surrounded by croissants
and words and words + prompts for you
And so, Sally can wait
"Do you like the name Sal Nightingale?" I asked him yesterday on the way home from a party.
"Sal?" he said. "Um, I guess."
I twisted around in the car seat and said, "She is probably named Sally."
"Ok, I was thinking it was a man. Like Sal, like The Sopranos."
"No, she's a character in my book. Sal Nightingale. Say it."
He enunciated it. "Sal Nightingale."
"Yeah. You hate it?" I asked.
"No," he said.
"Well, she is very beautiful," I said.
"I should have started with that. Sal is interesting too. Probably more interesting than beautiful."
He smiled.
At bedtime when he was falling asleep, I whispered over his chest, "Sal Nightingale," three times.
What matters is that I like the name Sal Nightingale. And I do. I like her profile and her lanky body and her wit and her hard shell. I like her freckles and the way she clears her throat, a small tic. I like how she loves to find out answers and the Pacific Ocean and hiking in Topanga, California. I like how she wears silk pajama sets to parties and smokes Capri long cigarettes and loves Donna Summer. I do.
Workless
I am well into being unemployed for over a month. It feels weirder each day. I can get up and go work out and make a smoothie and stretch and go write. I can do this. I can worry about money too, but I don't want to. I want to take in this wild and precious Mary Oliver type situation I have going here. Like right now I am sitting with my friend Lisa at a French bistro at 10:30am and we are writing together. I am encouraging her to keep on writing her amazing life story. She is a recording artist manager of like, very big musicians, but she is down to earth and needs to settle down and write this amazing memoir. I am like, go go girl. Her stories are gonna be empowering and fucking funny and wild, I just know it. Anyways, I feel very lucky to be sitting here being in the flow. I am trying to develop each day into something good. I have been stumbling some days, but I am really putting in the work. Moving my body in ways that scare me, really getting into relationship with myself on what is important to me and enjoying my family. Even the ones that are difficult. That looks like holding space for everyone to also find some flow this summer. The pool opens soon. I am ready for this.
