Between Clever Lines

The sign that says "Attractions" at the exit for my grandparents' house is blank, as if the state of NY can't imagine for the life of them what would attract anyone to the tiny town of Eastport, Long Island. There are no malls, no waterparks. I'm not sure I want anyone to know what should attract them here, honestly. If everyone knew about this place, a thousand tourists would trample the flower beds that my grandmother used to cultivate so she could sell bouquets out of her farm stand. They'd eat up all of the "Play Doh" ice cream at the Hershey's stand that also sells international phone cards. They'd buy all of the silly bracelets on main street. They'd dig up all the sand, catch all of the waves. Is it selfish, to keep this a secret? The attractions for me here abound; a raspberry, sweet as a promise, erupting on my tongue, a whisper through the fence from the boy next door, a game of Pooh sticks with my mother over the bridge dow

I am in transit again, this time in a car, listening to nerd rock and watching rain splatter against the sun roof. I'm on my way to Long Island for a few days to stay with my grandparents. My aunt and uncle are taking shifts driving, and this car is filled with so much caffeine. Sort of necessary when I didn't finally crash onto my bed until around 3:30 this morning. As much as I love the feeling of airports and being on the train, I also love the anticipation the night before. Unfortunately, that usually adds to my already irritating habit of not sleeping very much. I know I'll be up late the night before every trip, so I usually save all of my packing until the night before. I then proceed to stay up, throwing things into a suitcase and chatting on skype. It's a system that works for me; I don't agonize about packing for weeks, and I don't have trouble sleeping in the car. I love road trips. I like the possibility of everywhere we stop. I like the junk foo

New York, I love you. I love your insane cabbies, your subway stations with four piece jazz bands busking at random stops, your pretzels of varying degrees of edibility, your parks, your random skaters in said parks who don’t mind coming over to sit down and listen to you play ukulele in Union Square, your nerdy comic book stores, your over abundance of cafes, your restaurants devoted entirely to rice pudding, your quiet streets, your loud streets, your residents who pretend that teens singing Doctor Horrible’s Sing Along Blog in three part harmony on the Q train is nothing out of the ordinary, your ridiculously tiny dogs, your postal police officers, your metro system that is never fully functioning, your knockoff designer handbags, your little corners full of treasures that almost no one knows about, your plethora of Harry Potter advertisements, your inspirational or at least improbable graffiti, your overabundance of knitting stores, and your residents. I love the beautiful pe