in every place

I ended up in the exurbs the other night, strange to be among immaculate lawns and corporate parks and long roads. One of my friends plays bass at a church out there and invited me to come out and hang with them, it's one of those groups for older young people which isn't called a singles group but could function as such.

I'm a little skittish around large groups of clean-cut people, I joke, but no one here seems to mind my black t-shirts and strange sense of humor. I'm so used to being around working-classers and underemployed liberal arts graduates that I go into a little bit of culture shock in a world where the girls are way more dressed up, and have accessories of affluence, really nice watches and whatnot, the cars in the parking lot make my beater with the broken fender look out of place, the guys are wearing things I never see in the city like the occasional chinos and topsiders and polos in pastel colors.

But everyone I talked to seemed very nice, and it was kind of refreshing to be somewhere full of people my age who aren't sporting any ironic affectation. You know you're sick of hipster accoutrements when you find a strange comfort in middle American normality. But it was the friendliness that got me, and the message that night wasn't intellectually vapid, so I might come back. If anything, meeting some nice girls and not running into anyone that seemed like future soulmate material made it easier. And I also talked to homie's roommate and we might be starting a band soon, since we like the same music and live near each other.

It's funny, we dress exactly alike, he says. And we do. Jeans and converse sneakers and t-shirts of bands we like. I'm way more girly than I once was, but I'm conscious of the lack of difference still. I drive home through the hot summer night listening to Nothing's Shocking and wonder how all the social anxiety I used to feel completely seemed to dissolve itself. There's still social situations that turn me into mush, but fewer and fewer do.

And yet last night I was driving home and feeling stupid for other things, for feeling things that are normal and human, of unrequition, of cynical sour grapes (it wouldn't work out anyway), of what-could-have-beens and it-was-never-meant-to-bes. The feelings of deep affection for my friends both male and female are probably more intense than some, but that's different than this. Absence maybe doesn't make the heart grow fonder, but it masks the inconvenience of seeing those day to day things that would render someone more human and less attractive, and sometimes it's worse to see them again and feel all of those emotions shuttered so carefully away bubble to the surface once more.  I could blame the hormones, and maybe that's all it is, but it's a terrible feeling.

knot-tying

Despite the clouds and humidity, the wind that knocked over my houseplants in the living room and had me waking up to the ominous creaking of the sycamore tree in the front yard that sounded like it'd crash through the front window, it's been a long time since the insomnia hit this hard and the lack of rain bothered me when I woke up more tired than I've ever been this morning.

It was the first of what will be three friends of mine getting married this summer, and of course she was beautiful, they were both radiant and I'm extremely happy for them both, and it was nice not to have to worry about dancing at the reception, just a picnic in a park, paper plates and unstructured, and so I mingled among people that I know and like, hold crying babies and manage not to fall in wedged heels.

And while I know my way in and out of every hood in Clevelandia with no problem, I get completely disoriented on often-unmarked country roads and intimidated by horse and buggies because I have a hard enough time figuring out how to share the road with bicyclists, especially when I've got her two Ethiopian roommates behind me depending on my errant sense of direction in rural parts, who thankfully had a GPS for such things that spared me from going down roads turning from pavement into dust. Everything is so green underneath the sky, and I see signs tempting me towards homegrown tomatoes and hometapped maple syrup and I understand why people live out here even as I'm ready to come home.

pattern and movement

Along with all the other madcap schemes of Learning How To Do Stuff that I think is cool, I've got bits and pieces of broken dishes and such that I'd love to take the time to mosaic someday. There is something beautiful to me about the repurposing of broken useless things into work of incredible texture and pattern.

I love the greys and the industrial palette of rust and aged patina, but there is a part of me that's also starved for the color and texture that's not as often seen here in Clevelandia. The closest we get here besides the multiple old churches is the Tiffany-designed chapel at Lake View Cemetery, with its pews made of cedars of Lebanon and the multiple spiritual metaphors pieced together on the walls.

I'm assuming with beauty such as this that Ravenna Italy is a far cry from the Ravenna that I knew from my Kent days as a sad and dreary county seat with a scary Wal-Mart and a Goodwill where I acquired quite a few goth rock cassettes that got much use as a library shelver.

The ancient art section of the art museum, where sadly the art from the Middle East and Asia is still not back on display, I loved the patterns and calligraphy of the art and the cool colors.

Gaudi was a master of this kind of thing in a more abstract yet just as lovingly detailed way, these colored tiles broken and reconfigured.

I stumbled across this place in a Taschen coffeetable book, of this glass studio in Kenya. I may never get to see Kitengela Glass with my own eyes, but at least others have been there and share the magic.