Walking back to work today past a construction site, after eating my lunch outside, a little particle of something flew back behind my sunglasses and straight into my eye. I wear hard contacts, which are wonderful for their durability and clarity of vision, but not so good when things get into them. In an instant, I was turned from a normal, walking, talking, functioning human into a half blind, stumbling, weeping mess. I could hardly think and it took all my focus to propel myself forward and back to my office.

I was talking on the phone with my mom when it happened, and managed to insert my “un-huhs” and “reallys” at appropriate times for a couple of minutes, but as soon as I got to my floor I told her I had to go. I popped that contact out of my eye in the hallway, so much did I need to get it out of my body, and headed for the bathroom. I flushed my eye with water and eventually got the contact back in without pain or irritation.

I only recently started wearing contacts again, after about eight months away. My last pair had gotten fairly elderly (okay, fine, they were 11 years old) and so I stopped wearing them. I decided to get a new pair when signs of summer started appearing, and I realized I would want to wear sunglasses again. In the time away, I had forgotten how crippling it can be when something goes astray with the lenses. It’s interesting to me how something so beign as that little plastic disc can wield so much power for pain when coupled with a grain of dust.

I have wanted a Kitchen Aid mixer since college, when I used the one that belonged to the Resident Director to make cakes for a hall birthday party. I was astounded at how quickly and easily it turned ingredients into batter. That was my first exposure to such things, and I was hooked (men should understand this, it’s really just a power tool for the kitchen). There was a little antique/junk store in the town I went to college in that had one for sale for all the years I was there. I always looked at it longingly when I went in the store, but never bought it. It wasn’t time yet.

Several months ago, out of the blue, I announced to some of my friends that I wanted a Kitchen Aid for my birthday. Before you look at me cross-eyed and think “hey greedy girl, do you know how much those things cost?” I have to state in my defense that my group of friends has a tradition of pooling resources and buying one large gift from everyone.

About a week ago, I got an email from Una, which was titled, “This is no surprise, I need guidance.” They were going to get me a mixer and wanted to know what I wanted. Having recently discovered the Kitchen Aid Outlet via Scott, I pointed them in the direction of the Professional 600.

It arrived today.

The first chance I had, I opened the box and overturned it onto the carpet. I sat with it on the floor for several minutes, raising and lowering the lever that moves the bowl, and attaching and removing the different mixing tools. Come this weekend, the two of us are going to have a GOOD time.

Thanks to everyone who came out to Devil’s Alley last night (and to those who couldn’t make it but sent birthday wishes). I had a really terrific time, and felt most loved and celebrated.

Several days ago, my aunt sent my mom a request to write up a paragraph about the things her mother taught her, honor of mother’s day. She had been putting off the project because her internet connection was down and so she wouldn’t be able to send it over to Hawaii, but as we talked about it, I started to realize that it was a topic I wanted to take on (plus, my internet connection is working just fine). My mom has actually taught me many more things than I can possibly list, but these are some of the big ones that leap to mind.

She taught me how to stand up for myself. In the second grade, when bullies picked on my every move, she sat down with me and coached me on come backs. She helped me figure out how to fight back with words and attitude (much to her chagrin, I most often employed this newly acquired skill on my sister).

She also taught me how to play dumb, to feign innocence to get out of uncomfortable situations (mostly with men). I realize that it is behavior that is deeply politically incorrect, but as Jayne Mansfield proved time and again, it takes smarts to fake stupidity.

She taught me how to write. She did this initially by helping me learn to read and later by starting to write herself and sharing it with me. Her poems encapsulate little moments of life with such beauty and perfection that they cause me to sigh when I finish reading them, sad that I will never have the opportunity to read that particular poem again for the first time.

She taught me how to cover my tracks. This lesson has served me well, covering a range of situations, from when I learned not to throw the contraband candy wrappers behind the couch if I didn’t want anyone to know I had eaten three “fun-size” Snickers a hour before dinner (age 7) to how to take the car out for a spin before I had a driver’s license (age 15).

She taught me how single-minded focus on a goal could help me improve my chances of success.

She taught me to cook dinner in under twenty minutes, to fold laundry right after it comes out of the dryer (to minimize the need for ironing) and to check a plastic bag for holes before you use it to pick up dog poop. I also learned from her how to bargain, how to pull treasures from the garbage, how to strip paint from old wood and when it’s okay to pick fruit from other peoples’ trees or bushes (only if it’s hanging over the side of their fence and is easily accessible from the sidewalk).

She gave me the absolute comfort and security that comes from being loved totally, completely and without question (my dad gets some credit for that as well, but Father’s Day is still a month away). In return (although she asks for no such thing), I love her wildly, deeply and without measure. Happy (late) Mother’s Day, mama.

The year I was born, May 14th fell on a Monday. I made my entrance at 12:37 pm, while all the rest of Los Angeles was eating lunch. My mom had gone into labor earlier in the day, and when she told my dad she thought it was time to go to the hospital, he asked if he couldn’t just finish the section of linoleum he was in the middle of laying in the almost remodeled kitchen. She yelled and they took off to the hospital in their pea-green Volvo.

Everyone gathered at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital, both grandmothers, an ex-sister in law, a brother and lots of friends, to wait for me to show up. Bunny, my dad’s mom, was driving a rental car with a broken speedometer that day, and almost got a speeding ticket in her hurry to be at the birth of her first grandchild. The police officer let her off with a warning. She wrote after I was born that “Marisa’s birth was like praying for a Ford and getting a Maserati,” her brain focused on cars after her near miss.

My mom did not labor long, and after the fourth hour I was there, tiny and a little suprised at the transition from inside to out.

There are many pictures of my birth, the ex-sister in law Lorna having come prepared with a camera loaded with black and white film. I have looked at these pictures so often in my life, that I can conjure then mentally at all times. They give me the feeling that I was there as an observer, in addition to having been the guest of honor. There is the look of adoration and awe on my mom’s face as she holds me for the first time, the child she had been pursuing for more than eight years. My grandma Tutu looking nervous while my mom was laboring and so relieved after it was all over. My dad, lowering me into the waiting wash basin for my first bath. Bunny peering at me through her glasses, her fingers perched gently on the blanket wrapped around me.

27 years later, I am happy to be here. I am grateful for the amount of love and excitement that surrounded my entrance into the world. I carry that knowledge of my birth-day welcome around with me and in moments of uncertainy or worry, am able to wrap it around me, like an intangible, invisible security blanket. That love continues to be the best birthday gift I’ve ever received.

(For the folks in Philly–If you’re interested in helping me celebrate my birthday in person, there’s a celebratory happy hour this Tuesday night (May 16th) at Devil’s Alley (1907 Chestnut St) starting at 6 pm).

That’s right, Friday has rolled around once more and you know what that means! It’s time for me to set my pod a’shufflin’ and report back the first ten songs it spits out. As always, I will neither omit, neglect or ignore any of the songs the pod brings to the surface, proving once and for all that I have slightly odd taste in music. So, without further stalling…

1. Lady Magret, Cassie Franklin (Cold Mountain)
2. Paint it Black, Sneakin’ Out (Mississippi Studios Live)
3. I Can’t Explain, The Who (My Generation)
4. Catch Me Now I’m Falling, The Kinks (One for the Road)
5. Amsterdam, Coldplay (A Rush of Blood to the Head)
6. Don’t Do It, The Band (The Best of the Band)
7. Jessie’s Girl, Rick Springfield (The Best of Rick Springfield)
8. A History of Lovers, Calexico/Iron & Wine (In the Reins)
9. How Do You Do It, The Beatles (Ultra Rare Tracks Vol. I)
10. One Day I Will Walk, k.d. lang (Hymns of the 49th Parallel)

Favorite Song: I think today I’m going to have to go with Jessie’s Girl by Rick Springfield. Listening to this song reminds me of two things. The first is my LA childhood and when my babysitters would watch MTV while my mom was out (we weren’t supposed to watch it). The second is a friend I had at my first job in Philly. She was deeply enamored with Rick Springfield and every time he played in the area, she would go. She had met him several times (because, let’s face it, he’s at the point in his career where he’ll make appearances at the local mall) and had a picture of the two of them hanging in her cube.

Favorite Album: This is a tough call, as there are quite a few albums on the list that I love. For today, I’m picking the Beatles Ultra Rare Tracks Vol. I. I realize that this isn’t exactly an album, at least in the sense that the artists didn’t carefully select and record tracks for this thing. What’s cool about this cd is that the whole thing is the random tracks, the alternate versions of the songs, and the moments when they were talking in between takes. For Christmas when I was 10 years old, my uncle dubbed his entire Beatles collection onto cassette for me (there were 6 cassettes in this collection, each running a whopping 120 minutes long). They ran in chronological order, and the final cassette was the same stuff that is on this cd. It was my favorite one, and I would listen to it over and over, loving the moments when you could hear Paul quietly counting the beats off, or when John would start ad-libbing.

If you need another hit of Random Friday fun, check out these folks:

Ashley
Ben
Brian
Dodi
Ellen
Howard
Jeff
Mark
Matthew
Sherri

If you’ve got a list up and want some link-lovin’, give me a shout.

Yesterday, while I was showing my apartment to one of the very last roommate prospects, my cell phone rang. It was my sister. I sent her to voice mail, since I was in the middle of trying to paint myself as a caring and responsive potential roommate and so it just didn’t seem like the time to say, “excuse me,” pick up the phone and start chatting.

I got back to the phone about an hour later to listen to the message. My sister may  be the best message leaver in the known universe. She often leaves messages in song. If I had the equipment or know-how, I would post the message here, but Apartment 2024 is just not set up for that sort of operation (it is saved on my cell phone and I would be happy to play it for all who ask).  It started out with her singing, “I Just Called to Say I Love You.” After two lines of that one, she magically transitioned into a rousing rendition of, “You’re Once, Twice, Three Times a Lady” before bringing it back home with the original song.  I don’t know how she does it.

We talked briefly tonight while I was driving home from latihan and she was sitting in a cafe in San Diego.  I was blabbing on about something unimportant when she interrupted me and said (without prompting or parental hints) “I am so glad that you are my sister!  I love you so much.”  I was stunned for a minute and started to tear up (almost missing my turn off Washington Ave. in the process).  I told her how happy I was that she was my sister, how much I love her too and how much it meant to me that she told me.  We promised to be friends forever.  I realize that this seems fairly schmaltzy, but the relationship my sister and I currently have is not the one that we went through most of life with.  We spent years at each other’s throats, fighting, yelling and nearly destroying one another. This is new and precious and I routinely send my little messages of appreciation out to the universe for helping us find it.

It’s just an added bonus when I get a message medley.

Okay, I admit it. Moving over here to wordpress has been kind of challenging. I found a theme I like, but I can’t figure out how to make the header have my name in it. So right now there’s no header at all. I was trying to insert my flickr badge, and that didn’t work so well either. But I’m not discouraged, I simply need to spend a little more time figuring this whole thing out (big thanks to Scott, who has been acting as my wordpress tutor and all-around good guy).

So, interesting news from the roommate front. I placed my roommate ad over the weekend and got 13 emails from interested parties. I’ve now met with six of them, and I’m calling it a day. I’ve narrowed it down to two potential roommates, and I’m pondering this: do I pick the roommate who would be practically invisible, or do I go with the person who would be the most fun. These are important issues I’m dealing with here. I have to figure it out though, because I’ve promised everyone a response by Friday.

I’ve also been reminded over the course of this whole roommate search just how small Philadelphia really is. Sunday morning I got an email from someone interested in the room. He said he was an African-American male, who was currently living at 3rd and Pine. That address rang a bell for me, and I wrote back and asked him if he had possibly been the roommate of Mary Nussbaum*, an acquaintance of mine who used to live in that area. He wrote back that while he hadn’t lived with her, he actually did know her, and knew the roommate to whom I was referring. It’s just not a very big city.

I promise to keep working on the new blog, and will hopefully get it looking nice by the weekend. Thanks for being patient with me as I learn all this stuff.

*Not her real name.

This morning I woke up, a little earlier than normal for me on a Monday morning, to the WHYY spring fund drive playing on my bedside radio. I quickly hit snooze and tried to reclaim the last moments of the dream I had been having before the alarm had interrupted. It was no good, the dream was gone. I reluctantly rolled over, made my bed and stumbled towards the shower, feeling a groggy and slightly sad, almost as if I’d misplaced something special or valuable. I stood under the shower head, rubbing my new grapefruit scented shampoo around my head, absently noting how long my hair has gotten, when I realized the source of this abstract disappointment.

It was a sort of mourning for the weekend that I had just had. Not because anything bad had happened, but instead because it had been so good. I had entered the weekend Friday night without many plans, and it had evolved, perfect and so completely friend and fun filled, that I could have never intentionally planned it to be so. Saturday Ingrid and I went to the zoo, wandered around looking at both animals and people. We ate hot dogs while sitting on a bench, and talked as we always talk, about the future and the past and the very moment we are in. The zoo always makes me a little sad (especially the monkeys, with their faces that look so human in their expressions and the elephants, with their eyes so dark and seemingly full of the understanding of pain), and yet, it was too beautiful to be sad for long on Saturday. That evening I met friends for dinner at the Jamaican Jerk Hut, and we ordered in shifts, slowly picking from the plates and bowls in the middle of the table. The evening ended up with beer and ice cream in Jen’s kitchen, such a comfortable and friendly kitchen that I could live there for the rest of my live and be totally content.

Ingrid spent the night on Saturday, and we woke up slowly on Sunday morning (it was the last time she’ll sleep over before she moves back to Texas). It was the day of the Broad Street Run, and I was deeply grateful I wasn’t running it this year. We met Cindy for bagels and coffee at Mugshots, and sat around for two hours, eating and talking. A stop at Whole Foods on the way home had us formulating a plan for dinner in Cindy’s backyard that included roasted veggies, goat cheese, bread and grilled chicken legs (Seth’s contribution).

It was unhurried and pleasant and comfortable. The entire weekend left me feeling wildly grateful for the friends I have and the life I lead. I recently spent some time playing the what if game. What if I had never moved to Philadelphia? What would my life be like? In other, sadder times, I’ve indulged the what if, but in this most recent round, I quickly muzzled it as soon at it started to nudge at my brain, so thoroughly do I appreciate the life I lead. Of course, it will all change soon. Friends are leaving, I’m trying to get my act together to go to grad school and I’m looking for a new roommate. But right now, I have this existence, and it is enough.

So my roommate is graduating and the friend I thought was going to move in with me has changed her plans and I find myself in the market for a roommate. If you live in the Philadelphia area and are looking for a place to live, or know someone who is looking, let me know. I mean, come on, how could you resist wanting to live in Apartment 2024?

(If you want more details, give me a shout).

Heading home from work tonight, my plans for the evening consisted of a panini from Di Brunos, a book and a park bench in Rittenhouse Square. 45 minutes after I got home, I managed to pull myself off the couch and back out into the world. I got my sandwich and headed for the Square.

The whole world seemed to be out tonight. There were activists collecting signatures at the 18th Street entrance to the Square, friends settling down in the grass for a picnic dinner, elegantly dressed couples walking through on their way to the theater and parents letting toddlers run across the lawn. I settled down on a bench along the east path, pulled out my sandwich and opened my book.

I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention to the people sitting around me, but when I did glance up, I inadvertently caught the eye of man reading on the next bench over. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, and had the stocky frame and dark coloring of the Mexican immigrants who used to work at my dad’s company when I was in high school. After I had been sitting there about 45 minutes, a voice accented with swirls of Spanish interrupted my focus on my book.

The man who had been quietly reading across from me was now standing next to my bench and he was holding out a note. I took the note, quickly read it and glanced back up at him.

He asked me in English if I spoke Spanish and when I said that I spoke a little, he told me in Spanish that I was very beautiful. I started at him with what I know he took as a look of incomprehension and then managed to squeak out “thank you.” He proceeded to ask for my phone number, to which I said no. He said that he’d like to get to know me. I replied with a non-committal “that’s nice” and when I tried to give him back the note, he shook he hands at me and told me to keep it. In case I ever wanted to get in touch.

I appreciated the gesture and the fact that a random stranger had told me I was beautiful, but I also felt slightly stunned by the encounter. If he hadn’t left the note with me, I would almost doubt that it had happened at all.

*The book I was reading was What Should I Do With My Life? by Po Bronson.