One summer when my mom and I were visiting my grandma Tutu (hawaiian for grandmother) in Philly, I remember my mom taking a utensil out of the drawer in the kitchen and bringing it back to Portland with us. She called it a chopped liver chopper (because that’s what Aunt Doris has used it […]

A couple of days ago, I emptied all the loose change from my wallet. It was getting unwieldy and difficult to close, and I figured I didn’t really need all those quarters, nickels and dimes. I had some bills, I’d be fine.
I spent most of yesterday afternoon helping Cindy get ready to move […]

Saturday afternoon, I was walking home from Reading Terminal Market, after having seen a Film Festival movie and lunch at Cafe Spice with friends. Cindy and I hit the market after lunch, although the thought of buying food after eating so much made our stomachs revolt slightly. We parted ways after our joint […]

When I first moved to Philadelphia I didn’t have a car. I didn’t know many people. I worked 13 blocks down the street from where I lived. My world was small in those days, both in the physical distance I traveled regularly and in the mental space I devoted to it.
Part […]

I got out of class early tonight and headed over to Trader Joe’s to pick up some basic food items that keep things running over here in apartment 2024. Wandering through the store, I tossed ground turkey, lettuce, frozen spinach and Basque Shephard’s Cheese (a 100% sheep’s milk cheese to which I am positively […]

I sometimes forget how active the city remains, even in the middle of the night.  I’m up at nearly 3:30 am, completely unable to sleep.  I had a cup of coffee this afternoon around 2:30 pm, after nearly two weeks without much caffeine of any stripe (coffee just isn’t the same when I have a […]

There was a woman sitting on a bench in the trolley stop this morning, with a Little Mermaid sleeping bag spread neatly out underneath her. She was in stocking feet, and as I walked by she stretched and yawned, like she had just had a restful night on the bench. Oblivious to all […]

Tonight as I was walking home down Chestnut St., I saw two visibly intoxicated guys greet each other like long lost friends. Who knows, maybe they were. They embraced wildly and as one of them stepped back out of the hug, he tripped on the front steps of a brownstone and fell backwards.
Hard.
This […]

I walked into my office this morning and my papers were soggy. The windows were dripping with condensation. My normally demure, straight hair increased in volume threefold. If you sat quietly, you could almost hear the mold growing in the walls. I was surprised there weren’t little storm clouds forming up […]

About a week ago I learned that they are going to be building a 39 story building on an empty lot near my apartment. This means that the very last little bit of view beyond the skyscrapers that this little unit in the heavens has held onto for the last 40 years is going […]