moving on

goodbye Naples Rd

(better email me before you write)

(should any of you write)

okay I know I can be more of a leap first and look later kind of a girl and so I will often get really excited about things that turn out to be CRACK HOUSE MOMENTS (ex: volley ball in jr high, calling Mandy at 2 am New Years morning to profess my love for the Jew, Joanna Newsom) but THIS is the real deal yo!
Regina Spektor is my best discovery since Fiona Apple a year ago (I know, I found Fiona shamefully late in life, but at least I found her). Regina is RADical! Here's a little taste, but don't be shy after you hear this one to poke around a bit, because they're all SO good

Samson (dedicated here to my sweetest downfall! ohhhh!)

I didn't take that first picture

I just like it because Perez looks hot! can I please reincarnate as a real runner.

Well last Monday was the Boston marathon. I was feeling kind of gloomy, like the weather, but I decided to walk down to the race (just down my street really) to cheer on the runners for a bit. I ended up by this great old woman in a big old LLBean parka and with a thick boston accent. Though we were around mile marker 20, it was still pretty early on in the race and so runners were only trickling by, letting her cheer on every runner by name--or at least by whatever their most distinguishing feature/article of clothing was. "That's right Notre Dame!" "Go army!" "Moustache, yes!" she was great. after she left I was kind of down--I really wanted to slip her my phone number and ask her to call me every so often and leave inspiring messages on my voice mail

Since Monday our weather has looked up--the sun came out (it's been about 3 weeks since we'd seen it) and today we were suddenly in the 70's (as opposed to high 30's that windchill turns into low 20's). I know mom loves it when I talk weather.

I've been feeling sunnier too. You know I could use a good hug, but who couldn't? we probably all could. and I get told "i love you" like 20 times a day by three cute little girls, so how can I complain. I dropped my camera trying to take a picture of this monstrous bruise by my armpit and now the video part won't work. dang it aall. no more youtube rants.

older people

Rebecca's eighty something mother suffering from dimensia has been our longtime visitor. I run into her in the hall sometimes and admire her inspiring collection of knitted accessories--booties, hats, those parka things. sometimes I get urges to set her free when no one's looking--like the last (yes, mandy, LAST) surviving ant in the kitterman's antfarm--except like that ant I know she wouldn't make it long on the street. I guess she's also half deaf, so Rebecca and other members of the family are always yelling these days. There's just so much of "WINDOW!!! mom, I said do you want me to open the WINDOW?!" a girl like me can take. and only so much that poor old lady can take I'm sure. When I met crazy people I used to always feel grateful that they weren't my parents, now I add and that I'm not theirs.

This is not Rebecca's nuts mother, but it is a picture of the loveliest fish in the sea. Don't you just want a kiss?

Happy belated Passover

Well last week my bud Aimee and I decided to crash a passover. For some reason we decided we could pass as Jewish--my old roommate thought I was a Jew. she was Mexican. (which all resulted in a lot of weird Anne Frank in Mexico poetry that my professor told me was too politically incorrect to ever see the light of publishing). Aimee, on the otherhand, couldn't look more Sacandanavian.

Anyway, our dreams of kind of benignly blending in died pretty quickly--the rabbi greeted us at the door with big boisterous Hebrew--probably something like "happy passover"--and all we could do was stare at him and giggle nervously before we ran away to a table in the back. I was hoping we could hide amidst one of the families too preoccupied with their ADD children to notice our obvious Gentile-hood, but instead we were joined by Stephanie (a twenty something-very Jewish) and two (fifty something) newly divorced Bachelors--Eli and Moshi--looking for love. I tried hinting to Stephanie that we weren't Jewish by saying this was only my second passover (thank you Brother Ludlow) and that she would have to help us along, but she just said she hadn't done a lot of formal passovering herself and that we could help eachother out (oh crap).

Well real passover is a far cry from the watered down grape juice version of brother Ludlow. lots and lots of long Hebrew prayer songs (lots and lots of mumbling and moving my lips so people don't catch on that I have no idea what is going on), lots of strange ritual food combinations ("take a bite of matzah"-"now take a bite of your lettuce with some horseradish on it"-"now make a matzah sandwhich with the lettuce and horseradish and take a bite"-"now put the matzah on your head and dance like a chicken").

The real delight of the evening was Eli deciding that I would make a great wife number three. How these men interpret my discomfort and complete lack of interest for mutual flirting is always a mystery to me--but it happens enough to keep my wondering.

The good news is that as the evening went on everyone got a little drunker--even Aimee and I on our grape juice loosened up after four hours of insanity--and by the end no one cared that we had no idea what we were doing, the kids and the charismatically childlike rabbi were dancing around the room, Moshi was trying to help Aimee see that her French ancestry really came down through the house of Isreal and I was giving my email address to Eli for free Hebrew lessons. Aimee and I stumbled home, arm in arm singing "DAYENU!" to the night sky--maybe Kristia was right. I felt pretty Jewish.

Meanwhile in Boston town--I am looking to move. checking out South American NGOs for some summer work. doing well.
love you, erin.

to whit

For those who don't know, Whitney Nelson, my brother Andrew's girlfriend/almost wife, died last Sunday. Andrew is doing amazingly well and is still lost in his missionary work in Pennsylvania.
Last week I was too sad to write my own words. poetry is made for those kinds of times. I felt for a little while that the world was all sold-out of joy. but already I find it creeping back, slowly. shy and awkward--a little more jaded, more world weary, but essentially, the same.
'This is what the atonement's good for', Abby reminded me last Sunday night walking around Walden pond where the sun played on low branches that rose up out of the water like glorious forearms, 'for swallowing up pain and guilt and regret and death--leaving us with clean lessons.'

Now that Whitney is gone I am suddenly flooded with all the lessons I should have been accepting from her while she was still alive.
that life is good and exciting and that we shouldn't be afraid of it, that people are good and exciting and that we shouldn't be afraid of them, that there are a million ways to be alive and who am I to judge instead of love.

I want to thank her for what she gave me: the confidence to wear high heels as a tall person, a working knowledge of the wonders of hairspray (why didn't I know about this sooner?), the blonde streak in my hair.
I want to thank her for challenging me. my feminism, my femininity, my relationship with Andrew and with my mother.
I want to say I'm sorry for not accepting these lessons more gracefully.

I love you Whitney Nelson. We were growing our hair out in a race to our elbows. I think of you when I eat tortilla soup.
I am glad that I knew you and I am better for it.

LOVE.erin