Found: A Simple soulution

Yes I spelled that correctly.

I have read many cliches aboout happiness- about it being a destination. Or a choice. Or that you have to work at it. However. The tomato guy pictured above (though plastic) is happy whenever the lights are on or the sun shines (solar powered) and shows it not by jigging a dance or shouting but by swaying its little bobble head gently from side to side.

I saw it in toy store in Chinatown on the way to dinner with VLH and friends and picked it up- asked the price and thebn walked with it for a few minutes and set it back on the shelf. H picked it up and placed it on the checkout counter- maybe *I* can't buy happiness but when it is given to me, I can say "Thank you."

Found : 3/19/2009- 2nd Annual Peep-Shout-Out

New....Chocolate Mousse flavored Peeps...

Read on for more PEEP info than you will ever need (from the Justborn website).

Just Born produces enough PEEPS in one year
to circle the Earth twice.

PEEPS has been the #1 non-chocolate Easter candy in the U.S. for more than
a decade.

Yellow is America’s best selling color of PEEPS chicks and bunnies. (Of course- that is their natural color...)

Everyone can now enjoy Sugar-Free PEEPS® that are sweetened with
“Splenda®”. (this is just wrong- do they coat it with splenda too? What makes it CRUNCH without sugar?)

Peeps have 0 fat grams, are 28 calories each and are gluten free, and
nut free. (for anyone who cares)

People like to do curious things with PEEPS ….eat them fresh or aged to
perfection, microwave them, freeze them, roast them, put them on pizza...
(picturing a white pizza here with melted yellow and laender peeps, their little brown eyes staring up from the oily surface).

But the BEST PEEP fact of all- Peeps are Kosher- BUT- not Kosher for Passover.
'case you were wondering. I know I was.

Found: 3/18/09

This little glitter dragonfly sticker was caught in a dusty corner of the 53rd Street subway station. I had to admire its ability to attract my attention in such a dark and uncreative space.

Found: March 17, 2009

St. Patrick's Day in New York- quite possibly the second worst-dressed holiday here in the "city at the center of the world". The green line stretches for miles along Fifth Avenue and I couldn't help but think about all the kilts the line looked up as it wound itself uptown.

Found: 3/16/09

Thinking today about the psalm that tells you to "number your days". When I look at this the whole day rushes back to me- at least for now. And I wonder if somewhere a little braid slowly comes undone.

Found: 3/14/09

Little sneakers in the photo- you can't tell now but they are shorter than my hand, and have quite a bit of ketchup on them. Makes me think somewhere french fries got a serious soaking too.

The Stairs

Spring isn't exactly here, but it's close. You catch a glimpse of it on an almost-bud on a tree, a few struggling snowdrops beginning to bloom under the tree in the front yard, in the scarf you lost (or I did) because it wasn't tied tightly to your bag...

I was walking down Astor Place, here in Jersey City - the major difference between NYC's Astor place and this starts with the fact that if your pants were ripped it wasn't because you bought them that way.

So I was walking and I was noticing (because my eyes weren't squinched tight against the cold- another glimpse of spring) ...stairs. The shapes. The character each had- the subtle color and strong shape, basically unnoticed, even when the escalator isn't working.

Strangely enough and totally unconnected I had just read something about stairs. Written by a middle-aged man.

"The stairs were all worn so that you had to put your feet where everybody else put theirs when they went up. Every step had two spots, both along the side, where the wood was about an inch lower than it was in the middle and at the end of the steps. Sometimes to be different I'd walk right up the center of the steps where nobody ever did."

John Kennedy Toole wrote that when he was 15. At 30 he killed himself after writing "A Confederacy of Dunces" and left Ignatius Reilly as his legacy.

Maybe reading that made me look at the character of steps. Think about where others had walked and the path they wore there. That there is the world of the past written in footsteps, cracks, watermarks and ivy on the stairs.


v

The language or the kiss?

"The first kiss is magic. The second is intimate. The third is routine," Raymond Chandler


If you are lucky enough to know someone deeply, necessitating that they are no longer new, then how do you remember the romance again?....Not the pursuit of something new, but simply properly labelling the sweetness that is already there. Romance breathes life into the small spaces between the big things. It's more about the way you look at things than the way someone looks at you. If you have a well-worn lover, hold them close and breathe them in. Wink at them over the din of daily chaos. Compliment them in front of other people. Call them first when you have news. Twist your fingers in the back of their hair at stoplights.


Do it, I tell you, because some people would lay it all down for the very thing you sometimes take for granted. Like shivering, sliding into a cold bed and finding some warm purchase for cold toes, love meets us where we are.