December 2008
7 posts
City Snow
Can’t. Contain. Excitement. Hopping. Around. Office. Chirping. About. Fictional. Cabin. And. Muffins. Made. There. Co-workers. Concerned.
Christmas Miracle
I just found in the marsupial pouch of my hooded sweatshirt a chapstick that went missing over two months ago. It’s like the story of the cat that runs away, is presumed dead, and then strolls up the driveway after a year on the lam. Only this story features more hugs and tears.
Red King
The Christmas pageant at my family’s church is one of my favorite things about the holiday season. It’s been years since I’ve gone to church, many more since I’ve attended the Christmas pageant. As an Episcopalian diocese, St. Paul’s doesn’t typically embrace the smoke and mirrors of its Catholic counterparts. But once a year the clergy kick up their understated...
Check
These guys were embroiled in a tense game of Flatbush Avenue chess on Saturday night. I’ve always been drawn to chess; it’s such a romanticized ceremony, like making pies. My high school was atypical in many ways, the lack of girls and assigned tables at mandatory lunches just a few. Another was the idolization of chess. Students regularly huddled in masses to watch masters duel in...
Demon Child
This year on Halloween I watched “The Exorcist.” I had never seen it, and partying with the rest of New York on Seventh Avenue, my alternate plan for the evening, held little appeal. Halloween and I have never seen eye to eye, you see, so turning a night infamous for revelry into a night like every other was all I wanted. (And if you wonder how a child could possibly hate a holiday on...
Heart Beat
I work a block from Madison Square Park, the site of a recent art exhibition. Surrounding the perimeter of the park was a series of center-facing spotlights that pulsed on and off at regular intervals. The effect at night in the shadow of the Metlife, Flatiron, and, as pictured, Empire State buildings was an exhilarating example of the city’s beauty and energy. That the pulse of the lights...
Verlassen
The cockroaches in my apartment are German. I know this because I Googled them, and also because I can’t understand a word they’re saying. They could be desperate pleas, these high-pitched screeches that echo through the apartment right before I kill one of them, but it’s all gibberish to me. Initially the cockroaches loitered only around the kitchen. I would see one in the sink,...