Grand Mall
And so the older sibling abuse begins: new nephew Jesse with old niece Ellie
Currently listening to Sufjan Stevens. Currently watching Watchmen. Currently reading something with the rather trite title A Fraction of the Whole - it is much better than the title suggests. Currently drinking root beer and locking my big toes together.
There is no taste more nostalgic for me than the taste of root beer. It is the taste of my grandparents' house in rural Ohio, the taste of the incredibly exciting visits there during holidays and summers. The tractor rides or trudges through that oh-so exotic substance called snow, the Christmas mornings or summer birthday parties with Dairy Queen ice cream cakes. Mine was the one in the shape of a log, Amy's was the heart-shaped one. Oh but the root beer - I remember the exact place in the pantry where the root beer was kept. I remember looking at it often, admiring it. Ignoring the other bottles of other flavors that were obviously for the boring taste buds of the boring adults. Ginger ale, anyone? Blech. Faygo was my grandma's brand. Didn't make any difference to me at the time, though now I suspect that seemingly innocuous bottle label may have had an acute effect on my adult sexual identity.
This afternoon on my bus ride home from work a woman in the front of the vehicle experienced some sort of medical crisis. It was intense and heartbreaking. The bus was full but not crowded, I was far to the back - my preferred seating - and the first indication that something was wrong was when this very loud, practical-looking woman with a shopping bag said, "Bus driver, I think we have an incident here." My first thought, hilariously, was that someone had touched her inappropriately, and she was gonna take care of business right there in front of us all. Instead, she crossed the aisle to this young African-American woman who appeared at first to be sobbing rather heavily. After a few seconds, it became clear that she was in fact experiencing some sort of seizure. Her head was rolling and jerking and her hands were moving very erratically. Another young lady from the middle of the bus moved quickly to the front to see to the girl. I thought they might have been together - funny how irrationally one can think during these critical moments - but it turned out that she was a nurse. I think she was a wonderful person to have on the bus, not at all shy about helping out or employing her skills. In a simple, understated way, heroic. These two ladies calmed her, encouraged her, and gave her comfort until the ambulance came to take her to get help. They are good people.
I am still romantically involved with that handsome, vegan Jew that I told you about earlier. He's away for the weekend at a family wedding - oh my gosh, a Jewish wedding, how fun! - so I'm using these days as practice for returning to life on my own. He's leaving for Madrid in just a few weeks, so I'm wringing every drop of fun out of him that I can in the meantime. We went to a Coldplay concert up in Wisconsin last weekend, we've attended every Tuesday night movie down in Grant Park so far this summer, and we are now on a first name basis with the staff of the restaurant Crisp just down the street here. He's not big on shopping or the beach, so I get plenty of me time too.
What a great summer it has been. I hope that yours has been great, too. Let's have tea sometime soon and talk about it.
Currently looking forward to turning 30, just to get it over with already.
1 comments:
I've been drinking a lot of root beer lately.
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