Mmmmmm. There’s no better smell than the scent of freshly baked chocolate chunk cookies, directly from the oven. You know the ones, with huge chunks of chocolate instead of those tiny chips, chunks that spread out in the rising heat of the enclosed environment, making the cookies moist and soft. When I’ve finally stopped smelling … Continue reading Chocolate Nostalgia
It was ’93 and me and Siobhan were doing nothing. We never did nothing on lazy summer days on the avenue, waiting for the rain to drive us back inside. And it rained a lot that summer. It seemed like we were always tiptoeing through the raindrops on our way to nowhere. We would skip in the puddles like we were six years old, but we knew better. It was our last summer together, although we didn’t know it at the time. The summer of us.
The new movie theater had just opened up halfway down the longest block on the avenue, and there was a Taco Bell in the plaza downstairs. It cost three bucks for a matinee and we had money from our allowance burning holes in our pockets. Plus it had air, and air was in short supply on the avenue, even in summer. Ma said it was on account of black folk being our own air conditioners,what with being dark and all. I never got what she was saying, and I sweat like a hog, but none of it ever got us air. So I learned to use a piece of paper like a fan and not complain.
Siobhan lived three houses down from us, in a building that was s’posed to be abandoned. Lord knows how long that sign was in the yard out front. But her ma said it was wrong, and one day she painted over it with white paint left over from the rehab center’s new rec room. Said it made the yard look special, but all I thought was that she should have just pulled it out of the ground. No matter. We never spent time over there anyway, on account of her ma being a drunk. I never asked about it, and Siobhan never said nothing about it, but it was as clear as day. Continue reading “Me & Siobhan”
I don’t throw clothes away, no matter how tattered and worn they’ve become. I have a t-shirt from 1998, a lovely orange one that was always big on me, but I love it, because it’s like a nightshirt at times. The bright orange that it used to be has faded to more of a burnt … Continue reading The Fate of Clothing
Both men were sweating profusely, those two titans of the sport, one ranked #1 in the world, the other widely believed to be the greatest of his generation, and they were playing a game with which the rest of us were not familiar. The one was a classic baseline player, the best at returning serve, while the other possessed the best serve the game had ever seen, so their heavyweight battles were full of punches and counterpunches, body blows that came in quick and fast with a dizzying array of shotmaking ability.
It was late night during Australian summer, in early 2000, and the roof was open to the late evening sky, ushering in a slight breeze that still did nothing to cool off the players. Sampras blinked first, losing one service game in the first set that proved to be the difference as Agassi won it 6-4. The second set was a mirror image of the first, however, with Sampras getting the set’s only break to win it 6-3. Agassi had a prime chance to win the third set with a couple of chances on Sampras’ serve but they were not to be, as Sampras took the lead with a dominating tiebreak win.
In the fourth set of that epic match in the making, Sampras looked fresher but could not capitalize, as it went to another tiebreak, this time with Agassi coming out victorious. Then the time had come for a decisive fifth set that seemed destined to be just as dynamic as any set they had previously played. But the Sampras who came out for that fifth set looked tired as he sluggishly thumped around the court. It didn’t look like he had any gas left in the tank while Agassi looked fresh and fit, even 2 1/2 hours into the match. Agassi looked like the man who ran up and down hills just outside of his native Las Vegas to train. He steamrolled Sampras in that final set and raised his hands in victory. Continue reading “Agassi vs. Sampras”
Five years ago on this day a man who was and remains special to me exited this world. It was the ultimate shock, even though I had dreamt of just those circumstances, him dying suddenly, more times than I dare to admit now. Those dreams would inevitably lead to me crying in my sleep and … Continue reading Forever, Michael
I fell asleep on the trolley once and went all the way down to the place where it turns around. I had to be awakened by the driver when we reached the end of the line, and he seemed none too pleased while he was shaking my arm and screaming in my ear. You’d think … Continue reading Sleeping on the Trolley
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A Writer's Journey
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Exploring life, love, lifting, and (almost) literally everything else, frequently aided by laughter and libations
Just a small town girl who writes about Christian stuff.
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Natalie. Writer. Photographer. Etc.
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