Before I Go Buy an Eggplant

I have to go buy an eggplant for tonight's Pasta alla Norma (one of two New Years Eve pasta dishes Michael is set on cooking later because we're cRaZy like that) but before I do that, I wanted to get some words down. Some of my words went on tour this year, peeking out from behind the heavy velvet curtain of magazines and online sites, giving awkward waves to my mini fan base. I did a lot of writing this year, in many different places, and that's a good thing; it's what the tiny fan base and I want to see. 

Is it strange to feel a kinship with your voice? I've been working with it for so long now it really feels like a lifelong friend. And for the first time in my life, I know how to read something I wrote a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, hell, twenty years ago...and not die of embarrassment. It may not sound the way I want it to sound today, but wow, I got that shit down and I can understand better than ever where I was coming from and what the hell I was feeling when I wrote about feeling frustrated at my first internship, or scared to move out of my parents' house, or excited to be published in some paper zine that no one reads. When we moved into this apartment in October, I kept unpacking and finding old Moleskins and the like---some filled, some not filled at all---and I'd stand there for a split-second reading a sentence or ten before moving on to something else. There was no cringing like in past years. 

I was reading what I wrote last year around this time, in a post named "New Outlets," because I couldn't remember what my resolution for 2014 had been. 

There’s too much value in pursuing the things in life we care most about, the things in life that make us most happy. Even if the things in life that make us most happy feel so freaking hard. Even if it’s just slipping a single postcard into a mailbox, or a foot into a slipper. I’m going to find new outlets.
— December 30, 2013

I don't know if there's a rule about repeating resolutions in the new year, but if there is, I don't care. My thirties have taught me that. So, here's to finding new outlets! And to continuing on with the tried-and-true. 

Bed Love on 33

Today is my 33rd birthday. In past years, I’ve always enjoyed a sort of countdown to the October 20 day, but like my mother said last night over red wine, spaghetti squash, and meatballs: “It’s best not to rush the calendar.” I promise you all I’m not sitting in a cubicle drawing x’s on a free Clifford calendar, but when I look back on this last year -- a winter that led Michael and I down the carpeted stairs into my parents’ basement, removing our boots and sharing childhood bedsheets on a too-small bed; a spring that spiraled us up a staircase for a two-month sublet, across the street from Gowanus construction in a bachelor pad’s bigger bed that would shake us awake at dawn crack; a summer that saw us beelining for maid’s quarters at my in-law’s, crossing Michael like a street to get into another too-small bed, but one that had us front and center for the night-time crickets of Carroll Gardens -- all I can remember is one, long countdown. The countdown to cooking in my own kitchen was a biggie. As was the countdown to real-ass privacy. But the bed thing, having my bed again, sleeping comfortably in a queen with pillows I bought and blankets I love, stretching out stomach-down to write, that’s what I call a birthday gift.   

happy birthday to me.

happy birthday to me.