when the world gets overwhelming, and the sadness and frustration are overwhelming, and I fall asleep talking to my husband about why things happen and what we can do to change things, and make things better for the world our son lives in, I fall asleep with my dirty hair sticking to the tears on my face, my head at the foot of the bed. 

I wake up hearing Tim talk to our son. I don't know what they're saying. the fan is on in our bedroom, making everything beyond it sound like a familiar rhythm, a song I know by heart. Lately, I've been thinking about how difficult it is to be steady, how steadiness is the most difficult necessity to order and to happiness and pleasure. and how this is because we live out our timelines under the halo of the end, knowing it's there, ahead of us, at some point that's always too close. and we want our pleasures, our tragedies, we want the absolutes to come at us quickly. again and again, we watch the same things unfolding and change nothing. the endlessness brings us nothing. I hate thinking about these things.

for the last seven days, I've tried to turn this part of myself off. for years, I've charted these habits in my behavior, and the best I've done is only feel this way twelve days a month. that was last month. that was with a lot of effort. I'm already in the hole six days this month, yesterday. I'm trying to change the voice, trying to pull it back, push it down a different hallway. one with a window, a door, one with that checkered summer tent where my son sleeps. 

and then there's today. it's like falling through the mirror: all the strongholds behind have fallen away, and the steps I'm taking are appearing, spontaneously. it's a quiet Friday off, a day to spend with my son. no phones, no news, nothing. and he's asleep, taking a nap in the summer tent I make around his bed. and he sleeps for hours. and he looks calm, and he looks happy. and I hope he always knows what calm feels like, and I hope he remembers the feeling. I hope that he always knows how to get back there. 

spontaneous trip to Kansas City

when you spend the summer learning dances in your living room, just like when you were a kid, and that's what everybody did.

Memorial Day

mid Adventure Island adventure

in our summer clothes.

on tuesdays

it can be argued that tuesday consistently ranks as the day of the week that i am most ill prepared; this is especially apparent during the summer months. during the summer, i forget how to dress for work. i live in swimsuits and sunglasses, sunblock and jean shorts. i don't wash my hair; i don't wear makeup and tan lines become the best fashion statement i could possibly wake. this makes a summer tuesday even less held together because i do not work on mondays.

monday is just a weekend extension; it turns sunday into saturday. on monday, i get to stay home and write. i get to swim and go to the gym. i get to see friends. all this makes tuesday worse. on tuesday mornings i still don't want to wake up, wear clothes, or wash my hair. i dont even brush my hair. i skip breakfast and pack a thermos of black coffee, and i find myself absently wandering in my brain, but far more in line with the conversational world around me. tuesday is better suited for ideas and fantasies, not logic and function. this makes my physical representation and mental representation extremely disparate, which makes three pm on a tuesday even stranger. even more stranger is today because i keep having these wonderful conversations, but i keep thinking that they would be far better in some other space: a room that wasn't made of glass and so cold, some place where i wouldn't have to wear tights and high heels and my hair wouldn't be wound up in some dirty bun. i would far prefer this talk and this thinking in some golden space; spaces where my weekend conversations occur. this also creates a great disparity. in line with these reveries, i get my best thinking for creative writing on tuesday, but this cold room and the stiff atmosphere of work makes the writing more difficult. this is because when i am in such a cold, serious place, i have to have a plan of work. with a plan of work, i can complete any writing task because i've already devoured the characters and language and function. but on tuesday, when reverie and action must become synonymous, it is impossible to feel that electric continuation from fantasy to thought to writing. i need that golden room of conversation here too.

i know i've never been made for standard lines. and by wednesday, i am at the welding shop, so there is no need for formalities, which may indeed turn thursday into tuesday, leaving all the room for creative action on friday to monday, but that's still more than not.

florida summer

diving for scallops on summer sundays in florida

woke up yesterday at 430a and got dressed in my swimsuit and boating shoes, packed my lunch and drove to land o lakes to meet up with friends and family. then we drove two hours out to homosassa, florida and rented a boat for the day. this is the second year we have gone out in search for scallops. we went mid season this year, the water was choppy and difficult to swim in and mostly we were diving in basic snorkeling gear in waters 10 feet deep or more. this was difficult on the ears as it is difficult to move the body quickly enough, at least for me it is, with those damn big flippers, but a friend had a pair of short fins and those were awesome. 

i am probably not such a well trained snorkler. being born and raised in florida, i have been a strong swimmer since i've been small, and i feel very confident in the water with just my arms, legs and eyes. but add masks and mouth pieces and flippers and i feel a little jumbled. the weight of the sack of scallops does not even bother me, mostly it is the gear. 


we dove in deeper water consistently because it is so warm this time of year, the warmer waters did not have so much sea grass that the scallops could hide within.

i got a killer tan and ate fruit and drank beer all day on a boat with my friends and family. pretty stellar time and in a few weeks we will all get together to make this delicious, rich french dishes with the scallops we caught. 


i love florida so so so much.

the list: current summer obsessions.

 here's the do and for of summertime days by a born and raised floridian:

the talking heads

short shorts with knee boots on rainy days

peach colored lips

the organic hot peppers from my garden

the organic chocolate cherry tomatoes from my garden

the organic spicy oregano from my garden

painting rooms

painting my nails pastel

riding my bike in the rain

running on the golf course with dante in the rain

kayaking through the mangroves

backyard parties

salinger

the beach boys

french trash novels

dog earring pages

youth culture in the 60s

hula hooping

saki

reading french trash novels in the swimming pool

riding my bike to the library

psych surf rock

road trips

my sperrys

safe sun

washing my hair with apple cider vinegar

fleetwood mac

safety glasses

sunglasses

experimenting with vegan recipes from summer seasonal magazines

vintage chunky turquoise rings

clean laundry

baby ducks in the backyard

organic iced green tea

organic iced green tea and vodka

fresh cut ginger plants from the garden in the sun room

open windows / open doors

boat trips on the high seas
free yoga on monday
early morning runs when it's still dark and dewy

the specials

bonfires

dirty messy hair

falling asleep to documentaries on nyc 60s – 70s punk bands

reading articles by writers i hate ripping apart writers i love

steamed mushrooms broccoli and spinach

the thai temple on sundays
snorkeling in spring fed rivers

big summer

my summers are always pretty consistently awesome. lots of travel lots of projects lots of studying and beach and fun. but the way this spring is already shaping up, and how it seems likely that i will be going to vegas and the grand canyon at the end of august with my cousin, and to gasparilla island to go tarpon fishing in july, and with working at the shop part time, prepping syllabi for the fall semester, and studying for the gre and writing stories and essays for my doctorate applications, submitting work to journals and working on the house, this summer seems pretty pinnacle. and that is only what i know will happen. these are only the best made plans. even though it is so hot, summer has always always always been my best time of year.