tammytoes

New York City is very quiet today. I wond if the midwest suddenly becomes blue with liberals visiting parents and older relatives from the big cities and coasts this time of year.

I haven’t written much lately. I’ve been figuring things out, finding out what capacity means and doesn’t mean, minding my new MacBook (I’ve never had so much affection for a piece of technology) and toying with paperless productivity (I am my widgets; my widgets are me). I haven’t yet uploaded the feeds of my friends’ blogs to my blogoverse. I’ve been quiet and armadillolike in my Brooklyn world. I’ve been really happy.

I know, I just know it: 2008 is going to be really great.

I’m flying to Kansas tomorrow and I have mixed feelings about that trip. I’ve processed those feelings so much I’ve pulverized them. Nonetheless, it will be my first time leaving the New York area since I got here: I’m anticipating the cultural dislocation of being on the G train in the morning and driving the suburban highways of Olathe, KS in the evening. I am going to drive the hell out of those highways, I reckon.

I’ve made the usual pre-trip efforts : taking out the garbage, the last load of laundry, books and movies back to the library, extra food for the cat. To that, today, I add a buzzing Sunday brunch with friends on all of our ways out of town, making tortilla soup for dinner for a friend, a really nice kiss at a subway stop and a nice hour on the couch with Edith Wharton.

And a holiday note to all of you: much love, much joy, much passion. I wish my arms were long enough to hug you all.

In the absence of long arms, I’ve hatched a new project:

freshhope.wordpress.com

Please check it out and send me a wish or two before the new year.

Last night was the first night of the ice broomball season around here and I played my first game.  The venue is the outdoor skating rink at Prospect Park, and the sport is every bit as cold, slippery, chaotic and stupidly fun as you can imagine.   This is already making me feel better about the cold season.  The name of my broomball team is Too Fat for Porn.  I’m disappointed that our jerseys don’t have our team name on them.

I mention this because a friend spent the summer telling me that I was in complete denial about being a jock.  Well, okay, I’m realizing there’s an element of truth to that.

I prefer the term “all-weather alternative sports enthusiast” to jock.  Please make a note.

today was the first snowfall of the season.  the city is cold and the sidewalks are slushy.  there are so many wool coats here.  i feel like an outlandish snow bunny when i wear my bright snowboarding jacket and that’s okay.  i’m a western girl, after all.

there is no real powder here, i suspect.

a sunday morning drinking hot cider with brandy is a perfect toast to the occasion.

it feels good to start another season.  the sense of moving forward, getting another month under my belt here, one more day into the hardest season, one more day closer to the equinox and less darkness, shorter nights.

this past week i had my first homesick pangs.  i thought about the colorado sunshine and all the love there and it made me genuinely sad.  i adopted brooklyn as my new home so quickly, no resistance, all open arms.  but it’s a measure of how much denver meant to me that i think about it fondly, with some sadness, even as i really settle here, establish my routines, stretch out my networks, complain about the weather.

i was in new york city just a few days shy of christmas in 2002, right before i went to ghana.  just five years and it was a lifetime ago.  i love this here, this now, this who i am.

also strange that i charge for words these days.  words, all strung together, pay for my apartment, buy my drinks, fix broken teeth.

i could charge for this blog post, but let’s face it: it’s not very good.

when the snow piles up a little bit more, i will tromp through it with glee.