Stand In The Place Where You Live

I sit on the step of the kitchen door watching a spindly beige spider try to navigate the obstacle course of the screen door. It attempts to climb, but its wire-thin legs fall through the mesh; it can get no footing. Exhausting every direction, it retreats to door frame and rests on a hinge. I leave the door propped open so as not to crush it.

I’m grateful for the cool rain today. This overcast weather gives me a renewed energy after a long humid spell. Humidity has a slow-death power over me. I know I could never live in a region where humid heat was the norm. As a child it made me physically ill. I spent most of a family summer trip to Washington DC throwing up in the hotel room. I hid in the basement of our un-air-conditioned house constructing elaborate haunted houses with my friends until the evening cool descended. As an adult I no longer become ill in the humidity, but it does destroy every ounce of ambition and sense of purpose. Today in the rain, I’ve got a big list of things to do and plenty of refreshed energy to do them. So even though a group trip to the beach was cancelled, I’m thankful for this weather.

A party in JP last night... I really do love it down there, just as much as I love Davis Square. I could live very happily on one of those tightly-woven, pretty little streets where everyone knows everyone else and the back yards are all connected with borders of white picket fence. I love Jane and Paul’s house, with its Dutch-style stack of 4 small floors and a diminutive back yard filled with flowers, ivy, and the toys of one very happy dog. I love it up here too, with the bustle of Davis and so much green all around me while still being close to the center of everything.

I recently had reason to recall how much I hate the sterile isolation of outer suburbia, having met someone I clicked with but who was committed to living in the same sort of soulless, pre-fab suburban wasteland that I grew up in and eventually escaped. We liked each other well enough, but hated each other’s chosen homes. Where I live is one of the few things I can’t compromise on for the sake of a relationship. For some people, home is their house and what’s inside it, and the surrounding environment is immaterial so long as their partner resides in said house. I’ve never been able to think that way. I need to love what’s all around – the community, the energy, the climate, the spirit.

Better Than Ice Cream

This one is especially for my very best troll:

On Friday, while hungry at work, I came up with this idea. You're familiar with the "everything bagel," of course -- every standard topping mixed together on one bagel. But something no one, to my knowledge, has invented yet is the "everything donut." You know, stuff like toasted coconut, crushed peanuts, a dash of cinnamon sugar, those buttercrunch thingies, and chocolate sprinkles, all held on by a very light glaze (not the over-heavy dousing like Krispy Krap's). On the inside -- this would be a filled donut -- would be swirls of creamy custard and raspberry jelly.

This isn't the sort of thing I would generally eat myself, but I'd definitely try a bite of yours to see how it came out.