July 2011
2 posts
neighborhood
I was worried about moving to a big city like Philadelphia. It seemed so impersonal; center city and the art museum, the places I knew best before moving to Philadelphia, seemed disjunct, confusing, highly commercial, and I knew I’d miss the sense of familiarity of my New Jersey semi-home town.
It was isolating and disorienting for the first couple of months. While the ascending...
fly on the wall
A person’s past is a funny place. Visiting your past is a frequent topic of literature; rarely, however, does one get to experience this visitation in actuality, except…
Yesterday, I brought my boyfriend to a place of my past, Mercer County Community College, a place I hadn’t been since high school, where I’d taken chemistry classes and danced and sung in the choruses of...
June 2011
4 posts
windows
What is our fascination with things that happen on the other side of the glass?
Sitting in my coffee shop, I was typing an email, and was startled out of my writing reverie by several pairs of eyes. As they sauntered by, a group of friends was staring at me, watching their very own reality show of my life in this plant and computer-filled coffee shop. But it wasn’t just those friends who...
after the rain
Petrichor. [PET-ri-kohr] The pleasant smell after a dry spell when rain has finally fallen.
I used to subscribe to a-word-a-day email list, and this one word has stuck with me for the past five years or so. It’s such a poetic concept for a word; the idea that rejuvenated earth and life has a smell so distinct that it’s worthy of being defined in those three syllables.
“After the rain” is...
daydreaming
My neighborhood coffee shop is haunted by a psychic. On Saturdays, a woman with wild, curly red hair inhabits an almost private table close to a front window, latte in hand and sign in tow:
“Psychic Readings: 15 minutes for $20”
There is almost nothing innately appealing about the woman or the sign… and yet, every Saturday that I’ve seen her there, I’ve been overcome with the urge to have my...
