Classic Liz (Revised).

I always do this, especially after a transitional summer, which this certainly was. Oh fuck, jesus christ, oh this summer.
oh oh oh oh
I did it here, after the ridiculous circus that was summer 2006.

So here goes,
My favorite memories of summer 2009.
(rewritten because I just accidentally deleted my original post while doing some major cross blog restructuring, so apologies if I forgot anything this time around).

*(probably the BEST one) Tim randomly showing up in town & Tim & Rin & I making that incredible dinner out of the nothing in my fridge & taking that late night walk & laying in the street & me calling out of work the next morning & us three having breakfast at the Green Bean.
*DnDnD2k09, pretty much the whole freaking thing, especially all the laughing & silliness in the car, our first night in Asheville, singing the Magnetic Fields' "Washington DC" as we drove into guess where, the beautiful highway into New Orleans through the Gulf Coast, the shrimp boil at the R Bar in the Marigny, the Bourbon Mile, the second day driving through the mountains in Virginia & dying of beauty & Foamhenge & car sandwiches. & again, so much laughter & adventure.
*my moving day into 133, the whole thing, from the toasted coconut cream iced coffees to the sandwiches from State Street & Ballantines in my old back yard to the mussels & beer sampler trays at at the Noho Brewery & A Dead Hipster Or A Stove Boat.
*so very much excellent dancing, at the Basement, the 11's, & Bishop's, thanks to all Noho's awesome djs for all those great nights.
*of course all my very late night walks home from dancing, just me & my ipod & the sky & my cute dresses, even when it was raining, which it always was.
*the night in June I randomly met Mark at the 11's on the velvet couch & we had that great conversation.
*visiting with gramma in Brewster & margaritas & white wine & scallops at Clancy's then Job Lot & Marshall's & Curious by Britney Spears & fierce new sneakers.
*at the Spoke the night it was WAY to cold for August
*late night adventures involving rooftop views & 7-11 snacks & parks in the pouring rain.
*the night Karen & I saw rabbit rabbit at the Brass Cat & then drove to the Basement for Woolly Bully blasting Nas & arrived exactly at the door at 12:59.
*the last Amazing Love where I danced with Jono.
* all those DnD Thursdays at Hugo's & Sierra especially the going away party for the road trip where we actually had a big party of people out making art together in a bar.
*Cirque du Filet.
*the night Jed & I dragged the kitchen chairs onto the front lawn on King Street & the road trip was born & then we went on that late night adventure to amherst & the top of that hill & drove around listening to hip hop.
* the dinner party Karen & I had had 273 with the rose petals.
*fourth of july & chicken apple sausages & jalapeno chips at Melissa's party & then dancing at Danielle's & Lisette making my dress much much shorter with scissors & Jed & I falling asleep awkwardly on the floor.
* that day Jono randomly made me lunch & we sat on his porch all day & enjoyed the garden & the rare sunshine.
* that trip Melissa & I took to Cape Cod for swimming & laying in the sun & thriftstoring & good food.
*the times at work where Amy, Cait, Hillary, Thomas & Faye really made me laugh so hard I cried.
*rewatching Twin Peaks in my living room with my roommates.
*remembering how much I love cooking for my friends, & doing something about that.
* that day in early summer where Rin & I began planting the garden & drank the first iced tea of the season with lavender ice cubes
*Isaac's fabulous bacon party plus the night before when my bacon lasagna was born at Hugo's (where all good ideas are born).
*the first meal cooked at 133, dinner party with Melissa & Jed where Jed drew us unpacking my books in short skirts.
*the beginning of DnDnE dinners with Beth. (hopefully many more to come).
*learning how to draw & paint again. & remembering why I care to do so.
& I guess ending on my birthday, the first day of fall, beginning with a perfect night dancing at the Basement, a perfect day of smoked salmon bagels & thriftstoring with my lovely stylish friends, a delicious dinner party with people I love & an unexpected gift the next morning.

Rereading the old post from 2006 to link to it, I'm kind of amazed & awed at the similarities.
I look forward to fall 2009. I really do.
I really think it's gonna be alright.
Some things broke this summer, but some things were fixed, too.

retracing my steps

I've had a strange week, where I've ended up revisiting, alone, a lot of places important to me in the past, the places that are the building blocks of my psychic memory of myself. I escaped from total chaos in northampton and finally gave in and took dustyrose and went to my mom's house on the cape. This is the longest I've spent in brewster since 1996, the summer between my freshman year at simon's rock and my first and sophomore year at risd, when I probably spent about a month here. Other than that, in the past ten years, I've been here for two nights at the most, maybe twice a year. And now I've been here eight days. 

And because until last november I've been in a serious monogamous relationship for most of my adult life, this is also among the handful of times I've been home (mom's house, funny how quickly I've started referring to this as 'home' since I haven't had one of my own lately) alone and not entertaining a significant other since I was a teenager. 

In this past week: all my favorite beaches and church thrift stores and ponds and woods and marshes and swamps and coffeeshops of the cape, the risd campus, my old apartment in providence, downtown new bedford and the walk between our apartment and the bookstore, the highway between northampton and new bedford and providence and brewster, a lot. 

New Bedford: where my idea of what things should look like came from. 

Brewster: the lake upon who's shores I grew up. 

Providence: my first apartment, my first love, first drink, first sushi. 

lots of driving, lots of ocean, lots of walking, lots of picking up shells, trips to drugstores buying makeup and other stuff like a teenager, loud music in my car, 

places I haven't seen since childhood, and have never seen through my own eyes as an adult (by which I mean, just looked at them, not showing them to someone else while retelling the story of myself). 

Wearing my boots and crazy vintage dresses all week, enjoying sleevelessness and my new since last summer arm tattoos, my badass boots on the sand of the beaches of the cape, big sunglasses and my ipod, guided by voices and pavement and the silver jews and modest mouse and bjork while I think think think, sound of waves in the background, the path around slough pond, the sidewalk of new bedford between orchard street and pleasant street that I've been walking alone since I was six, the brick sidewalks of benefit street in providence echoing my footsteps more then ten years ago when I first fell in love and I walked all night, when I first learned how to walk all night, 

dreaming of my friends, and of bridges, and of nail polish bottles lined up on a mantle. 

All this was unplanned, but the timing is seeming strangely fitting, as I have this weird feeling my life is about to change really soon really fast really majorly. 

maybe not. I don't know. I think I'm right and I think I'm wrong and I'm sure what I want and then I'm not and then I remember, it's not exactly about what I want, if it's going to happen then it is. 

This has been the week of revisiting, and of waiting. Past and future, edge of some sort of cliff.