Remember This Of All

Felt-tipped markers for lists. Lists of prison lit, revisions, screenplays to grade. A freshman with thick brown curls props his skateboard against the door, shares his script about bombs dropping on his Lebanon home. He was 14. 9 AM Playwriting gang.

Spent office hours in the heart of campus. Sunshine. Reading interviews of The Wooster Group. About their 2002 production. I was 14 then? Fast. Don shorts for a night scoot to Flour's cottage in the hip neighborhood. We walk the sidewalks and talk about her break-up. It's raw, it's red. Emotional equivalent of reaching for that last handful of M&Ms and realizing you already ate it. "I remember that," I think, but there's a sheen over those histories. It's good to be here. She squeezes my arm. "That's him." The boy happens to be bicycling by. I hear her heart plop to the road.

I am so happy lately. There are reasons, but there are always reasons. There are also always reasons not to be. I don't know why the scales have tipped one to the other, but they have. And I am grateful. It's not always this way. I thank everything. "Remember this," I tell me, "this."

Why can't you see the sky isn't green anymore?
Why don't you know what I need on these shores?

Summer Before High School

Jimmy Eat World was always in my Discman. I wrote the lyrics on my arms. I wore my baby blue tee with wings on the back. The Princess Diaries trailers intrigued me. I loved the song that played. It was by Myra. It felt happy and hopeful and I liked this new Anne Hathaway chick. Fran promised not to see it until I was back from camp. I found the novel and read it hungrily in my cabin. My bunk was right next to Wizzy's. She would throw her towel into the rafters and swing on it to practice her pointe. I decorated a root beer bottle with magazine cut-outs. It was supposed to represent parts of me, and I would look at it when I was trying to fall asleep. The bold, "LET'S GO CRAZY" and the Britney Spears ad. My favorite shorts were light pink. I wore them the night I babysat for five kids. That night _____ had called my cell phone four times and hung up before finally staying on the line and asking if I wanted to see a movie. "Have you been calling and hanging up?" I asked. He responded too quickly No. But that fall in Honors Biology, by the microscopes, he told me the truth. He was already going out with ____ _______ by that time. I didn't know what to expect. I felt excited. The girls all swam at Peppermint's pool by day and watched American Pie 2 in her basement by night. We invited the boys, who would ride over on their bikes for Truth or Dare. Everyone liked everyone, but I was over the kids we knew. I was the worst student in the summer improv intensive. I never volunteered. I was too quiet to be heard. That one kid sat on my lap on the bus ride home from Second City. He said he'd get up when I had a conversation with him. I didn't. He did. No one spent any money. We were fridge-funded. I could never eat anyway because my braces hurt. I asked for red, white, and blue. There were so many graduation parties, but what did we even do at them? We were fourteen.

I don't need wings to help me fly.
Miracles happen once in a while when you believe.

Crossroads

In ten days, Slou and Wizzy will arrive here in Chicagoland, spend the night, and in the morning, we will go forth on a roadtrip to Michigan! We will meet Trelly and Dunt there, and we will do a lot of wonderful summer things like eat sundaes and swim in lakes and see nature! (SIDE: The fake names I give people on this blog seem reasonable until I string a bunch together, and then it sounds like my best gal pals are carnies.)


Slou. I know I use these pictures from last summer all the time, but I just think my friends are so beautiful.

See if you can figure out how the beginning of this conversation went down if I tell you the ending:

"In retrospect you are more Britney, but I don't want to be the trashy one...I just feel like we need to find a new road trip movie reference."--Slou

All I need is time, a moment that is mine, while I'm inbetween.