on: bubble tea.

“Oh, yes, that’s so Weetzie Bat,”We’d howl to each other, and dive up from the subway station onto bright Bostonian cobblestones, holding hands with stolen makeup and comic books riding high on our shoulders.We could still feel with a blush of pride the startled gaze of the lip-pierced boy on the T as he slid away through plexiglass, wondered aloud if he’d read our love note yet as we rolled our hips carefully home- to Rachel's house, not mine. On the way there it was always a stop for floral-scented bubble tea at Emack’s; afterwards, a cigarette to cement the sticky flavor to the roofs of our mouths. We whooped and spit tapioca pearls at each others’ cheeks to forget the New English chill, and when we passed a particular fluorescent Japanese restaurant she’d always say, “Sushi’s a heavy protein buzz, mang.” Just like Duck.. ........

on: wanderlust

From a book: Perpetual Motion.
Paint, Japanese Paper, Pencil.

We used to bullshit so much late at night over porch-noise, talking circles around the ability of travel to illuminate the order of the universe. I didn't expect it to be that way. If you pay too much attention to things, they tend to dissapear. Besides, it would have been a classic mistake of mine to believe that driving to California would stroke my wanderlust the way I'd been aching for. It just doesnt happen that way anymore......

But it was harder to cling to my east-coast rational after days of driving towards the sun, sweating and imagining phantom cars full of kids like us making the same pilgramage, over and over again. I was 17 when everyone I knew started moving to California, and every year at least one more followed suit. Curious how a single state can inspire such reverence in our wiry, new-english souls, how the pull of the pacific inspired Kevin to leap on top of his yellowing, crackled kitchen counter at 2 a.m. in the middle of February to shout "Fuck it! I'm moving too!" in one single definitive beer-soaked swoop. I could never blame a single one of them, not even when they abandoned everyone they knew, left jobs that paid a decent living wage, not when they hoisted their lives onto their shoulders and left us for cramped rooms in apartments even more dilapitated and farther from the city, jobless and clueless and relying on the great mystery of california to deliver them safely into a new home.

Because even then, I understood too well the concept of escape, of the perpetual holy grail. And what could be more appealing to us, the ones who hide our faces for entire seasons fighting a losing battle against our cruel region, battling jealous winds and icy streetscapes in sneakers? Even our summers feel tainted somehow by cool evening breezes, a reminder of the transient nature of a good dusty game of kickball, the freedom to spend the night with a cold beer on a city roof still radiently heated by the sunken sun. ........