Tuesday, June 10, 2008

summer in winter, winter in springtime

I am thinking about this, SSFH.

2/3/08, 1:02 am

The kids at Crema are back to their old ways, by which I mean there are people screaming in the middle of the street outside and a "BUM-ba-dum-dum-BUM-ba-dum-dum" beat shaking windows all along Avenida de la Puerto Rico. It sounds like a car has pulled to a stop in front of the bar because now there are two competing overlaid beats and a throbbing engine and a guy who keeps saying "Heeeeeey!" All these ladies sound like they are speaking through the backs of their noses; I guess that's what it takes to be heard over the din. Will I remember any of this in two years? I haven't documented any of the little things around me that amuse me once a day or once a week, like the preacher woman who stands on the northwest corner of Johnson and Graham every Saturday morning (through afternoon) hollering into a microphone plugged into an amp in Spanish about Jesucristo saving our souls, or the football games that I like to watch on weekend mornings as I circle Boo around Sternberg Park's astroturf field once, twice, sometimes three times on a walk just to get a view of the action from all angles, or the pastry store that Stephanie and I walk to occasionally with Boo (pausing to allow the latter to defecate on the sign that says ""IF" you "let" your "dog" "SHIT" here I "WILL" "CALL" the "COPS"") on slow mornings to pick up hers-and-hers matching cinnamon buns and apple turnovers to munch on with our homemade soy lattes and Americanos, or Duck Duck, the bar on Montrose that we mostly avoid for fear of running into Owen (my summer subletter and all around fraud, the white boy who says he is from "West Philly" when actually he means he is from the mall in King-of-Prussia, Pennsylvania) but that we have, on occasion, patronized, to everyone's discomfort, or Food Bazaar, the biggest and best stocked and cheapest grocery store I've ever seen in New York (infinitely better than Midway!) that I go to once every week or two to stockpile the same old goods we eat every week (always a $.99/pound bundle of kale, and occasionally brussel sprouts, carrots, asparagus, broccoli, spinach, green beans, scallions, Baby Bel cheese snacks, vegetarian chicken patties, whatever bread is on sale, the 18-pack of large eggs, soy milk, vacuum-packed espresso bricks, a bag of Gala apples, pasta sauce in a jar, the cheddar cheese that is on sale, ground turkey for Boo, Triscuits for Stephanie, $2.99 imitation Honey Smacks cereal for me, "Easy Dieter" brand yogurt, the orange juice that is on sale, 7 for $2 Sunkist small oranges, dry lentils, dry navy beans, dry split peas, and ramen - that's the list!), or the house on Montrose that always has transpeople sitting on the stoop out front, which we pass on the way to Walgreens, where we buy tampons and soap and sometimes whatever recently-passed holiday's candy is on sale (which is where we picked up the gummy glowworms and the label gun gum). I want to write all of this down because finally now I am in the mood to start documenting what I have been experiencing.

No comments: