cutting great neck

i woke up on my first morning in san diego--two and a half years after leaving it for a much colder place--and noticed the sky. window screen half-opened into a billowing gradient of blue: bright, unfiltered blue--what blue will look like in heaven, its shades streaming in and out of one another cool-like and hypnotic.

blue is an honest color--yet here it seems fake, like a red watermelon's crust, misleading in its simplicity, in its beauty.

the sun is just fading, and i'm outside and the cold feels surreal, my exposed fingers wrapped in cold with each and every letter key that they reach to press. the sun is just fading from behind silhouettes of black palm trees and tall bushes; the trunk of a date palm is reflected in the pool, draped in christmas lights.

chilly.



sometimes i think about san diego. i think about the fact that i despised it, that i felt alone and misunderstood and rejected much of the time--that every house and every storefront and every person was a facade, a false face, a blue sky above an ugly, dejected world: and i would think about san diego, and i'd ask myself if i really believed all of what i used to believe--maybe i had simply lied to myself about it, or maybe i actually misunderstood san diego instead of it misunderstanding me.

it is a tedious, sad little place--i can see that now, sleeping in a house that looks exactly like mine did, and only a few blocks away from that house. it was a cruel place. where unending, circuitous nothing happened; where the streets spread themselves even with a disgusting yearning for space--pavement, pavement, oh so much endless pavement, like spilled water that never stops expanding.

and now with my fingers bitten by cold and the sky burning in a purple, starless white-noise, i can safely say that san diego was what i've always suspected. i hated it then, and i hate it now; its flaws more than make up for its good attributes.

sometimes i'd sit there and think about moving. moving to san diego, from san diego--a place that defined my personality more than any other place i've ever called home. and i'd think about san diego, and what it did to me.

sometimes i'd sit there and brood. and i brood, and i brood--and i wonder where my friends have gone and where have they always been for me.

and when i come to a place like this, i realize that friendship is the most important thing in the world.

sometimes, i'd sit there, and ask myself if i've ever really experienced it.

my favorite smell in the world is the linden trees as they flower.



which is fucking horrible because that only happens during a 3-4 week period from late june to july.

i'm listening to "new york i love you but you're bringing me down" again and i miss summer. summer in the city. summer--biking in manhattan, the linden trees in june when i came to visit and search for houses, the green leafy things giving off a sweet, compassionate scent, an almost erotic pulsing aura that intoxicates you, and especially near the ocean as it is in manhattan, all along the downtown west side, that little park where all the sunbathers go behind the huge hole that used to be the world trade center.



and that's why i miss summer. that, and great neck is summer is just so... so tropical, so heavy and yet, i would guess sentimental in a light, airy sort of way.





and now it's caught in the rain by october fall.

san diego summer song. oh dear.

i miss summer.

yep, i said it.

i really, really miss summer.

you know how you always want to like something, and then suddenly you realize that you don't really like it and that you miss something or someone else? and you feel like you cheated yourself? and it's horrible?

that's how i feel about summer and winter.

i thought i was this quixotic, wintry kinda guy. cynical. cold.

but i guess it's that san diego influenza. beach, towel, cold salty water. grass. sun, sunburn. balboa park. oh jeez. summer? where the fuck are you?

so yes, i guess summer is my favorite season.

yes. my confession.

these pictures are all from june, so don't go thinking that this is new york in february. because it's not and it will never be.


though there is no snow nowadays and the weather is getting a little warmer. like i can go outside now with two layers on without dying. though i'm still cold.

incense... mmm. homework... shittt.

28/01/09

i never though i would say this.

i miss san diego.

san diego--yes--the place i hate, the place i would like to shread with my teeth, the dull, cultureless california capital of boredom.



and yet... i miss it.




1. the beach

yes, yes. i miss the beach. and with the beach comes the sun. and with the sun comes the heat. and with the heat comes the beach. and the beach in sd is so refreshing, marvelously enlivening and the cold water as it spreads through your body, the salt, the waves as they lift you up and down, so brisk and moving and just fun. and the whole beach culture. del mar beach—i love you.


2. i miss my friends. miss being with them. miss having lunch with them, going to the movies with them. arguing with them. miss trying to be the center of attention and not succeeding for more than two seconds.

3. the falconer.
well, i do miss indesign. i love indesign and i haven't been able to use it for the past 8+ months. and the newspaper was so amazing, such an outlet of talent and creativity. and wonderful people. layout nights were astounding. the darkness, knowing that in less than eight hours we would have to be in school again, we are the only souls on campus... ahhh.

4. i miss my school. i miss how it's spread out, and there are barely any hallways, and the sunshine streams through your face as you cross the quad and try to bump into people you know, try to avoid people you know. i miss the warm classes, the open classes with those weird brick-things, and the grass.

5. this one's hard to describe.

i miss--i miss yearning for more culture. i miss waiting. waiting for something to happen. for a play, for a restaurant. i miss listening to music and looking out the window and watching the sun set behind palm trees and writing poetry about how boring and intriguing life is at the same time and walking outside and thinking about nyc and about europe and searching for songs on limewire and taking photographs of ginger and playing with ginger in the yard with a frisbee and i miss walking home with britt and i miss going to the synagogye with sarah and i miss going to that big green beach near downtown with all these israeli friends and i miss riding back home in the middle of the night from the airport with the window open and smell the pungent san diego air and i miss biking over to the five in that little reedy gorge near paradisio and i miss going to ami's house and playing with that pokemon game and i miss sixth period with mrs. king so fucking much, just sitting there next to the desk next to the window with my copy of to kill a mockingbird open and writing about racism and learning that mrs. king's a democrat and i miss mia's antics and sitting on that big couch in the journalism room and i miss being outside in the dark and getting out of the theater after watching a horrid film with my friends and seeing all these other people in the highlands doing their stuff and i miss rubio's fish tacos, crunchy and i miss walking through barnes and nobles and picking out books i want to read and then never think about them again and i miss running the superlap (yes, i do) and i miss those little green plants that look like a bunch of little cucumbers and when you squeeze them all the water comes out and i miss biking in del mar and smelling the air and watching the golden retrievers and the boxers running in the cold water and smiling from ear to ear and i also miss balboa park, and even though i thought balboa park was boring i now realize how exceptionally beautiful, and subtle and lush it was, the golden globe theater--going there with my dad, or with my mom, and watching shakespeare or some other stupid play and drinking hot chocolate and feeling like an adult and then coming home and writing a poem about it and i miss sitting in mom's office and using her computer for doing whatever and i miss scaring mom when i came home from the back gate and i miss my old home, the novelty of it, the crisp white wall edges, the way my father always turned on the fireplace even though it was 60 degrees outside, and i miss waking up to birds twittering in april and then having to get up from my bed at six in the morning and lock the window and i miss my piano lessons with the russian lady whose name i never knew even though i had lessons with her for at least a year and a half once a week and i miss so many things, so many more things.































...

and i am sad.

i miss walking up the big hill listening to wilco's hummingbird. i remember the first day in our new home, and we went to the big grassy park with ginger. and it looks to me so different than it did back then. and i miss frightening carrie in the dark room and i miss playing apples to apples with sarah and everyone else and the sukkah and i miss showing britt my albums (haha haha haha) and i miss going lazer-tagging with matan and rony and walking next to the boats and going to the border with ami and i miss taking long frequent vacations and i miss hating teachers that weren't as bad as i thought they were and i miss i miss i miss.

remember how i used to say how much i hate san diego?