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.

Found last night:
“LOST FRIEND: PHIL M.
Saw you last weekend on Somerville Ave. We should totally hang out. Call me. Anna M.”

Dear Anna M.,

I just wanted to publically acknowledge and applaud your unabashed and creative attempt to reconnect with someone without using the internet. Seriously, posting a flyer on Somerville Ave.? That takes balls. Most ladies don’t have balls. Not like yours, anyway. I wish more women would take the bull by the horns like this. If “Phil” doesn’t call you, let me set you up with other guys who will value your assertiveness.

Sincerely,
A. in Porter

********And in completely unrelated news,

I had a dream last night that Bush appointed the chic who works at my favorite coffeeshop to be the new Supreme Court Justice. “Wow,” I thought. “That’s a progressive and interesting move — she’s a woman, a Democrat, and gay. The tides must really be turning in the administration!”

And then I woke up and heard about John Roberts. I guess one can dream, and that’s it.

There was this one morning last fall during video production class at U-Manchester where we broke for coffee. I walked nextdoor to the museum cafe, which had the best dark coffee in the city. They had a £2 special every morning, where you could get a tiny coffee and tiny chocolate croissant for a mere $4 USD before 11a. Phil, my moody 30-year-old professor, sat outside smoking and asked where I got my coffee. “In there,” I told him, pointing. “It’s only a pound.”

It had been raining earlier, I think. But the sun had just come out and my rain jacket was no longer necessary.

I have these sporadic photographic memories of living in England. They come and go. It’s always the little moments, too — the double-decker bus rides from Chorlton, the way the hallways smelled on the 5th floor of the Granada Centre, the pink of the bathroom stall doors, the loud bloop sound of P.’s mobile behind my wall when he got texts from his girlfriend in Peru. The blooping sound would continue throughout the night sometimes when P. fell asleep, beeping in increments of five minutes while I tossed and turned. His girlfriend must really miss him, I thought. Separation is tough.

Listened to some soul & hip hop last night. Good people, cool decor, tart cranberry juice. I’d like to play scrabble with E. again, but he’s gone for a bit. In fact, I’d like to play scrabble right now.

Why is life so awesome?

My ritual weekend campout at Ry’s ended with Me and You and Everyone We Know, an arty indie film I recommend, followed by a rowdy evening at the Burren. Tom & Larry & Ryan and The Other Ryan did crazy viola-viola-guitar-harmonica jams. Got invited to Hugh’s instrumental afterparty, as usual, since somehow they don’t understand I am not a musician (in the same way they are) and I actually have a dayjob to go to at 9am. But the bar was a wonderful time — people danced tonight, random strangers dancing together, I mean wow, it was rowdy and great. A part of me wishes I were exhausted, but I’m not at all. Hence the lateness and el internet. I really have to stop writing on this thing and start reading, and writing For Real.

A big wuttup to friends in the UK, by the way. Wuttup UK people! Go Manchester United! And Hawaii. Wuttup Kailua Kona! Think of me when you eat pineapples.

It’s noon and I’ve just had brunch with D., an old ghost from the past. He looks the same, though time has worn a bit at our spirits. Neither of us have the same mindset as we did in college, that get-up-and-leave-the-country inertia, the impetus and ability to move without a blink (not to say that I don’t continue to get up and move without a blink. It’s just more of a practical struggle now). I’d like to see all the photos D. took in 1998 so I can remember what we looked like then. We looked very young and a little scared.

Ry is sleeping. I can only hear the birds, and the sound made from punching in the pop-up holes on the top of my iced coffee lid like I did to my mother’s diet cokes in the 80s. Poomph! It sounds like that.

Am torn to frustration over Adobe Encoder video compression and problems with Premiere, so instead of video work I’m just sitting, wondering when it will rain. There’s some construction going on around the corner. It’s the Davis Square Lofts they’re building. What a cool place to live. I just can’t understand how Boston isn’t filled with only millionaires, because property everywhere costs millions. Maybe it is, though; maybe they’re millionaires masquerading as white collar software professionals, pushing their babies in those awesome three-wheeler bike-style strollers, the kind I will buy or build when I have a kid simply because they’re too cool not to own.

It’s a zen day. Time to do some reading or something. I hope the rains hold off for a few more hours. The cool air is nice, even though it’s sticky. I have to write about July a lot — too much, maybe — because it’s so nice and intense and it disappears so quickly.