shuffling around in the Life file cabinet
i was browsing a hardrive file i have called "assortments" and came across an old document called "randomass mental meanderings." and while that may sound lame if perhaps in a mildly interesting way, what that essentially means is its a few half-written lj entries that never came to pass. because if there's one skill ive mastered, its half-writing, a spinoff of not-writing. its almost 2 years old now, and i havent looked at it in forever. along with the aforementioned, and a very expository ramble on my love for harry potter (...yeah.) which never saw any kind of light, i found this, a kind of to-do this for summer 07:
-Explore Houdaille!
-Explore the abandoned orphanage as per Kate Stryker's wishes
-Attend 2-for-1 Mojito night at Laughlin's
-Write a BRO post that actually spurs real discussion, not just the typical bitter irrational asshats pissing and moaning about hookah and the focus of PUSH Buffalo (ok, that one was much more valid, but I wasn't entirely tied to the subject matter...)
-On that, note make it into the print edition of BR, or rather, find out WHAT even goes in there, and if its even still happening.
-Write something that's not for BRO, a snippet of fiction, a poem, fucking anything.
-Go to Crystal Beach, swim out to the pier, jump off, end the day with Lick-e-de-Split Ice Cream & Pool Toys and/or a Cappucino Glace. Have Stellastar on hand for the ride home, for nostalgia's sake.
-Go to Zoar Valley, but this time, instead of getting held up by a colon (thrilling as that was), actually make it to the waterfall, jump off.
-See the "Being Human" exhibit at the CEPA Gallery
-FINALLY get a sundae from Antoinette's
(not sure why zoar valley got all huge, but its cool.)
few things:
its nuts how far away that summer feels, yet still so close because well, it happened in buffalo, and that shit is visceral, and never, ever leaves you. i distinctly remember being on the phone with my sister right after id gotten my job at brinks and her being all excited for me that i was going to have the BEST summer ever with the combination of the 'ternship/waitressing gig, etc. i also distinctly remember having that pang that so plagues, the one of crushed expecation before the thing even begins, the inability to be in the moment because everything fits so well together but me, suddenly detached. i guess at the heart of it its fear. but while thats one way i operate, the other is nos. tal. gia. and the hugeass rose colored glasses (no really, theyd be like, the obnoxious dollar store variety, with rose-colored sequins and rose-colored glitter) with which i look at anything in the past. its part of the lost thing, part of the only-loving-what-makes-it-hard-to-love thing, an inevitable part of the deep love of travel to latin america because its hard work thing, i cant feel it fully until its gone. so that summer to me now? houuuudaille. so. satisfying. i went to brinks in the morning and wiped down and set the tables and checked the salt shakers while allison came in an apologetic flurry, freaked the eff out about something. shed make coffee and chop veggies and thank me and thank me and calm down, until we got swamped and she was freekt and near tears again til it slowed down and we ate fries at the bar and shed tell me long stories about the house and the hats and the animals and andy and i love stories, anybody's, but i could sit at listen to a Buffalo-person tell their stories all day long. id peel my condiment-stained clothes off me in the bathroom and change into real clothes for BRO, and as i left one of the cooks would inevitably make a "oooo look at you all dressed up!" comment in the totally non-creepy way of People You Work With At Restaurants, when its hard for anything they say to not have some kind of cozy feel to it, even when theyre yelling things at you or the grill, sweaty and fed up. then there was BRO which was a "clusterfuck" and a delight, keight and i nearly getting caught gchatting about geo or the bashar/nu-nu affair, that sad, sad, bowl of gum, picking anna's roo brain, making phone calls with much less fear, enjoying that sicktastic view and snazzy bathroom (nostalgia also does a bang-up job at covering up a company's total financial ineptitude and general shadiness). and there was the uniball, and the squirrel ringtone, and stellar downtown late lunches and good things. and all of this is only a shoddy peek into those 3 months.
but i look at that to-do list and get all messed up, because wait we did that but when? everything gets jumbled in a messy drawer of Buffasummers of which the best is both stacked neatly on top like old birthday cards and rolling around like inexplicable screws in the back corners. i originally looked at it and thought how nice it was that a lot of that stuff *didn't* happen that summer, that it was later, and that this was ok, and in no way took away from its total ballerness. but i was wrong because houdaille and zoar valley did in fact go down then and Summer 07 really did Have it All. but i never did quite write like that bullet asked for, and despite the fact that i spent an inordinate amount of time researching and writing my weather museum piece, "real discussion" is debatable. and i STILL have never had an antoinette's sundae. but to-do lists are never quite for the doing. and sometimes a summer rolls along like this one, and you check things off in all the right ways, you go to bonnaroo and see your name in something kind of like print and fall in love with your friends all over again still and feel the calumet patio warping under the weight of a zillion people dancing their limbs off to chromeo soaked in summersweat and things just, work. especially when you can love them in that inimitable way saved only for missing. and you don't do it all, but you do enough, and the lists fall away into new ones, constant ones, ones you cross off and build up so you can live them and fear them and store them, live them again in a way that is quiet and certain, less conscious than breathing even, but just as much a part of your living.
and whenever i find myself in the buff this summer, i am GETTING that antoinette's sundae.