These things that I want you to know.
Who I am, what holds me,
What I hold – I clutch.
Tea rose and good luck charms,
Fear and the past,
And this navy blue hole in my rose petal heart.

In the summertime there is a distinct breeze that floats along when the weather is just so and the sky is a hazy shade of blue. It is a soft, scooping wind, one that’s smooth like the inner crevice of an ocean-licked seashell. This breeze is the kind that cups your skin in the palm of its touch, and feels effortless and loving. It’s difference from other winds is like the distance between an intent and heartfelt kiss and one that is pushy and lustful. This breeze shakes only the tops of the trees, and but flutters through your hair, never shaking it loose or mussing it up – it is a lazy breeze from across the bay, the Summer Wind sung to by Frank and felt in this moment by my pen and my skin as I sit out on the porch and watch green leaves dance lackadaisically.

I’m glad I’ve slowed down enough to see this, feel this, because so often I forget to. My writing repeatedly takes the form of analytical exploration and as such, I am always hashing things out in my mind in order to cogently connect them into strings of sentences. But right now I’m right here and have only the power to write of what I see and who I am in this very instant – girl set out on a blue porch, pink sneakers up on the railing, and ice cubes clacking in her glass.

Everyone seems to be settling down and into a relationship. And I…well I am lying on my bed with my little dog, listening to Robin Thicke (don’t tell anyone) and wondering what I want. Someone smart once remarked that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Wise words that are worthy of some serious note each time we start to feel sorry for ourselves. Everyone has their weak points, insecurities that oftentimes seem to be couched in the areas in which we appear to be the most confident.

From time to time, I myself tend to slip into waxing woeful over my independent status, glumly eyeing the sexy couples at the Madison Square Park dog run whilst feeling like a boob sitting there alone but for an iced coffee and a little dog who won’t move from beneath my bench. But then I think, who knows what’s really going on with those pretty pairs? Very rarely are our assumptions of others anything but reflections of our projected perfections. It’s not hard to think you want something because you somehow learned you are supposed to. Maybe that’s just my way of brushing off romance as pheromone based hormonal surges, but then again, maybe I’m on to something. I guess I’ll keep trying to figure it out and in the meantime, suck it up and walk my way into the dog run brandishing my plastic coffee cup and feeling as secure in my silent self as possible.

Besides, technically I don't sleep alone...I got a little black and white fluff ball streached out beside me each night...and he never ever snores.

I’m watching Woody Allen’s Manhattan from a hunkered down perch on my mother’s sofa, out in Connecticut, miles from New York City. The town I love has exhausted me, first with its bedbugs, then the apartment search. All day long I’ve been funky, mulling over my impending lease signing, the audacity of our realtor, the price of my realtor, and most of all, the magnitude of Manhattan’s monthly rent. Last week, I looked at apartment after apartment, from the Upper East Side to Alphabet city, none of which fit my price limitations in anything but a disappointing way. 2, 600 dollars a month for this!? A dirty matchbox, blocks and blocks from public transportation, 20 flights up and full of roaches? What is more, they might not accept me! I roll my eyes as my agent disapprovingly runs her eyes over my mother’s bank statement…if this is par for the course, what is to become of my Manhattan? If we fast-forward twenty years into the future, will the great cities of the world be owned only by the rich and famous? What will New York be like without its crazy kids, its starving artists, its students, its starlets?

Well, I guess there's always Brooklyn...