Therein lies the rub. Therein lies the rub. Therein lies the rub.

Why has everyone agreed to this misquote? Aye, there’s the rub.

——-

This will change your life:

Stove-top popcorn.

Popcorn.

1/4 nutritional yeast

sea salt to taste

agave to taste

butter (optional)

Penzey’s Brady Street Cheese Sprinkle.

Trust me.

——-

Last week, my kitchen sink clogged. Laura and I went to the pharmacy to get some Draino. While we were waiting at the checkout line, Laura said, “Oh! We should get one of these Seattle shot glasses for your sister!”

She put one on the counter. I paid.

Yep. We bought a bottle of draino and a shot glass. No questions asked.

One weekend: City lights in the rear-view, The Sunday Times, an Irish pub, sunsets, crashing waves, cold nights, sweaters, drive-up beach fronts, and books and books and books and books and books and the first glimpse of springtime sun.

Here’s to the warmer months to come…

At the bakery in the market, the woman behind the counter always calls me “scrumple.” Like, “Whaddya need today scrumple?” “Try this this sample you scrumple you.” Not only is it weird, but it sounds like a baked good, and I just don’t like the insinuation that I have the same name as the things she sells.

——-

“I want every day of my life to look like a postcard,” he told me.

“That’d be good,” I said. “Then you could buy the cheaper stamps.”

——-

I heard this on the bus: “I just feel like we’re adults now. We can’t just go off and start stealing cars all of a sudden.”

Kids will be kids, that’s what I always think when I hear about motor vehicle theft.

Through west Texas you told me I needed to take a step back

when all we had was yellow brick after yellow brick after yellow brick,

I stayed between the lines.

And that always bigger picture of things loomed

above us, gazing in through the windshield,

squeezing our cheeks like a grandmother, so proud.

For us, all that was were stars and stars and stars.

Hours crawled by a mile a minute and change.

You got quiet for fifty some odd ticks to the odometer

and I peeked over and saw your eyes open.

I flicked my brights to wink at you and maybe you missed it.

I took a step back.

What’s left when every thing’s ahead?

Sometimes, my life feels like just one long episode of Moesha.

—–

A friend of mine in northern Canada sent me a picture of herself and her two huskies in layers and layers of clothes in a snow covered field holding up a sign that said “Occupy the Tundra.”

—–

One of the better feelings in life is no longer ever asking, “hey, ummmm, do you mind if I like, take a shower?”

The Chairman at work.

April : What is Zumba? I keep hearing about it and seeing ads…

Me : We walked past a class in session this weekend. Looked like step aerobics without the steps.

April : Oh… So dancing around like a moron. I think they offer that at my gym. I think they offer that at every gym.

Me : Dancing around like a moron. I like it.

April : If that’s what they actually called the class, I’d totally take it.

—–

If Lydia were an office, she’d be Suite 104B.

—–

I should introduce you to Chairman Meow. I asked him to type up a bio for you. He wrote: ” ß e3g4mr4g65;gkyo6pr] -r0t]rty0 9a99999999999(((jirejgre’” and then promptly fell asleep on my keyboard.

Brought to you by the always genius of Ms. Sarah Plovanich

Amie flirts with the subway guy enough that he lets her ride for free. When her wink is just right, or when she’s not wearing anything over her bikini top, he lets both of us through the handicapped entrance. There’s a 25 yard ramp down to the train platform and I wonder if it’s to make it handicap accessible or just so we could race down it. Everything feels that way, made for us. This sky above, this city slowly making its way closer out the train window, this rocking action of the train that puts Amie to sleep on my shoulder, the damp darkness of the subway tunnels as we head underground, all of this is for us.

We liked Oak Street Beach because it was pedestrian only. No parking lot, only city dwellers. The night before, we listened to an album called Endless Summer and I listened and loved it and not because of the music. I thought if we sat and just played it on loop it would somehow make the dusk last longer and into the night, that we could be back porch sitters until the end of all things. She told me that night that she never waits to get her toes in the sand, that she loses flip flops that way, that she still gets upset when she sees any real shoes at the beach and we should go tomorrow.

Sure enough, when cement became sand after crossing under Lake Shore Drive, the flip flops flopped off and were left behind, me watching, as she ran flicking sand behind her, dropping bags and towels haphazardly as if she needed to get to the water before her next breath. Amie took pride in being a Great Lake Swimmer. She called it her tribe, a sense of belonging that the ocean-front dwellers would never understand. She’d say their water is too buoyant, that you don’t even have to try to stay afloat. She liked the metaphor of working to stay up, “like Carl Sandburg’s Chicago,” she’d say, “even our leisure time we muscle through.”

Her hair tangled, she made her way to the towels I laid out, collecting her discarded belongings on the way.

“The water’s cold,” she says.

“I read something about how it never really gets above 70,” I say.

“I like that I feel it everywhere. I like this I feel this everywhere.”