristically quiet, with the occasional drunk, and a few bored conspiracy theorists. I should've taken the day off to spend it outside, since it was beautiful when I got out, and since the buses were backed up, me and one of my coworkers started walking downtown, encountering an increasing amount of drunks in various shades of green and varying states of wastedness.

I'm already feeling like I'm getting old even if my boomer overlords party harder than I do. I was glad I had someone with me who's also a fast walker so we could get past the stumblers and stragglers as bottles rolled past us from patios and the noise was deafening. Everyone looked half dead with their faces streaked in green paint and their red eyes. "It's like zombies," she says, "we've just got to get past them to get home and not make eye contact."

We got to the square and it was total chaos, and it was clear that something had gone down but we couldn't tell what. There was this tension in the air, the way that everyone was acting, I've never seen so many cops, so many cruisers and paddy wagons and after spending the afternoon reading about the Balkans and being jittery about massive displays of authority and the mentality of large drunken crowds it made me a little more than nervous but some weird survival instinct kicks in and I just move faster.

I couldn't process it completely, everything going on around us. The sound of yelling and sirens everywhere, masses of people swirling, cops in various states of uniform, cars trying to cut across, people getting belligerent, gang colors standing out from the green (like no one's gonna notice you head to toe in red if everyone else is themed different), new black panther types in berets and combat boots, way too many people looking for trouble in one place and we not-garishly clad white girls were able to dash across the street before the light changed, only to encounter more cops telling us that Tower City was closed and we had to go around past drunk girls crying on the phone, kids hanging out looking pissed off and menacing.

The entrance from the back was strangely quiet but when we got down to the platform it was cordoned off with what looked like bike racks and there were more cops in bulletproof gear with DHS prominently displayed, as drunk kids in Iron Maiden t-shirts who'd written "F--k Cops" on their knuckles with markers told us about how drunk they were and how awesome all this was.

People were standing around, trying to figure out which way to go, a girl was drinking a Budweiser on the platform and we caught the first train out which smelled like beer and weed as the bros who must never ever ride public transit ever were like "Dude! We're on a big bridge!" and were hitting on Puerto Rican chicks and calling people honkeys which was bearable and almost hilarious because this was more expected and I only had about five minutes before I'd get off at my stop. I was still so tense when I got to my stop and finally chilled out with the aid of tunes in the car and the weather being totally gorgeous.

So I get to my parents' and it's chill, and I'm home now, drinking tea and listening to Trees (yay for left-field Brit folkies) reading about what was about three hours of brawling and such in the square, which must have been what was going down when we were trying to get through.

Oh Cleveland.

coptic times

"This will keep you up past midnight."

Due to my massive caffeine consumption, I wasn't expecting a demitasse cup of Ethiopian rocket fuel to do much to me, but she was right. I didn't need dinner with the massive amount of injera, savory stews that mean I will never be vegetarian, and spiced bread served with the strongest coffee I've ever had. Celebrating Christmas 2002 on the Coptic calendar and hearing Siyum joke at our expense about the western world freaking out at the time of Y2K was priceless.

I came home late and full of spicy goodness and somehow did end up staying past midnight drinking ginger tea and watching the entire animated Clerks series loaned to me by my esteemed fellow peon.

I'm exhausted today, but it was a beautiful way to end.

let all mortal flesh keep silent

This, while being too melancholy and dramatic for the radio, is one of my favorite Christmas carols, especially when sung in a huge old stone church by an epic choir. Stay safe and blessed this season whatever your way of doing is... much love!

eve of the eve

With a Christmas vacation pending for the first time since my high school graduation, I am so ready to go home even though I'm watching a friend's dog and haven't totally finished shopping as my plans for DIY gifts for almost everyone are still sitting in a kiln and unfinished on shelves.

And I can't wait until I don't have to hear any holiday cheer sung by Wham!, Billy Squier, We Are The World, or Wings. I do find a pleasing poetic justice in that Bob Geldof will have to hear his creation sung by snarky carolers at his house til the end of time.

I need to get some more coffee for certain individuals, wrap some things in brown paper (possibly will put the lino print blocks to good use), maybe make some candy or something. My grunge buddy's band is playing out on the east side, but I don't know if I'll make it out there tonight even if I'd love to hear a Mudhoney cover or two.

With all this to do, I don't want to deal with any kind of bar scene and anytime he's dating someone it's awkward because me and him have been chummy on a totally platonic we-like-sports-and-music level for the last decade or so which makes things awkward especially when said girl usually could care less about obscure 80's Pacific Northwest sludge and usually prefers country.



Speaking of obscure Pacific Northwest sludge, if all goes well I'll be guest-DJ-ing with my fellow english major/rap battler/punk rocker extraordinaire partner in crime on New Year's Eve from 11-12:30 in the afternoon playing all sorts of 90's grunge also-rans. Expect to hear some Green River, Seaweed, the Gits, Love Battery, Mudhoney, and Melvins. I'm sure those expecting more class of '77 sounds won't be thrilled, but it should be fun.

put the art in party

I spent Friday night watching little kids dressed up like angels run around as the adults are telling great stories and me and a fellow academic denizen are discussing good music, favorite writers, and our irritation at a great majority of the Beat writers. In case I ever have to look for other employment, one of my friends told me she has a sister who can get me into a factory where they make industrial kitchen equipment so all hope is not lost.

I thought that my first Christmas without living with anyone would be depressing, but it's been so good to go out and be around others without the stress of entertaining a whole lot of people and to come home where it's peaceful and I can look out my window and see Christmas lights in every direction.

The radio station had their celebration the next evening at a west side bowling alley with free food, beer, lanes, and pool tables, and flying solo to an event where people bring their dates isn't so bad because I could eat sushi and drink Great Lakes Christmas Ale and hang out with whoever I wanted.



While the bowling throwdown between the metal vs non-metal djs never happened, I had a good time (a certain personality to be left nameless notwithstanding) and stayed way later than I thought I would. We threw gutterballs, talked Southeast Asian garage rock, with a soundtrack from someone's iPod that included lots of Metallica and unhipster classic rock in the best way.

And last night I got my introvert on and got back into fooling around with linocut printmaking. While I'm a quiet kid at heart, I sometimes come down off a lot of socializing with some degree of angst, but art making has always been good for my soul. While I was waiting for some sheets of acrylic transfer to dry, I got out my inks and messed around on some scrap paper with results that were better than I expected. I always felt like I irritated my previous roommate who would come home to a cranked up stereo and me doing projects on the kitchen table but now I don't have to worry about that.





I get to go back to the ceramics studio tonight to hopefully finish up some DIY Christmas gifts and then meet up with the pretty-much-family-inlaws of my sister to find out what the gender of my future nephew/niece will be.

take a picture here, take a souvenir

I got the day off today because of the weather though it's honestly not all that bad... I did my show at the station so I had to go downtown anyway but did get to go home and catch up on my sleep.

I missed the first onslaught of snow because I got to go through another round of dentist hell and zoned out with a head full of Novocain to watch movies, which I never do, but my coworker loaned me "Clerks II" and I had "Sleepwalking Through the Mekong" and "Alice in Chains Unplugged" to keep me entertained in my numbness.

While Kevin Smith has a sometimes different sense of humor than me there's something about his characters that I love because it reminds me of people I grew up with and hung out with and conversations that seem so eerily familiar.

The roads are clear, it's cold but that's the way it is in Ohio in December. I don't have Internet at the apartment so I'm up at one of my favorite coffeeshops where the people are chill and unpretentious, the citrus green tea is delicious, and the manager is listening to old school REM that my dad played all the time when I was a kid and I realize how long it's been since I listened to Michael Stipe's amazing voice and I always find it funny how he pronounces the name of our river.



I have a final to study for and can't seem to focus on economic policy and Latin American revolutionary movements, having always enjoyed just sitting in class more than taking essay exams. And the space heater is still on at the apartment so hopefully it's not burned down or anything.

I find a weird beauty in these kinds of days when the sun comes through the clouds and the snow makes everything blue and glowy at night. Even the early darkness doesn't bother me. I strung Christmas lights across my kitchen and over the front windows, light candles in the kitchen and plan music for the Christmas program we're going to have at church this year. There's nothing more hilarious than little kids in bathrobes and homemade garland halos singing carols out of tune.



I've got my grandma's papier mache creche underneath the little tree covered with her old glass ornaments and I miss her a lot right now when I think of how much she would have loved to see my sister married with a kid on the way, and her weird sense of humor, and Christmas Eves making Polish food and singing carols with her in a language I can't usually speak.

give me things that don't get lost...

My birthdays are never epic, but this one's been especially good for not having much going on... not stressing about dead ends, not euphoric with potential. Played a game of Risk with my sister & dad and lost, finding delicious irony in the fact that U2's "War" is playing in the background because that's the one album the three of us can agree on.

Got some voicemail serenades, some sweet text messages and phone calls, and a whole lot of facebook love for what it's worth. People ask me if I feel bad that the holiday overshadows my birthday but it's just so good to see everyone and then when the cousins and the rest of the family converge, it's just such a good time having everyone there.

27 years old now, housesitting on the east side watching an ailing kitty for some friends who are out of town, hoping that she's ok because while I enjoy animals, I don't know much about taking care of sick ones. I'm making sure she's eating and drinking and such, hoping that she'll be all right.

Ate too much homemade cranberry sauce tonight and drank too much coffee, had the usual wine and conversation involving the usual cocktail of politics and religion and evidently one of my distant cousins traced back my Anglo side to 1066 and was unhappy with the presence of French blood a thousand years ago, though I highly doubt anyone's pure anything, with all the invading and raping and pillaging that went on way back when between the Vikings and Genghis Khan and whoever.

Besides, everyone's probably related somehow if you go back far enough and never mind that got mixed with the Irish two generations ago and with the Polish in my parents' case and who knows what with the next group of kids.

If it wasn't raining so hard I'd go back over to the west side to hang out with some of my friends who have no family here and will be up late, but I'm just going to chill here, read, journal a bit, drink some tea, listen to Neil Young. I don't need much to get by and this is beautiful and good.

it's good to be here.

The leaves have come down, the cold is here to stay, and I love wearing thermals and hoodies again and resurrected the flannel shirt permanently borrowed from my dad.

I took a walk with my camera on Saturday through Little Italy up the Mayfield road hill. While I love hanging out with people, I love those moments of solitude too especially when it's by choice, when I can let the leaves crunch, explore a bit, wander in and out of art galleries, end up having conversations with random people having yard sales and trashpicking furniture off the front lawns of apartment buildings.



Carved pumpkins with my neighbors on Friday night, and we made salsa with the produce from her garden, and then Sunday was our annual church Halloween party for the neighborhood which makes me think of both really Pentecostal churches and that one skit where Eddie Izzard is talking about the Pope.

Over 600 kids and parents came in and I passed out candy and ran the soccer game with the help of the Ethiopian kids, and did end up dressing up this year in a kimono a friend gave me awhile back, watching the kids and parents come through with some truly awesome costumes.

I realized as I watched the constant flow of families and kids through the building that this is probably one of the only events in the neighborhood where the whole community shows up, where I'm hearing Spanish, Lingala, Amharic, and Kreyol, watching the children of the new urbanistas mingle with the kids who lives in the Section 8 apartments and the refugee kids who show up excited at this strange new holiday where you wear crazy clothes and everyone gives you candy.

Seeing families hanging out together, neighbors meeting up, and kids having fun in a safe place just made me happy. I don't find the holiday as magical as I did when I was younger, but to be able to make it fun for the next generation was a beautiful thing.

Is it weird that Halloween reminds me again why I stayed in this city and even with the lameness and frustration of Election Day, glad to live in this country?