Boston

Today I sat in the Texas Stadium Skybox and drank whiskey sours next to an overly familiar ex-Marine waiting for a standby flight to Dayton, Ohio. I had an hour to kill before my flight to Boston, and my choice to indulge in overpriced alcoholic beverages proved to be a good one when I boarded the plane and saw that seat 30E was occupied with a toddler with a broken leg. I took my window seat and briefly thought about my second semester of eighth grade French class. Julian, the boy who sat next to me all year, broke his arm over winter break and spent most of class trying to scratch his arm by shoving a ruler in his cast.

Sleeping through a time zone, I woke up as the plane was descending over the city. It was already all lit up at 5:30pm, and I pressed my face to the window like a child, trying desperately to find my home or a landmark that looked familiar from so high up. I tried to look for the Prudential building because that's like the Northern Star of Boston--that's how Rik and I got home two summers ago when we decided to walk from Somerville to downtown one night, taking only streets we didn't know--but I couldn't see it from my angle. It was difficult to untangle all the highways filled with headlights and I was groggy from sleep and maybe still a little drunk--I hadn't had anything to eat except a disappointing sandwich that I couldn't even finish, that's how bad it was--and before I knew it things got a little clearer, closer and we had landed, but boy, was it a sight to see.

I'm back now, in my bed, heat on low. I miss my family already and feel terrible that my mother and I are always so awful to each other when I'm Leaving. My flights are always so early, inevitably putting me in a bad mood in the car on the way to the airport and my mother doesn't do well with big and vague events like Leaving so her awkward habits are in full force. And those habits, like how she narrates everything that she is doing and all of the things that we pass (I can't really see, is that Campbell up ahead? Oh, no, it's just Park, we still have another block. Oh, there it is. I'm going to just turn right here. Hey I didn't know they put a Safeway here. It must be new.), her tendency to tailgate sometimes and her worrying (Do you have your ID? Do you have enough cash for a cab home? Your bag is really heavy, it might be too difficult to take the train, you should just take a cab. I hope security isn't a pain this time), which I usually find fairly endearing, just grate and I'm short with her and she gets angry and it's awful. I fly all the way back feeling guilty and tired, and when I land, I call her to tell her I'm home safe, that I'm sorry, that I love her.

Skeletons

I've spent the past couple days flipping through old photo albums.


This is me partying with my mom in the Philippines.


Hanging out at the Reid Park Zoo with my dad, shortly after moving to Arizona.


Just hanging out with some pals of mine.


Tender moments with my boo.


Listening to some sick jams.


Just writing a poem on my typewriter.

I guess judging by the last two photos, things don't really change.

Wintertime Blues vol. 21

On my flight from Boston to Dallas, I sat next to an astronomer. She was flying to Hawaii to do some research at some observatory there. I told her I thought that was probably the most unexpectedly romantic job ever, researching and analyzing data about stars and planets. She was very sweet and humored me. She asked me what I did, and I told her that I'm graduating in May with a degree in creative writing, meaning I don't know what I'm doing with my life.

My mother had a holiday party today and for three hours I had to justify my choice to study poetry to strangers--my mom and dad's friends and co-workers, who all seem to know so much about me. Why writing? What are you going to do with that? Have you started applying for jobs yet? What's your GPA?¹ The whole experience left me feeling a little bit like a loser, but then I remember hanging out with my high school English teacher yesterday--she just got her MFA in poetry. We sat in my favorite coffee shop for hours talking about poetry and she said that she thinks poets are one of the last real artists because they do it out of sheer passion, not because they are getting paid or getting famous, because they don't get paid and poetry is read mostly by people in the writing community. She read some of my work for my thesis² and gave me really helpful feedback, and it reminded me that I really love being in the company of writerly folks who just get it³.

Being at home has given me a lot of time with myself, which is a little dangerous because this is the time of year where I always feel a little sad. It's usually for Dumb And Not Important Reasons like how it gets so dark so early, how it's so cold outside, how there's not a soft and nice and pretty girl in my bed to keep my warm, how there's never been a soft and nice and pretty girl that lasts for long⁴, how there must be something wrong with me because of that. And then I feel silly for thinking about those things so much, when I'm surrounded with people that I'm really crazy about, but sometimes, after a long day of class or errands or whatever, I like to take the long way home and think about how lovely love must be.

And now, a holiday mix from me to you, friends. You'll have to download each file separately and then arrange them into a playlist in your music player of choice, which is annoying and I apologize... but it's nice to listen to when buried under blankets, which is what I've been doing for the past few days.

When the Coals Burn Way Down Low: A Holiday Mix

01. Brian Eno - The Big Ship
02. Shelby Sifers - Winter
03. The Aislers Set - Hit the Snow
04. The Rondelles - Rediscover Fire
05. Au Revoir Simone - Stars
06. Hello Saferide - iPod Xmas
07. The Pixies - Winterlong
08. Dressy Bessy - All the Right Reasons
09. Sambassadeur - Ice & Snow
10. The Raveonettes - The Christmas Song
11. Chromatics - I'm On Fire
12. Camera Obscura - Knee Deep at the NPL
13. Math & Physics Club - Darling, Please Come Home
14. Stars - Tonight
15. Hello Saferide - 2006
16. The Research - Lonely Hearts Still Beat the Same
17. Snoozer - Winterclothes
18. Christine Fellows - Migrations

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¹ I got straight As this semester!
² This was a little weird because I know she's a little religious and I don't think I've ever actually come out to her. I felt a little awkward about making her read my poems that are all about me being a turtle struggling with gender, heeey^‡.
³ Embarrassingly, I've turned into one of those people who gets drunk and talks about poetry at parties.
⁴ I have difficulty sustaining things. I'm too socially awkward and weird or something. I always say that I'm the person that people date to figure out who they really want to date, because everyone I've dated usually ends up in a serious relationship right after whatever it is we did ends.

^‡ My thesis abstract: Turtles, like many species of reptiles, exhibit temperature dependent sex determination. That is, turtle eggs hatch male or female depending on the temperature at which the eggs are incubated, and not through genetics. For the creative portion of my thesis, I plan to write a collection of poems exploring the complexities of turtles, written from the perspective of myself as the speaker, as well as perhaps turtles themselves. My goal for this collection is to address personal issues such as gender, identity, and queerness through the major themes of temperature, heat, habitat and other ecological implications that affect turtles.

Tucson, Ahoy

No cigarettes no drinking no drugs no fun lots of work on my thesis getting over this cold getting over everything else warmth good food family warmth: what I have to look forward to in Tucson, AZ.

Seriously though, I'm exciting about skipping town for a little bit. It always gets too cold in Boston this time of year, in more ways than one. I'm leaving long enough to miss it [10 days] and I'll happily come running back. In the meantime, get me out of here! I'm looking forward to laying in my childhood bed and drinking Bloody Marys in the Dallas airport during my three hour layover.

Peace out!