mama said there'd be days like this.

Bassey Ikpi, Love Poem to Myself

we stand close, our noses barely touching. he tilts his chin up slightly and i, in turn, bow my head. eyelids close slowly until the world is dark and lips brush my forehead and they l i n g e r. the corners of my mouth pull up slightly and i can feel the surrounding air as it falls, slipping over my skin like satin, soft. with my head bowed i can finally let my shoulders drop and i do, despite what i know. despite what i fear. aren’t i allowed to let go, just for a moment?

i went and picked up drake’s new album today on my lunch break. i already have most of the tracks on my ipod from random internet leaks, but i still wanted to buy it out of principle. he’s made it so big without a record deal, sharing his music for free and i felt like paying for one CD was the least i could do. this might sound stupid because i talk about drake like i know him, but the honesty of his music makes me feel like i do know him, a little bit. i really respect him as an artist for that, among other things. plus his music has helped me through some rough patches, and i just feel like i need to give him credit where credit is due.

given that it’s summer now and the weather is getting nicer, we get a lot of tour groups that come through the library, checking out the architecture & whatnot. yesterday was one of those days. i usually pay them no mind, and continue reading jezebel on my computer at the circ desk. yesterday an older guy from one group comes over and i look up, thinking he has a question.

“oh, okay, i just wanted to make sure you were real.”

excuse me?

“i’ve been watching you for several minutes and you haven’t moved at all! i thought you were a statue.” the guy is grinning, and i let out a polite, wary chuckle. “um, oh, no, yeah, i’m real.” like what do you say to that?!

he’s still laughing. “can i get a picture with you?” he asks me.

i’m stuck behind this circulation desk. no one else is around to cover for me, so i can’t run away. “um, sure.”

i kinda half smile and his friend snaps a picture. by this time a group of his tourist friends have gathered, and as the old man walks away, another guy darts up to the desk. he nods at me with a smile, then turns to face the line of cameras before us. my god, are you serious right now?

by this time, everyone in the tour group were standing around the desk. apparently they all thought a picture with some random student librarian would be a great memento to take home. i literally took twelve or fifteen individual pictures with these tourists, all against my will. by the end i wasn’t even smiling, i just felt so awkward. in my head i was pleading GO AWAY, PLEASEEE JUST GO AWAY but they didn’t seem to catch the brain waves i was sending. nobody left until they got their picture.

the creepy part is that all these people are going to go home, print their pictures and show them off to their families and loved ones. “oh yeah, here’s old campus, here’s harkness tower, here’s a RANDOM STUDENT THAT I COERCED INTO A TAKING A PICTURE WITH ME.”

guess i should’ve known this was the kind of lifestyle i was getting into when i decided to work at the library.

José Emilio Pacheco, Las batallas en el desierto

• fugly new license plates
• changing the name of the triboro bridge to RFK bridge

hello interwebz! mini-hiatus is up. although coming back to facebook was lackluster to say the least. the only reason i reactivated my account was because i wanted to see pictures of my cousin’s baby (ADORABLE).

anyway. haven’t been up to much. here’s a quick summary of my summer thus far.

baseball. laundry. haircut (bangs!). BET Blackbusters. GBTA/Metro-North. Access Services Library Service Assistant I. strawberry season. Friday Night Lights. Jezebel. drizzy & jay playlist.

yeah. exciting, right?

oh, and i drove over the george washington bridge. TWICE. as in, i was the one controlling the vehicle as we careened precariously over the hudson river. that actually was exciting.