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.

label me: friends, moving, sad, san diego, sun, travel, weather

so summer has so far been the most atrociously amazing thing that has ever happened, ever.

i got away with a 94.2% gpa, a 5 on the ap World, 800 on the hebrew sat II, and my lowest regents grade was a meager 95% (even though it was the highest out of all three of ms. afkhami's classes, woohoo!) i'm pretty sure i'll be going to college (guide post sports editor [and eic in senior year, hopefully], peer leader, [most probably] thespian, avid political savant, creative writer/blogger), and it won’t be a community college at that.

i've plenty of amiable friends, i'm learning french, spanish and romanian, i speak english and hebrew fluently, and fuck it, i'm so fucking blissful!



i've already smelled the wondrous scent of the linden trees: oh that salacious, sexy smell of spring, sweeter than the dripping watermelon goo and even more profound than the barrenness of wafting clouds.

i've already watched the fireflies ember up from the wet, summer-soaked earth, and already felt the jagged tips of the sun slowly and excruciatingly mutate my skin’s dna.



i've already caused pain and suffered pain on behalf of my visiting cousin matan (and enjoyed that pain), and i have already chewed on my grandmother's meat patties, already sucked in her sweet chicken noodle soup.



today i woke up at 7:00 a.m.; i took a car ride to the french institute on 60th street, where my mom dropped me off. the human beings--clad in black suits, orange dresses, matted coats and striped jeans--clambered across sidewalks, across streets, across each other, and i slowly climbed the crowd towards a cart selling a $1 croissant and a $1.5 ice coffee. i captured a bench right at the south eastern corner of central park and watched the tourists and manhattanites [there are only two categories in this world] scramble all around me, their eyes piercing through the thick air towards me. i went to the french institute, and the lesson began sharply at 9:30 a.m. as it had yesterday morning, where a sweet audrey-tatou lookalike tutored us didactically, vigorously the vowels, the consonants, je ne ve pas, que'est-ce que est? baguette et poission, merci, s'il vous plait! and then at 12:30 p.m. i went to watch a movie for free--belle de jour, about a housewife becoming a prostitute, made in 196something, excellent--and entered about 5 minutes late, exited two hours later and had lunch (spicy chicken over rice, over salad, with a pita and a diet coke) from a central park cart for $6.50 (wow) and then parked myself next to the little strand book stand in the corner of central park (again) and looked through novels and biographies and poetry and whatnot... and then mom took me home. tomorrow i will take the train and metro, independently--that means, all alone!



what an amazing week, two weeks, three. phenomenal beginning to summer.

label me: family, food, grades, high school, languages, manhattan, smell, summer, sun

BULLET CASINGS LEFT IN FLESH:

night has slowly cascaded down her neck
like blood spurting from a freshly-bulleted
wound, as filled and heavy as a black hole.
perplexed flies drawn in by the red syrupiness
are swallowed; the skin and the flesh wane
like a rose’s petals in her arm, and darkness
settles into the scarlet sap of her tissue, burnt.

finally. i'm done. completely, eternally finished with my sophomore year.

hallelujah. no more tests, no more homework. it's summerimte and the sun will be out soon and the world will smile down on me. i'm ready to enjoy life.

i just watched full metal jacket. i nearly wept. anti-war thriller, so exhilirating, so... so sad.

---


on friday, grandma nety and cousin matan are coming. thrilled.

i got a 99 on my global regents, 95 on my chem regents. what about the rest? i don't know. i want to know.




this is it! tomorrow i will rise at 11, fall asleep at 1 in the morning, read books and watch movies, eat at restaurants and play with friends. my actual life has started. first real summer in lush, moist great neck, new york.


the trees have greened and leafed. layers upon layers of thin, green sheets gush from the tops of trees to the ground like long curtains. the sun pulses through each one. branches scatter across the sky.

can't wait to smell the linden trees. will visit manhattan sat/sunday. with grandma, with cousin.




goodbye, tests.

goodbye, griffin.

goodbye, papers falling out of backpack because of rotting apples.

goodbye, trips to bagel hut once a day.

goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

label me: family, great neck, high school, home, poem, summer, sun

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.

label me: favorite, home, manhattan, miss, music, ny, san diego, smell, song, summer, sun, weather