emlocke

I was applying Champagne to the crease above my left eye when Jonathan appeared beside me, a little pinched in my squinted sight line, on the F-train platform.

“Hi.”

“Heeey.”

What was that; did I just hear a locker slam? Instant flashback to high school, when I would put on make-up in the unflattering fluorescent hallway lighting while we waited for the first bell to ring.

Jon and I rode the train into the city together. Five or six stops in, I said, “We must be the most vain people on this train, because you’re too vain to take off your Ray-Bans and I can’t stop staring at myself in the lenses.”

“So it’s working out for both of us, at least,” said The Only Living Hipster in Park Slope.

Jonny, I’m really glad we’re neighbors again. I like rolling with you.

So, here’s what I’m listening to this week:
Lousy Lullaby by Marry Me Jane
No Hay Igual by Nelly Furtado
Red by Sara Bareilles
Wait a Minute by the Pussy Cat Dolls
Late Night, Early Town by Lloyd Cole

“Just another bunch of would-be desperados . . . Strung out on semantics, Holiday-Inn vigilantes, late night, early town.”

. . . Alumni Corn Roast, let’s begin . . .

When the Universe
asks, “Hey Em, where you wanna
go?” I’ll say, “Right there.”

I realize that sounds like a threat to chocolate, but I don’t mean it as a threat to chocolate.  I mean it as a threat to you.  As in, “It’s time for breakfast.  Give me some chocolate, or I’m going to eat you.”

This is what I’ve been listening to this week:
Say by John Mayer
Rooftops (A Liberation Broadcast) by Lostprophets
Take Me Home Tonight by Eddie Money
You’re The Voice by Heart
Divorce Song by Liz Phair

A few nights ago I had a dream that I lived in a house with four stories and the top floor was a lofted nursery where I was caring for a baby bunny.  I adored my dream-bunny.  I loved him so much that the love formed a slippery bubble of emotion in the back of my throat that made it a little difficult to speak clearly or swallow.

So I’m in the dream-nursery and I’m taking care of the dream-bunny, feeding it sips of milk from a spoon with a long handle, dabbing dribbles from its chin.  Friends visit and I’m nervous to let anybody else hold my dream-bunny.  I let them but I say “Be gentle, he’s very delicate,” and I pretend not to hover over their shoulders, where I can look down at his dream-bunny face, until I can’t stand it anymore and say, “Oooookay, that’s enough” and gather his warm, wriggling dream-bunny body out of their arms. 

Next thing I know, my dream-bunny is a dream-flea.  He lives in a petri dish in the nursery.  I can’t hold him and it’s not easy to feed him with a spoon, though that doesn’t stop me from trying.  My dream-flea is not warm or wriggling but I love him so much that I stay up all night with him because he’s sick.  He needs his dream-flea medicine every few hours.  I try to administer it with the long-handled spoon. 

My dream-flea is so small that I have to drop dye into his shiny little dish so I know where to look when I want to look at him.  He swallows the dye and it turns his little body bright green, but when I point my dream-flea out to visitors, nobody is interested.  “What am I looking at?  Oh, that?  Okay, well, let’s go see a movie.”

I don’t want to go see a movie because my dream-flea will need another dose of medicine soon, but I agree to sit in the kitchen downstairs and drink coffee with one friend while another volunteers to sit with my cherished pet.  The nursery loft looks down over the rest of the house, so when my volunteer nurse leans over the railing and says, “Emily, you’d better come up here,” I look up three stories and I know I won’t make it upstairs in time to say goodbye to my little dream-flea. 

Even though I knew that the situation was almost hopeless, my ailing dream-flea hardly stood a chance, I was fighting an uphill battle and wanting so badly to save his life just wasn’t enough to save his life, my dream-heart was broken. 

When I woke up, I could still feel the slippery bubble of love and devotion and adoration that had formed in my throat.  I could still feel the desperate hope that I’d be able to save my dream-flea’s life like pulled muscles in my arms.  It never goes easy on you, love. 

• posted almost every day
• visited my brother at his house in DC
• read three books in one week
• watched seals watch me on the beach in Cape Cod
• went on a coffee run and saw my all-time favorite America’s Next Top Model, Danielle Evans
• spent $98 on running shoes designed for overpronators

From ffffound.

My mind feels tired and sort of droopy, like it’s fallen slack. Has my brain atrophied from disuse? I’m in a list-and-label mood; maybe I’d benefit from a thorough cataloging project, like a tough workout for my head. I suffer this withdrawal the way some people suffer iron deficiencies.

I’ve been milling around on the look-out for things to stick Post-its on. I wish I had a tape measure handy because I have this funny itch to measure my office and draw up its floorplan. What I should do is clear off the top of my desk, but it is so cluttered that I’d require a clean surface for the de-cluttering process.

For now, here’s what I’m listening to this week:
Moses by Patty Griffin
Bleed for Me by Saliva
Her Eyes by Pat Monahan
When I Said I Would by Whitney Duncan
Prince of Spades by Dispatch

Back to Brooklyn tomorrow, but the quarters already seem close. As much as I look forward to coffee shops with three varieties of artificial sweeteners and clothing retailers that don’t sell neoprene waders, I’ll miss having a decent excuse to eat a non-non-fat muffin every morning and wear the same $2.00 tee shirt every afternoon.