Sweater Weather

It's August. I live in New York. I am constantly sweating.

I am dreaming of late October when it's chilly and I am wearing thick colorful tights and a sweater and stylish hat.

Or maybe that's just because I am getting all of the Fall catalogs in the mail and I have a major case of the "I wants."

You know someone loves you when

he buys an orange juice he doesn't really want from the coffee shop so that you can use the bathroom.

I'm just in it for the texts

Me: I think your tractor's sexy
Him: There ain't nothing wrong with your radio

Cool

Summer 1989

The world is unfair.

My sister has a purple bike. Mine is a stupid pink one, with a banana seat. It's a little kid's bike. So uncool. My sister's bike, on the other hand, is awesome. It looks like a mountain bike. And is purple. It looks like something a teenager would have. It's so cool, it hurts.

I covet my sister's bicycle. I look at it longingly in the garage. When we ride around the block, I imagine the neighbors looking out their windows at us, and agreeing with each other that Allison is so much cooler than me, with her purple bike. But I know that Allison is not cooler, she just has a better bike. I'm the cool one. I'm edgy. I'm just stuck with this stupid banana seat bike is all.

If I could just ride her bike. Then my outer coolness would match my inner coolness. And everything would be right with the world. I would have cool new friends, the Reene Boys would want to play with me instead of her. I would race down the street faster than everyone else. If I could just have her bike, I would come in first place. I just know it.

I know better than to ask to borrow her bike. I know the answer already, and I don't want to be caught showing that I think something she has is cool.

So, I steal it.

I sneak it out of the garage into the summer afternoon daylight. It is magnificent. Purple and gleaming, it is the embodiment of cool.

I swing one leg over the cross bar and hop onto the subtle pink seat. I look down at my legs, next to the purple steal of the bike my tan legs look mature, and the the scabs on my knees make me look tough and edgy instead of clumsy. I look cool. I feel cool. I am cool.

And then I push off for a ride around the block. I am coasting down the driveway. The wind is tugging at my hair. I am independent and grownup, taking a bike ride on my own. I don't answer to anyone.

Then I look up. I am heading straight for the mailbox. I am gaining speed. I realize that this bike is bigger than my little-kid pink bike. That the pedals are too far away. I can't reach the brakes. I can't turn fast enough.

Crash.

45 pounds of bike and six-year-old girl child come into contact with the unforgiving steal of the mailbox. I go down hard. The bike skids away from me. And I sit up, all illusions of coolness wiped out.

And I start to cry. Then I go look for my mom.

With a face covered in blood, my mom straps me into the front seat and rushes me to the hospital. I get two stitches and a pocketful of lolli-pops. And then Mom takes me to A&W for a root-beer float and curly fries.

Pretty cool.

snow globe

I was super late for work this morning, because I could not pull myself away from my lover. He was so warm and cozy. And it was snowing. And all the trees out his back window, which usually look so scraggly and ugly, was transformed into something beautiful. I wanted so badly just to stay in bed all day. Get a stack of books. Make soup and grilled cheese for lunch. Maybe venture outside to buy some wine and get a little tipsy in the afternoon. Take naps. Tell each other stories about snow days and forts and sledding. Watch bad 80s movies. Pop popcorn.

That's what I wish I were doing today.

Ain't Nothing Wrong With The Radio

The first song on my iPod is "Ain't Nothing Wrong with the Radio" by Aaron Tippin.

It's not my favorite song in the world, and it's not even close to being a great song, even. But I like it, and I'm glad it's the first song on my iPod. Because I end up listening to at least the first few bars of the song, every couple of days.

I like the idea behind the song. The guy's car is falling apart. He gets pulled over by the cops. The wipers don't work and the horn don't blow, but there ain't nothing wrong with the radio.

As long as he can tune in some country music, everything will be okay. And you know, it's a silly country song, but he's kind right. As long as I can listen to some music, I'm probably going to be okay.

Music is therapy. I'm not alone here. Power ballads, country heartbreak anthems, Celine Dion, Emo, whatever it is that gets you though. There are songs for moods, and seasons, and maladies. John Steinbeck's pal Ed Ricketts knew this, as he notes in the intro to The Log to the Sea of Cortez,

He thought of music as something incomparably concrete and dear. Once, when I had suffered an overwhelming emotional upset, I went to the laboratoty to stay with him. I was dull and speechless with shock and pain. He used music on me like medicine. Late in the night when he should have been asleep, he played music for me on his great phonograph-- even when I was asleep he played it, knowing that its soothing would get into my dark confusion. He played the curing and reassuring plain songs, remote and cool and separate, and then gradually, he played the sure patterns of Bach, until I was ready for more personal thoughts and feeling again, until I could bear to come back to myself. And when that time came, he gave me Mozart. I think it was as careful and loving medication as has ever been administered.

I do this too, I self-medicate my emotional aches and pains with music. And celebrate triumphs with music. And express looooove with music. Which is what I'm feeling right now. I'm in a very retro-soul love song mood.

My current playlist:
1. Ain't That Love by Ray Charles
2. You're All I Need To Get By by Aretha Franklin
3. Hot Little Mama by Johnny "Guitar" Watson
4. I Got Love If You Want It by Slim Harpo
5. (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear by Elvis
6. Everybody Needs Somebody To Love by The Blues Brothers
7. FOund LOve by Jimmy Reed
8. Knock Me A Kiss by Louis Jordon
9. Love Is Like an Itching in my Hear by The Supremes
10. Whole Lot of Woman by Lou Rawls

Things we don't believe in

There are somethings The Ladies just don't buy. Some people have credos, consider this our anti-credo:

•Humility
•Budhism
•Hell
•"It's just not working out
•Luck, fate, destiny, omens
•Jackson Browne as a domestic abuser
•Horror stories
•Love at first sight
•Vegetarian "meat"
•Exercise videos
•Objectivity
•Horoscopes