Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Also, this:

Y'all need to check out this song right now. I am not even joking. Was introduced to Arthur Russell's music this weekend, and holy shit. That's all I can say.

Nonstop YouTube listening party.

Things I forgot I love:


My gold signet ring. I've taken nearly a yearlong hiatus from wearing this guy, choosing instead to wear my stump ring (which, fear not, has not been stricken from the rotation). This weekend, I reincorporated him into my Accessories Schema, and I'm ever-so-glad that I did. Strikingly simple, daintily suited to my hand, the ring brings me back to late-spring of 2009, when I'd wrapped up my coursework and had put the finishing touches on my thesis and spent a few fraught weeks sweating out my demons in Northampton. The ring was a graduation gift from my mom; mom, who thought I should ask for something more practical (and less fragile?), purchased it at the behest of Ali, who understands my true, deep love for jewelry.

I remember walking through the Smith gardens with my dad and Donna. I wore straight-leg jeans, an open-backed, black, raglan-sleeve tee, and a black cardigan. The sun cast steep shadows onto the paths. We narrowly avoided collision with insects.

Post-graduation dinner: I forgot what I ordered. Steak, likely. Beer, certainly. My dad got lamb (rare) -- I remember being unnerved by the redness of the meat. Afterward, we trouped back to Ali's and my apartment, where we had chocolate cake with buttercream frosting, special-ordered from Henion. All of us in that sweltering kitchen, my elbows stuck to the vinyl tablecloth, cat hair clotting every corner and joint. Silence as we ate, and silence afterward.

To this day, I'm charmed by my decision to leave the ring unengraved. Blank, its face draws more attention than it would were it marked with a symbol. Blank, it could stand for anything. It holds a fingerprint for hours (sigh: why not longer?), only to be wiped clean: renewed.