I want to dive into your ocean

Today's theme equals rain. Wet, pouring, windy yet oddly not-too-cold rain. I have always loved the rain. I once lived in a house that felt much like a barn and when it rained I always felt like Noah. I used to hope for it to rain for 40 days but I think the most I ever counted was up to 10.

There are songs with rain in it. That old

Here comes the rain again
Falling on my head like a memory
Falling on my head like a new emotion
I want to walk in the open wind
I want to talk like lovers do
I want to dive into your ocean
Is it raining with you?

song.

And then that other one that Missy 'Misdemeanor' Elliot sampled from Ann Peebles:

I can't stand the rain 'gainst my window
Bringing back sweet memories
I can't stand the rain 'gainst my window
'Cause he's not here with me
Hey window pain do you remember
How sweet it used to be
When we were together
Everything was so grand, yes it was
Now that we've parted
There's one sound that I just can't stand...

Rain as a metaphor for loss, for love unrequited, for feeling suddenly and starkly alone. I guess the rain makes us feel small, like looking up at the canopy of stars or looking down at all the grains of sand that fit into the palm of your hand. I guess the rain reminds us of tears. How often have you sat with the car parked and watched the rain come down, blurring your windshield and thought how much can the heart take? How much can one feel before one spills over like all the droplets splashing on the glass? Moments like those and I think, this little car, this is my ark, this might be all I have to save me.

And then there are the movies: that noir shot of the melancholic hero, a reflection of a rain-streaked window pane on his face as he suddenly realizes everything that he thought was good and true is suddenly wicked and false. Or rain-soaked lovers vulnerable and yet ready, suitcases beside them, water dripping from their shoulders as they become each other's umbrella in that final embrace as the orchestra crescendos. Or the rain pounding the pavement in some gritty city street, traffic lights and neon signs blurred, a siren wailing in the background, all clues telling us that life as we know it is about to change.

When you're a kid your parents are always telling ya to stay outta the rain. That you'll catch your death a cold. That you need to stay dry. But you know what?

It's not even true.

None More Black

_{ALEC SOTH
Two Towels, 2005}

Today was one of those days where I just felt like a rock star. I can't really get into the whys and wherefores, but suffice it to say, I was in top form . The air was crisp, the tiny spring buds about to burst, and I, in my sunglasses, was doing something that I love and doing it quite well, if I do say so myself. Add to that fact that I survived some potentially undercooked yet very tasty homemade ravioli last night, polished off a decent bottle of wine, slept a handful of hours, and still felt on par with the rest of our Olympians, and you'll understand what I am talking about.

After doing the thing that I love quite well--and despite the fact that my computer along with, oh, all it's precious documents and archives, may be DOA--I came home and, like a true rock star, listened to music that I love . Gee, you might ask, what kind of music is the kind of music that Casey loves? Well, lemme tell ya. Today the album was That Skinny Motherfucker with The High Voice? and the artist of the aforementioned album is Dump. How can I articulate how much I love this album? How much it means to me? Well...I can't.

You must love Prince. I mean you really would have had to have grown up listening to those early formative albums over and over until the record wore out, until your throat was hoarse, until your thighs ached from pulling all those Prince-like maneuvers. This is an album of Prince covers. Covers you know well. So you have to like covers. You have to be able to appreciate them. Especially when they criss-cross genres. Especially when they criss-cross ones like pure pop genius (Prince) and pure indie rock eclecticism (yo la tengo) and arrive at something as special and brilliant and surprising and sweet as this album. But really for me, it's just one of those albums I can completely sing along with--unabashedly and unapologetically--shit-eating grin plastered all over my face, hips a rockin', toes tappin'. Talk about rock stars.

you can't take it with you

_{Mazatlan pinholes, Ri Anderson}

My kitchen table is gone, as is the coffee table, the sideboard and soon someone is coming to grab my supremely out-of-date stereo. The house is cold and emptying fast. I feel like those little bits of sand left in the hour glass. Every day a part of me disappears. I call up friends and it's as if I am writing my last will and testament. You'll take this chair right? My butterfly palm I bequeath to you. These records? Enjoy them. Everyone gets a little sumthin'. A little piece of little ol' me.

Time, my friends, is running out. And the cold hard truth of the matter is that I am not ready. Well, a part of me is. I mean, letting go? It gets easier and easier the more you do it. I understand how people do this over and over. Pack up and move. Leave it all behind. Search for something new, some thing else, some thing better than what's in front of them. But part of me just ain't. Ready. I like it here. It's not a bad place to be, after all. And really, who can bear to say goodbye? I can't. And so, I imagine, I won't. How do you say goodbye to a place that has become home? A place where you make sense? A place that fits like the best worn t-shirt of the last two decades?

I came here straight outta high-school. My parents drove me up. And then, they dropped me off. I was ready. I never went back. I never looked back. It wasn't until the last coupla years, the thought even occurred to me. There were flirtations with other cities. There were extended vacations. There was study abroad and temporary employment elsewhere. But mis cosas, the important ones, always stayed here. The difference is I always knew I was coming back. It's not that I'm scared. I usually land on my feet. It's not that I don't like surprises. And it's not that I'm moving some place I don't know. It's just a moment of mourning. A beautiful agony. A little bit of death.

the great equalizer

De Lauer's. Say it again. De Lauer's. Feels good dudn't it? Try on De Lauer's Super newsstand Since 1907. And it's walking distance from me. Not just a newsstand but a super newsstand. Not just a super newsstand but a cigar shop. Not just a cigar shop but a place to buy racing forms. Not just place to buy racing forms but a place open twenty four hours a day. They won't kick you out no matter how long you peruse their shelves. In fact, they seem to invite it, as there is always a warm cup of coffee just waiting for you in a styrofoam cup. Try walking by it without stepping in. Try walking by and not being enticed by all those international newspapers. There are over 100. Try walking in and not stopping to browse the literary journals. Try not peeking into the Italian Vogue, the paper thin Mexican comics, or the overpriced New York art rags. Try not dropping 10 or 15 or 20 dollars.

De Lauer's. A local institution for sure. Let me tell you what De Lauer's is like at 2AM on a weekend night. First of all, it's bumping. A group of Ethiopian men gossip and sip coffee over a month-old newspaper from their homeland. Drunk hipsters fall in and buy, maybe an Artforum, maybe a copy of Nest. They leave change behind. A bum quietly comes in and buys a cheap cherry cigar. There are lone men in the back leafing through the porn mags, which I hear houses quite an eclectic collection. Twenty-year old hustlers will scamper in and out, happy to have an audience to bullshit. The clerk is patient. A TV blares Arabic news behind him. There are drugstore romances. There are hobby and craft magazines beside feminist zines stapled together. You can buy monthly subway and bus passes. And outside, that same bum will sell you a half-used bus transfer for fifty cents. The bars empty and De Lauer's, in turn, fills. There is always a cab out front and there are always a few cabbies huddled inside. A cop walks out and not too much later a drug dealer will waltz in. The important thing to note about De Lauer's is that we are all there. We may be in our own worlds. We may, in fact, hate like hell to ever leave that world. But inside De Lauer's we are all welcome and we are all quite content.

The sign says

African Jamaican
Vegetarian Vegan
Soul Food Juice Bar
And really what more could you want in an establishment? The place is good. The place is home. And the place is yet some thing else that I will be leaving behind.

Every neighborhood should have one of these in it. You walk in, you order, you try the smoothie of the day, you chat with the other customers, you leave, you feel much better. Oh, that everything were that easy! You might try the tofu burger, the no meat treat, the soup of the day. You might just settle for some fresh coconut juice. No matter what you decide, there is always a lot of dill action. You will, naturally, be listening to some reggae. You may or may not get schooled as in, this Bob Marley record is about the burning, mahn, of Kingstown but all they ever wanna play is One Love. You will become a regular and you will find that satisfying. You will smile as you read the saying of the day, neatly printed on the chalk board. You will look forward to the twelve-block walk it takes to get there. And you will handle your own money at the cash register as the proprietor doesn't get involved in that business. It's not that the food is that great, nor that much of a bargain, and it's not that I plan on becoming a vegetarian; it's the whole package, the whole easy package.


_{Dinner Plates, 1998 by James Kerry Marshall
Set of five
Edition of 15
$ 1,000.00
$ 50.00 shipping}

There's no place like home

Leaving a place you have lived after 17 years is something akin to saying goodbye to a limb. There are lots of things that I will miss and never forget. I could prolly say goodbye everyday until I leave and then about 3,234 days beyond that. But for today we will start with something simple. Something lovely.

Will you look at this? This is a plum tree. This is what it looks like in Spring. This is when it looks its best. With its little pink buds, like a newborn's baby toes. So delicate. So surprising. So happy. Like a signpost telling me Holy shit senorita, it's springtime! Dust off your huaraches and don your sunglasses. This sun is about to shine.

Well, along with the plum tree we have a smokebush yet to grace us with her dramatic purple leaves. Not to mention the sweet scents of my wisteria as it blooms, not once, but twice each year. The jasmine out back, the wild tomatoes, the artichoke plant that grows back every summer. My god, the artichoke plant! That bold ghetto plant that bears fruit no matter how little sustenance it's given. No matter how many weeds crowd around it, no matter how many ants climb it's brittle stalk. Oh, artichoke plant, I can always count on your brazen, thorny purple crown to rear its head above us all.

Ah, there is always so much to look forward to. Can I tell you about the crazy trumpet vine? What about the clamouring loquat tree? Or the bees and the lavender? A cactus that will bloom? That singular echinacea flower? The dozen or so strawberries that come late summer and bring with it such sweetness in such a delicately small package? And what about me? And my hands in the dirt and my freckled skin and my bluejeans faded by the sun.

The things she carried

She no longer is.

Remember about a year ago when I started this electronic blog and ended my non-electronic relationship, I mentioned that Tim O'Brien collection of stories, The Things They Carried? It is the kind of collection that, for me anyways, makes me sob uncontrollably throughout its entire reading. Like stick-to-the-page-until-they-turn-brittle-and-yellow-and-so-seal-the-book-shut-forever kind of tears. That can be a good thing. A cathartic thing.

Well, in preparation for leaving Mudville--after seventeen years--I am hocking my wares on Craigslist. And the stuff I have been carrying around with me for all these years, I am now letting go of. Faster than I am prepared for. Faster than I can say goodbye to. So, in homage to these sentimental pieces with which I am now parting, I formallybid adieu.


The coat rack. Many people have enquired about this dandy little coat rack given to me as my good friend, The Writer, as he escaped from Mudville and headed towards that publishing capital on the Eastern Coast. The coat rack stood in the entrance to my house for many a year. People used it to hang their coats, their scarves, their purses, their hats, as they made themselves at home, and I, in turn, did the same. The coat rack had a warm presence of its own and sometimes in the middle of the night, I would think for a moment that someone was standing there. I loved nothing more that to hang my pork pie hat on it.


The turquoise-y bookshelves. These came in a pair and even from this slightly blurry picture you can see how sweet they are. A woman came and bought these shelves for her son's nursery. I find that a fitting ending to my relationship with them. It kinda felt like I was giving them up for adoption and that I had found them a very good home. The thing about these bookshelves was that they were always sunny, even when I was not. They often traveled from my bedroom, to the office or to the living room, depending on my needs. For the most part, they bore books. And they wore them well.

The wooden desk. Plain and simple. Comes with two drawers. This was my mother's desk when she split up with my dad and, for a brief period, lived in Florida. We were all happy when she came home. And I was also happy to be given the desk. The desk was pleasant to sit at, particularly when sitting on a wooden chair. It felt very writer-ly. There was a period when I used it as a bar in the dining room and that worked surprisingly well. It was just the right size.


The chrome lamp from Urban Outfitters. I was fine parting with this and I parted with it at a very low price. The funny thing about this lamp is that my boyfriend had the same lamp and when he moved in we suddenly had two of them and that was quite redundant. Then he moved back out and I was left with one lamp again. And that, my friends, is the short story of my life.


The ex-boyfriend's heavy oak swivel chair. This chair weighs a ton. It was left to me by an ex-boyfriend, the one who broke my heart back in college. It is rather fitting that I have been lugging around this chair for all these years. But I think I really am ready to let it go. It has, however, served me well: it's been sturdy, it swivels, it rolls. It has been a reliable and handsome piece of furniture. But, a chair without a desk is a lonely thing to be, indeed.

Which leads us to the bed. The heart of the nest you could say. And a bed which has been with me through two relationships and a few other courtships. A bed which many have come to look at, but none has yet to claim. A bed I am really hoping to now get rid of. When I first laid eyes on this bed in that little furniture shop that has long since gone out of business, I fell in love with it immediately. I don't know the story behind it, why it was reupholstered with the Chinese fabric nor when, but it was my first non-futon bed and it felt at once, both grown-up and old-fashioned. This bed needs a change of scenery. $125 OBO!