And I was really happy to get back to training in capoeira tonight.

Today has been a strange and emotional kind of day. I felt a little bit mad at the world, too. Just a little bit. But then I got to class and I got to move. MOVE. And it was hot and it hurt and it was perfect. I got to forget about what I was feeling–or rather, I got to feel something else. Endorphins. And physical exertion.

And I have to say, I have been forcing myself to practice my handstands against a wall every day lately, and tonight my handstands were better. I actually stayed in the air for a bit.

Just a bit, but I’ll take it.

And while waiting in the subway tonight–waiting in the HOTTTTTTTT subway–someone made me laugh. He was standing there, playing his guitar, hustling the crowd a little for some cash money and singing Stand By Me when, next thing I know he’s moved so he’s standing directly in front of me. And talking to me.

The poor guy looks like he’s positively melting, he’s sweating so profusely, but I try to ignore his dripping on the floor in front of me as I listen to what he has to say.

“You might find this strange, but…what are the odds of getting your name, number, and a date before your train pulls up?”

I smile.

And then I tell him that my boyfriend would probably not like that.

(my boyfriend–one of which my brother Jason assures me I have tons of–boys who care about me a lot. Therefore it’s not technically lying…)

“I knew it!” he says. “I knew you’d have a boyfriend…”

And then he goes on to say that because he’s sweating so much, he’s not gonna let me throw myself at him. You know, get all up on him.

“Not now,” he says. “Not when I’m like this…”

I pretend to look very sad and say I understand his policy and so will refrain.

And then burst out laughing.

Cause it was funny.

And funny can be heartening.

Funny makes me feel a little less mad at the world.

Actually it reminded me that the world really isn’t so bad.

Which is what I told my dear friend Christine’s brand new baby boy Silas, when I held him last night.

“Welcome to the world, Silas. It’s really a wonderful place…most of the time.”

And it is.

Most of the time.

Ever since I came to New York City, I have been soundly beating my body up. I am not lying when I say that I am sore almost every day. I owe a lot of my soreness to capoeira. And yoga, too. And the occasional dance class. Which is $18 a pop and thus, occasional. But right now my right wrist is hurting due to my friend taking me down hard in class on Sunday.

It’s okay, it’s all a part of playing the game, see. In capoeira, you don’t call it fighting, you call it playing. And sometimes when you play, you get knocked onto the ground very suddenly. And you try to catch yourself with your wrist. But your wrist is a lot smaller than the rest of your body–or haven’t you noticed? Just trust me when I say that it is. So then your wrist hurts. Along with your ankle. And lately, your tailbone, too.

But all the hurting is worth it.

Which can also be said about living in general.

Today, I got to go to a fancy schmancy recording studio near my old digs in Chelsea. I recorded some vocals for the broadway warm-up, and I have to say, it was a blast. I LOVE to record. I love to stand in that booth with the earphones on and the microphone hot and sing. At one point, the producer had to stop me, though. “There was an interfering noise,” he said, all professional sounding. “Was there some sort of pop or explosion?”

And then I thought about it.

And knew just what he meant.

“Um, yeah…My ankle cracked when I did a plie.”

Enter: the sound of laughter from the control room.

And gosh, I am such a dancer.

I have always loved singing into microphones. I used to sneak down to my brother Jason’s room while he was at school and turn on the mic he had and just sing my heart out. I’d go from Les Miz to Jesus Christ Superstar to U2. And then since I was already being sneaky, I’d take out his prize collection of matchbox cars and play with them, too. The little porsche was always my favorite. The doors opened. I have a weakness for tiny doors that open, I guess.

Anyway, I felt lucky to be recording in that nice studio.

I have also been quite disciplined about my handstands lately. I do them every day, against a wall. I remember when I couldn’t even do that. I remember in college thinking that I would never be able to do that. And now I do it with ease. This makes me wonder what else I think I cannot do, but actually can, given the right dose of practice and courage.

It’s an exciting thought.

Which wouldn’t have been so bad if my phone hadn’t died.

And even all that wouldn’t have been so bad if, when I was going around the side of my house to see if maybe the basement door was unlocked (it wasn’t), a whole herd of deer hadn’t run by, reminding me of my run in with the beast over the summer. I actually got pretty scared when the deer were running by, and was afraid that maybe one of them was male. If you don’t know my brother Jason’s theory on the beast and how he was a male deer who just was, um, into me–well, I suppose now you do. Sorry about that.

But the deer didn’t bother me.

Tonight, anyway.

I looked at my dead phone and decided to do this the old school way. Meaning, I knocked on the door. I knocked on that door like my life depended upon it. And who knows–with all those deer roaming around, perhaps it did. I felt kind of silly slamming the door so hard over and over again, but the message came through. Because my parents woke up and eventually let me back in.

But I should go to sleep.

Now that I am inside and everything.

I just laid down in my bed and happened to glance up at the ceiling only to see a spider directly above me. Perched. Were he to glide down his gossamer thread, he’d be right near my face. This is no good, I tell you; no good at all.

But I am really tired. And there is always the possibility of trying to kill him and missing. Which makes things worse. Cause then you not only have a spider nearby, but you have an angry spider nearby. An enemy. With all those eyes.

Shoot shoot shoot.

Oh, well. This is when I remember that way worse has happened to me than a skinny spider biting me while I sleep. I will take my chances tonight.

Isn’t that what we do all the time anyway? Take our chances, I mean? Not necessarily with spiders, but with life. We walk around, freely. We grow close to others. We hand our hearts over just like we’d hand over the keys to that old LeSabre. We are perfect targets. We are wonderfully imperfect targets. A glorious mash of guts and bones and nerves and thoughts and dreams and arms and legs. We are soft and vulnerable–everywhere, just about. We are silly creatures, given to hope and dreaminess and a penchant to fall in love and give just about every last cell away.

And no, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

My brother Jason and I were in a store the other day and saw a t-shirt that said this:

CHASE YOUR DREAMS

YOU WILL FAIL!

There was a unicorn and a fairy pictured in between the two lines. We laughed about that shirt and Jase said he kind of wanted it. And the thing is, it’s true. Both lines are equally true. You should chase your dreams, absolutely. Just because you will fail at some point, does not mean that you should stop. Maybe that failure will lead you to something much better than the dream had originally shaped up to be. I mean, I chased a dream when I got married. I failed. Epically. Doesn’t mean I am even close to finished with that dream. Nope, not at all.

We chase our dreams, we fail. We love, we hurt. We don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop and we are stronger because of it. Or maybe richer. Definitely sadder. But that’s only in the meantime. Another time is coming–a better time. So says the unicorn and fairy–both of whom DO NOT EXIST. Ha. The irony. But still, chase your dreams. You will fail. But then you will get back up and chase those dreams again and get closer this time.

Oh gosh, that spider is positively camped out for the night.

And so am I.

If you don’t hear from me again, I suppose you’ll at least have a suspect.

One sentence reads:

“Hopefully, you realize that numbers are either positive or negative.”

Thank you for the vote of confidence.

And if I didn’t, I certainly wouldn’t admit that now.

Not after you said that.

(but I did realize that, thank you)

Uplifting quote from my brother Jason:

“I bet you’d be really good at math. You know, if you’d gone to real school.”

It was meant as a compliment.

I think.

Quote from a friend:

“Math is music and you’re real familiar with music, so don’t worry about it.”

I wish I could sing for the GRE; I really do.

But yes, math is music, but music never made me memorize:

Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally

(solve in this order: parenthesis, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction)

However, music did make me memorize:

Good Boys Don’t Fight Anytime

(the line notes on the bass cleff, climbing up up up!)

but that quote isn’t true; good boys do have to fight sometimes, I think. Maybe not with their fists, but they fight injustice and evil and bad jokes. Things like that.

Which is why I prefer:

Good Ballerinas Do Fouettes Always

(unless you’re me, then you prefer to do them on the right side only, thank you. and certainly not all the time, let’s be real. okay, so maybe I am just not a good ballerina)

Quote from a dance teacher:

“Take math, every one of you–dance is math. It’s two plus two equals four every time. It’s not magic and it’s not hoping and it’s not feeling good. It’s technique and technique always works.”

But the GRE will not be impressed with how well I straighten my knees or rotate my hips or pointe my feet (though they do pointe, I must say)

But I did have to learn about meter and time signatures which look like this:

3
-
4

Three beats per measure, and the meter is in four. It’s in three quarter time. It’s a waltz, 1,2,3, 1,2,3, 1,2,3…

and what does that look like? A fraction.

It’s math, guys! math.

So, what we’ve learned today, class:

I should be fine for the math portion of the GRE as long as I make sure to keep:

• practicing music
• practicing dance

Oh, and find time to:

• go to a “real school”

Between now and then.

Questions?

No?

Great.

And then I put on some earrings.

But suddenly, I just got this feeling–and I think I might have even said it out loud while I looked at my reflection. “Too much,” I proclaimed before removing the earrings and going on my way.

However, the dress and boots and shirt were not too much, not at all. And it’s funny, I get people telling me–just yesterday, in fact–that I wear “crazy outfits” that they could just “never wear.” I don’t quite know how to take that, but I say thank you anyway because I am generally happy with what I am wearing; I picked it out, after all.

And just now I read in a blog that it is “time to say good-bye to your white clothing.” And I was like, hmmmm, nope. Truth be told, I don’t have a lot of white clothing anyway, but if I feel like wearing white, then I will wear white. After Labor Day and all.

But it’s funny, these rules that I have:

(and I’m gonna throw in some bullets here, since Lindsay and I were discussing how that is one sure fire way to keep my brother Jason interested.)

• don’t ever wear two different pieces of the same color.
• don’t ever wear white jeans (before or after labor day, doesn’t matter for me).
• do mix and match colors and textures and patterns.
• do pair dresses with sneakers.
• do wear the kinds of boots that make you look like you should be starring in the movie Newsies right alongside Christian Bale.
• and apparently, sometimes earrings are just “too much.”
• and wait, one more–I don’t really believe in not being able to wear a certain color because of skin tone or whatever. Perhaps this is because I never have found out what kind of skin tone I have, but I think that if you like it, then wear it.

So, these are my rules that I could think of. It’s not like they are unbending or anything, or even consciously put into effect; but thinking about it, those are my basic guidelines. And I was wondering, do you have any rules? Or do you not even think about it at all? I think our idiosyncrasies are part of what make life interesting, so please, feel free to share.

Oh, and fashion aside, Shane shared one of our songs that we recently recorded on  his blog. So go on and listen to it!

One summer while we were at the beach, my brother Jason lent me the book about the great white shark that the movie Jaws is based on. It was very exciting reading; a real page-turner. It was not, however, the best idea for swimming in the ocean. I generally scan the horizon for a stray fin anyway, but let’s just say that during the time I was reading that book I kept my eyes peeled for sharks and sometimes scanned the ocean in my nearby vicinity for the people with whom I was actually swimming.

I. was. focused.

And I like to think that I might be alive today because of it.

Oh, and there is a tiny chair that is on our porch. The porch overlooks the bay. And I like to sit in this chair and write. It fits me perfectly. Sort of. It’s a tight fit, but you know, skinny jeans are in, so perhaps skinny chairs are too.

Anyway, Darby snapped a picture and this is what me and that little chair look like.
I wonder if, when it first saw me aiming to sit down, that little tiny chair was thinking something like, You’ve got to be kidding me! But, I think it is now resigned to its fate. It is a chair, after all. It’s not like I was trying to race around on it in the bay. I was simply trying to sit in it. Which a chair should be very used to, anyway.

Oh, and the purple socks are compliments of Jenna. And if you happen to think you see Stitch playing a ukelele on my computer, then congratulations: you are absolutely right.

When I started learning the guitar in Japan my friend David bought me that Stitch as a present. He jumped right onto my computer and they’ve pretty much been inseparable since. Uh, Stitch did, not David. If David jumped onto my computer, I’m afraid I wouldn’t have any computer left.

And thank goodness for family and their frank honesty. Tonight, as is tradition, all of my nieces and nephews were gathered together at the Olde Time Photography Place (so “place” isn’t probably the official title, but I don’t actually know what it’s called), getting ready for their photo. Pirates this year, by the way. Adorable. We were talking about all the pictures that we used to be in and I mentioned how I don’t think I’ve looked good in any of them. Not one. And there have been many, let me tell you. Now, you’d think that my brother would disagree with me. But God bless Jonathan and his policy of honesty because he jumped right in and said, Oh, absolutely, Jess. I agree with you 100%! You’ve never looked anywhere near good!

Hahahaha, thank you Jonathan, a simple yep would have been sufficient.

We both said hi. It was a sort of surprised kind of hi because neither of us expected to see each other in the refrigerated meat aisle (could there be an uglier aisle title out there?). If it were church, then we probably wouldn’t have said anything, really–both being very used to seeing each other across the way and saying nothing because who shouts HELLO!!! across three hundred chairs and a very loud worship song? But like I said, we were in the midst of refrigerated meat. No three hundred chairs. No loud worship song. And the only thing left to us was to talk.

I had, however, just gotten invisalign this morning. This is braces for people who are shy about braces, as my friend Shane puts it. And so I was not yet in the habit of speaking to people with them–not to mention the fact that I was not in the habit of speaking to this particular person at all.

So my hi was short and I was hoping to just stroll on by. Except after our initial greeting, he very loudly exclaimed, Ohhh! Which made me stop. It was the kind of noise that would make the animals at the zoo stop whatever it is they are doing and wonder if Ryan the Lion had finally bitten somebody like he’d been threatening to do since ’01.

And after this guy’s exclamation, he looked at me and asked, Are you a mother…yet? To which I said no and then he sadly told me that he would have liked to have wished me a happy mother’s day. I told him that I’d pass the sentiment on to my own mother, who is more than deserving of it in her own right, and that was that.

And then I told my brother Jason about the exchange, just cause I thought it was rather odd and we often like to tell each other about life’s oddities. To which he said that I should have said, No kids. But I DID get invisalign AND a divorce, so yay for me!!!

And then I asked him if there was a day for that.

To which Jase said, Screw Mother’s Day. You have your Divorced, Better Teethed, Dropped the Bum* Day!!!

And so Happy DBTDTB Day to me!

Catchy, isn’t it?

Hallmark better get on the ball and start making some cards. I could certainly help with the text, if necessary.

*nobody means anything very serious by the word bum here. We are simply using poetic license to emphasize humor. And also, no bums were actually hurt or injured in any way during the making of this blog post.

And sometimes I say something that makes perfect sense in the context of whatever it is I am talking about, but when isolated, it can sound pretty bad.

Or funny, depending upon how you look at it.

Like today, for instance.

When I was talking with Shane, telling him about a conversation I was recently party to with some friends. Basically one friend was asking another friend (who is straight, for the record) if he would engage in, uh…non-straight relations… in exchange for ten millions dollars. My friend thought about it for about half of a second before saying, Absolutely. It’s ten million dollars. Then the question was posed to another friend of mine–who again, happens to be straight–and she was like, Of course. TEN MILLION DOLLARS, FOOLS.

But when they asked me, I was all, Nope. Not now, not ever. I’ll get a job, thanks. Er, but not that job. And as I was recounting this to Shane, I was getting more and more passionate about it, telling him that God could provide for my needs without me having to get all sexy for it. And the more I got into it, the higher my voice raised, until I ended my diatribe by loudly pronouncing:

SHANE, I WILL NOT HAVE SEX FOR MONEY!!!

At which point Shane asked me if I could say it a little louder please, because the fishermen who were about ten feet away from us might not have been totally clear on what it was I was talking about.

But then again, considering the way I shouted it, they just might have been.

And can you imagine overhearing that statement, and that statement alone, between a girl and a guy just sitting and minding their business? After hearing something like that, suddenly their business just became a whole lot shadier, I suppose.  Or maybe it’s his business that got shadier.

And hahahahaha, we laughed a long time about that one.

And we also laughed about how one of the guys who was fishing nearby yelled over to us, asking us what kind of sandwiches we were eating. Because, who does that? Who asks total strangers what kind of sandwiches they’re eating, like it’s their business? And it’s not that we minded telling this guy, but we just thought it was even funnier when he could barely believe that we weren’t eating something with shrooms in it.

In fact, we ran into him again a little later in the day and he asked us if we were sure those sandwiches didn’t have shrooms in them. Like we’d forgotten that they did last time he asked us, but now that we were high or something, Ohhhhh right–they did have shrooms in them, after all! I think it was really disappointing to him that they were simply filled with plain old peanut butter and nutella. Can’t please ‘em all, I guess.

Oh, and he also asked if I go to Avon Grove High School. Good one. And once he found out that I do not, he asked if I was a hair stylist.

Because I guess it has to be one or the other.

And for the record: No, I will NOT have sex for money; I stand by what I said.

I have pretty pictures to upload here.

Of eggs, dyed lovely colors. And I have a thumbnail that is dyed orange to prove that I, along with some friends, dyed those eggs.

And even decorated them in a way that used wax and candles and made you feel a kinship with those wonderful Ukrainians who invented the method in the first place. And if I could remember the name of that method, I would enlighten you, but alas, all I recall is that it is a word that is long and it employs the ‘aaaa’ sound.

But I cannot upload those pictures. Perhaps my brother Jason, who is much smarter than me, can tell you why sometime. Or perhaps he can just fix it for me.

Ahem.

But I can tell you that this is Easter Sunday. That there are many people who have said many things about this day and I think I’d like to add something of my own. And it’s something about how this day is just another day, yes, but what if we thought about this day like falling in love?

You know, all those conversations it took. All those thoughts about him that were so big and loud inside, you were sure the person standing right next to you could hear the mayhem too. And that’s why you couldn’t believe it when they said what? and you said oh, nothing. and they took that at face value and moved on to the weather.

Because it wasn’t nothing and you were smiling, and that’s something, anyway.

But my point is that love is a multitude of little bits of color until you can’t see much of anything but those bright spots anymore. And you wonder why nobody tapped you on the shoulder to tell you, shhhhhhhh, it’s starting, because surely you would have dedicated a few more journal entries to the feeling if you had known that that was what you were feeling.

And see, winter happened and it was good, but it wouldn’t be good if it happened forever, you know: because spring has to happen. And maybe you didn’t notice the first crocus you saw because maybe you were too busy being late to wherever it was you were going, but then you find yourself walking outside, and walking cautiously, because now there are so many flowers, you have to try not to step on their silky little heads.

And so it is with Easter.

There were signs of a God and his love all over the place, but then he did something bold and crazy and different and it stood out. Just like in that movie About a Boy, when the kid sings Killing Me Softly for his school’s talent show and well, it’s awful. Just terrible. Nobody likes it and everybody wants it to be over. But then Will, the main character, steps into the song with him. He stands on that stage, fills it out with his presence, and suddenly the boy is no longer alone, dejected, and owning every reason for embarrassment in the book.

Suddenly he is loved.

And maybe that’s what God did. Maybe Jesus had heard us singing our pitiful, awful songs for a very long time and instead of just hitting the mute button on humanity and turning on his Ipod, he did something shocking. He learned our song. He jumped up on to the stage with us. And by doing so, claimed us as his own.

Ooh, and here’s the good part: he made the song beautiful. And taught us the better lyrics, the better melody, a life that sounds a lot like harmony.

And just like spring has to happen, God has to happen. Or rather he makes us happen. And these are rich, beautiful happenings. They carve out our hearts until we resemble those old walls that are filled with hieroglyphs; and they tell stories that take our breath away. And nobody wants to tear those walls down, for they are too beautiful; they came at a price, but with each etch and mark, slash and chisel, they have become priceless.

And these stories on the walls of our hearts are love stories, I think. Every one of them. And despite the fact that I can point out some reasons as to why I think love is dumb anyway, I still believe in it.

But all of this has something to do with Easter.

Which is why I can say Happy Easter.

Which is why I am even happy to say it.