— tapioca world tour

Last night I phoned my mother. I was trying to explain to her (a neophyte computer user/technophobe) how to highlight, copy and paste text. Basic. The conversation degenerated into argumentative banter, which degenerated into laughter.

“My friend is here,” Ma said. “He probably thinks we’re crazy.”

“Jorge?” I asked. “Is it Jorge?” I had just been telling E. about my mother and her Mexican landscaper neighbor friend Jorge, with whom she eats dinner every other night. He barely speaks any English; she barely speaks any Spanish. Nevertheless, they’ve struck up an indelible friendship based on flowers and food and memories of Durango. She handed him the receiver and Jorge and I had a go at a conversation, which was difficult for me since my mobile connection was fuzzy and my Spanish is poor.

“Is my mother a good student?” I asked him in my broken Spanish.
“Ay, si, si,” he lied. My mom’s an amazing teacher, but a tough student. She gets frustrated easily, a bad trait I’ve inherited.

“Y como está su español?” The real answer was muy mal, but Jorge said my mom was trying. Mom said she was too. She gave up on the copy/paste computer lesson in exchange for enjoying a Philadelphia evening with her neighbor friend on the porch. I can imagine them there, eating burgers or whatever, feeling the heat and inhaling that fresh lawn smell, with the blink of fireflies outside the seedy bar across from Mom’s house. In my mind, it’s almost close enough to taste.

I took a sick day today. A conglomeration of minor yet annoying physical ills combined with lack of sleep and, um, more [self-initiated] lack of sleep, so I decided I needed a day off. Ry and I ate bagels and then drove up to Manchester-by-the-Sea to Singing Beach. Or maybe it’s called Sing Beach. Not sure; I just know it’s named after the sand that sings when you step on it.

The water was FREEZING and it took 25 minutes until our arms and legs became numb enough to endure it. Then we jumped waves and floated on our backs and threw seaweed and tried not to get pulled out to sea too much. This is the first time I have legitimately swum in the ocean since, man, I can’t even remember. Probably since I jumped in the River Maas in Well, the Netherlands, six years ago. It was September and another girl and I rode those old fashioned bikes down to the water and sat with all the topless old women. But that wasn’t the ocean, and I don’t think I’ve been in the ocean since I was 17. So that’s ten whole years without the sea. That’s a long time.

Anyway,

then since Ry’s a rockstar and I’m not, we went to a fancypants restaurant in Gloucester where the chef and bartender and all the cooks are major fans of his. We had a big fat expensive dinner and it didn’t cost anything, except the large tip we left. During the appetizer, the skies broke. Thunder crashed and for 15 minutes, an intense downpour surrounded the restaurant. We had to tiptoe around a large puddle to make it back in the van. Driving through the town, I looked closely at the houses, how big and beautiful and colorful they were. I realized why my mother always loved Boston, its north and south shores, its colonial charm and cool ocean air and antique shops lining the coastal towns. I wanted to buy a decaf hazelnut coffee and drink it in honor of her and this memory, then I remembered mom doesn’t drink hazelnut decaf anymore and I hate flavored coffee.

I’m really content with this summer, but days like this remind me how much more I could be doing if I were actually on vacation. November in South America, a full month off. That will be nice, if it happens. Meanwhile it’s raspberries and beets, back to the Cantabridgean grind…

I can’t seem to write anything good for Round, even though I actually am trying. S. says: How about a nice piece about the sound that small animals make underneath your house? but there are no animals tonight. It’s July and the air is thick. I’m on my front porch, listening to the hum of the orange streetlights. The one directly in front of my house has a mess of tangled wires which hang down menacingly. I’ve gone all day feeling out of sorts with achey gums and now it’s so still and quiet, except for the few neighbors who are walking their dogs. It’s been a great week, overall, but I’ve started the habit of napping after work and I know I shouldn’t necessarily be doing that. It’s July and it’s night and I need to go to Ry’s house for toast, so I can try my new pear-lime jam from the farmer’s market. And then we can watch Hugh sing. Or I can watch. And walk home in the dark.

Brooklyn rooftop, 2002

Boston rooftop, 2005

BB is moving out of her flat soon, the same apartment building we inhabited in 1999 with other pals. It feels like the end of summer, although it’s not over yet. Still, a photographic commemoration was necessary, especially since BB and I now have a history of jumping up together. I will miss that roof.

Sometimes I picture my professor of English literature, magically transmogrified to some distant future, lecturing retroactively on blogs and online magazines, lamenting the loss of so much material. From what we’ve been able to piece together…she’ll say, and present lengthy extrapolations on the meanings of notes that have been miraculously saved from the ravages of time. People will write doctoral theses on the few issues of roundonline that were backed up on floppies and saved from flood and fire.

SDR, California

Found on a streetlight across from my office:

I can’t believe you fell for it! You called the “Boston Garden” the Fleet Center? Now you’lll call it the Bank North bla bla bla. Are you STUPID!?

I love Boston for its smelly harbors and hamburgers that make you ill an hour after you eat them, but taste so good going down. I love it for its weirdo sports fanatics (case in point, above). I even love it for its insufferable humidity. I love riding my bike home from peoples’ houses at one in the morning, over the railroad tracks by the textile factory, up a ridiculous hill that will out of necessity make me buff. I love that I can live here and, despite what I say every year, not get sick of the place. There are always new people around. I love the David Bowie Movie Marathon that we’ll see next week, and the patience of my film crew, and the happy complacency of losing high-scoring Scrabble games to strangers, and routinely losing in darts every Friday to my coworkers. Bla bla bla, Boston is great.