Tuesday, 24 June 2008

i swear, chandreyee, we didn’t break anything...

well, almost anyway, and it wasn't actually my fault, i swear, it just - well, the thing just flew off and there wasn't anything i could do about it and then when we discovered it in the sauce for the meat for the dinner, there just was no getting around it - the metal spout for the kosher salt was just too damn hot to pick up with our hands. i used a spoon to fish out and let it cool by the sink. and washed it off with soap and warm water and tried to put it back on the kosher salt box. i may have failed at that part of it. maybe.

the evening was an adventure all the way around, tho one not on the scale of runaway pups or scary drunk men. more like finding oneself the unwittingly well-timed rescuer of friends locked out of other friend's homes - don't ask and i won't tell - and frying balls and chicken so tender that it fell apart and realizing that even though i still can't smell anything well, i do know what the air feels like when it is carrying scent to my nose, kind of warm and heavy and slightly orange colored, though not tasting, that may have been psychosomatic owing to the lovely red color of the spices and the oil on top of the yoghurt coating the chicken. there was terrible white wine (seriously. terrible. suddenly i am she who finds the bad wine. better than other possibilities.) and we had to remember to leave it on the porch when we crossed the street to peer into the home with porch work being attempted. the two homes next to each other, twins of some relatively non-descript early 20th century style - the kind of homes whose interiors are filled with curving staircases and real wood panelling, the kind whose exteriors are so confused as to be ridiculous - seriously, what were those columns about? - and the brink front walks in a semi-circle joining the two porches, the bricks that are famous and of which there are not enough to finish the project so it ends, deceptive in its unfinished state, it looks as though the rest of them just fell off somehow - it is strangely disturbing to stand there and look at it and realize that the bricks didn't just erode away, they didn't fall away, they are all on the ground and the ground is still there - still prepped for more of them - it is not finished being built, not in some advanced stage of becoming un-done.

we did succeed in making a mess of Chandreyee's kitchen. we also succeeded in cleaning it up. because we are adults and even though the home of our friend is a place of food and laughter and multiple simultaneous conversations and ideas and joy and music and movies, it is also her home, and we know how to clean up after ourselves. we are laying groundwork for the future of this place. our laughter is our blessing: our hope that our friend find happiness and joy and focus and comfort in this place that becomes her home.

and the chicken was fucking awesome and falafel makes everything better and the bad wine was just bad enough to be laughable and the movie makes me happy and watching commentary with company is the same as having leave to talk over the commentary and over the movie all at the same time - the layers were thick, they were. seriously.

tonight is for Jazz and family. later there will be more housecleaning and prayers of thanks that i was not under the dripping ceiling fan last night.

thunder and lightning float through my consciousness making me question my sense of my own mortality and reactions and sensations and fears. i would sit and watch storms and ponder rain drops and surfaces and shining leaves and battered grass and the water rushing to the drains washing the wheels of the cars parked on my streets.

i have begun collecting the writing that i did between May 9, 2007 and Taming of the Shrew on my birthday this year. it is an interesting exercise. more real than i expected.

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