Square Roots, Fly Traps, Comet

Insomnia can be an incredible thing. You may lay awake having some of your most life changing revelations and while doing so not seem to mind that the next day you will be exhausted.

I've chosen last night for an example.

Square Roots

While contemplating recent news that Apple had dismissed the approaching wave of 7 inch tablets as being too small I ran the pythagorean theorem in my head to envision the size the smaller version of the iPad. This required me to think of square roots.

There is an interesting and incredible relation of square roots that has always made me smile. Its the simple pattern of the increase between one square to the next, always an odd number in sequence from the jump before. The square of three is nine, the square of four is sixteen. Sixteen minus nine is seven. The square of five is twenty five. Twenty five minus sixteen is nine. The square of six is thirty six. Thirty six minus twenty five is eleven. Seven, Nine, Eleven.

But its the square of seven that finishes the beautiful piece of math that has me enthralled at an approaching milestone. The square of seven is forty nine. Forty nine minus thirty six is thirteen.

When my sister Shannon is forty nine, I will be thirty six and we will be perfect squares in immediate sequence. I can't wait to celebrate such an incredible milestone and I am thrilled that I haven't realized it after the fact.

Fly Traps

My roommate is a nano scientist. While discussing strange flowers his theoretical girlfriend would appreciate my other roommate mentioned venus fly traps. In my head I envisioned a new subculture of artistic food design. An entire catalog of food for fly traps came to mind. Tiny representations of sushi, hamburgers and tacos. All crafted in tiny scale (nanosci) and purchased from a trendy shop in the ultra cool segment of town. Overpriced for the token of avant-garde but necessary for the proper care of one's incredibly hip pet Fly Trap.

Imagine the potential for Vegan Venus Inc. Tofu blended supplements for the eco-conscious carnivorous plant keeper. An entire line of accouterment comes to mind. Recycled pots, composted soil, fair trade seeds, sustainable reclaimed fiber plant cozies.

The irony of taming a man eater, THE must have holiday conversation piece gift.

Comet

I then began to think of my water bottle. It is actually a tea infuser. Complete with a small metal strainer at the top should I choose to fill it with loose tea. I was thinking of how to properly clean the strainer. I thought to really get it to shine I should try comet.

Then my brain was horrified. I remembered a story of a father who stored left-over draino in a mountain dew bottle and his son swallowed some. Burned his esophagus and nearly died, later he only was able to have one tube from his mouth and had to decide if he wanted to speak or eat for the rest of his life.

I wondered, how much comet would be caustic enough to burn the epithelial tissues of my throat. Trace amounts from careful cleaning or could I like whiten my teeth with it so long as I was careful enough to rinse?

I dare not try either.

scatter like light

I was lying on the couch soaking in humidity and contemplating student loan interest rates.

My phone rested on my stomach and I stared out the window until I noticed the light on the opposite wall.

I grew up in a house where crystals were hung in the windows and rainbows played on the walls with flecks of light.

In the front hall opposite me a light danced on the wall. It rose and fell with tiny steady hops.

The phone on my stomach was deflecting late summer evening sun onto the wall following the steady rise and fall of my lungs and the pounding of my heart.

I watched the chaos of my two most important life functions never reaching syncopation.

I rarely ever notice my breath until I am out of it but I like to think my heart and I communicate well.

The light danced and I had a strange idea that if I could, when the long-off time presents itself, I would want to watch it stop this way. Scattered like light with rainbows until still.

a return to my senses

My favorite noise is the wind through the leaves of trees.

Its random and beautiful.

It sounds like the tide. Like the ocean can find me inland.

Its not perfect and consistent like the sea, neither am I.

On my porch I have seen a dozen people cross my block in the twilight to night on bicycles.

Three women rode past. Young and unknown to me. They stopped outside the house next to mine.

Dressed in hats and skirts with leggins, they carried their bikes up to their porch.

About twenty minutes later I heard singing from the their second floor apartment, the three of them belting out the words to The Magetic Zero's "Home."

And that's when it hit me.

I wanted to write. For the first time in months I wanted to write. I wanted to cry.

Now they are singing Cher.

In my head I hear Aly on the phone in the basement. In my heart I hear Meg singing Regina Spektor in the shower. I hear Amber laughing at a repeat of Friends. I hear the familiar footsteps of Jules above me.

And I am homesick.

Now the girls next door are singing Grease.

Two years ago I took the last diet pepsi out of the fridge and drove to DC.

There is little preventing me from doing that right now.

I think I might just do that and call it a night.

A call for Support.

Each day I look forward to the once in a lifetime opportunity to do good with the people I hold dear.

Please take a moment to learn about my family's efforts to bring hope to a small remote village in Guatemala.

785 Park

There is writing on the windows.

Ian's paperbacks are all over the dining room.

My law books are stacked around the couch.

I suppose someone should dust.

There are plenty of bananas, help yourself.

At any given time if you hear a crash, its just a bike falling over in the front hall.

Baby Dan upstairs sometimes cries and his parents fuss.

I double up yoga mats.

We do the dishes when we are out of spoons.

Ian's on the couch reading novels.

I'm in bed reading law reviews.

The kettle whistles for tea regularly.

There is a pile of running shoes by the door.

Its quiet, peaceful and next to a park.

Not bad for a place to call home.

milk and bananas

I wrote this last June. Its still pretty completely valid. As a student I often forget to eat all together. If it wasn't for running regularly I would be terrible about remembering to eat. Cooking with myself in mind has been a huge change in my life. I've become self aware of things I never would have noticed otherwise. Everything from exactly how distasteful meat is to me to the wonders of how to make the perfect tofu smoothie.

Food can be the most basic information about ourselves and we all have incredibly different relationships with it. Sometimes we make someone else's priorities in life our own. That's love. You sincerely can't blame anyone for the fact that you love them, you can only be responsible for the fact that you have neglected yourself. I'd like to find the grace and maturity it takes to be authentic when madly in love.

I used to spend hours in a suburban grocery store in Upstate NY. I would wander the isles looking for every ingredient for a perfect dinner. The right barbeque sauce for the ribs, the cream for the homemade macaronni and cheese, the strawberries for the ultimate dessert. I would fill a cart and cook all day, polish the silver, sometimes set out the china.

The fridge was always full and every night I'd cook. Plates and plates of food, tupperware of left-overs and cookbooks with bookmarked pages.

I used to wander around the store with a big coffee and cart stocking up on cans of soup and boxes of cereal and tea, just in case. I'd lug out to my hatch back then into the house or up five flights of stairs to the apartment. Even when he'd dissapear I made dinner, even when I couldn't eat I cooked, cause no matter where he was when he came in he asked what was for dinner. Even when we sat down to eat he'd ask what was for dinner tomorrow. I was always worrying what I was going to make for dinner. I constantly knew what food I had at home.

Now I pick up milk and bananas on my walk home from work. I wonder how many books I could have read, how many languages I could have learned, how many conversations with actual content I could have had in four years of cooking, shopping and worrying.

I can't remember the last time I worried about dinner.

tell me what I want to hear

I pulled the rocking chair into the sun and set a heavy book on my lap.

I could hear finches, robins, song birds, and I swore even an owl.

There is a quartz wind chime slightly clinking from where I hung it up at the corner of the porch.

The chime sounds like fine bone china making odd, inconsistent and tiny toasts to something grand.

In the distance some dogs bark here and there and someone is cutting a lawn.

I rock back and forth and fall asleep.

It is a high spring day and not all of the orchestra has arrived yet.

There is no sound of the wind rustling oak leaves or the mad dash of tiny winged beasts among the azaleas. There is no sound of ice resettling in a sweating glass of water. There is no razor sharp hum of beetles and cicadas. No chance of heat breaking thunder or lightening in March.

In the distance from the other end of the dead end street the traffic of the world passes.

But form the rocking chair it only sounds like waves attacking a beach and in my dream on the porch I never have to leave home.