Ten Things I Take For Granted

Now that I'm home

back in the city where the air smells different

and the pizza place and about 7 different Chinese 

take out joints are within a one block radius

Wah Lung, Golden Forest, Six Happy Kitchen etc

if I owned a Chinese take out place I would name it

Favorite Panda

that sounds like a perfect name

and I would personally sit in the back steaming dumplings

and making homemade duck sauce

and my priority would be

making the fortunes for the cookies

I would probably say mean things like

"Today you will experience some sort of spill"

"Learn Spanish! bacalao=very salty codfish"

etc

Anyhow, here is my list

1. Clean toilets, and not waking up for a 9 am religion class and sitting in someone else's pee that is sprinkled all over the toilet seat

2. My mother watching Spanish soap operas on Telemundo and yelling at the TV at 11 at night [Learn Spanish! novella=soap opera]

3. Rice & Beans, real island style, not the type they have at the Vegan Station in college

4. The scowls and fast cell phone talk of everyone in Grand Central

5. Dogs that don't exactly know how to play fetch

6. Orange juice, in a carton, and not a dispenser-it feels so much more "fresh from the grove"

7. Walking around barefoot and free, showering with no shower shoes and no hair balls that look like centipedes [that really freaks me out]

8. The view out my window, a bridge and lights and cars and civilization....not an all girl's dorm and a sad snowy quad with the occasional penis snow structure

9. Not having to wait in a large stinking mass of kids to cram into a shuttle to a mall with tiny sized stores, I can leave my house and go shopping immediately 

9 1/2. 99 cent decadent loves of chocolate cake [that look like the cake the fat kid was forced to eat in Matilda]

10. My couch [the new love of my life]

I literally feel like a plump dreaming puppy

on this love seat right now

not a care in the world

just wrap me up in a fleece blanket

peachy as a pup.

An Ode

It all started one day

in a small playground on the Lower East Side

outside of a cluster of projects

the typical metal structure,

red, yellow, blue construction of fun

Who knows why but I must have been 4 

and I was alone

roaming across the black matted ground 

playing by myself on the monkey bars

slipping down the short, cold metal slide

probably in some seriously 90s

 floral print leggings-cute babydoll dress combo with too short bangs and a bob

I swear I was Matilda reincarnated

minus the magical powers and all 

but who needs magical powers 

when you're a kid in the 90s

anyhow, I was roaming around that

sad little playground when!

     Alas!

     my young eye caught sight of a

    lone red gummy bear

   I swear it glistened on the black rubber ground

  and it whispered "eat me"

  I knew what was good for me, and that I should'nt 

  eat off the floor

 for various reasons (crack, HPV)

 but I had too, it was calling my name

I peered up to the sixth floor gated window

no sight of my mom

I walked over

my Payless sneakers lighting up

preparing me for the magical taste

and then I just picked it up and ate it

and that day has been by far one of the biggest impacts on my life

Do I still eat candy off the floor you ask?

anytime, anyplace

but I've moved on to Swedish Fish

I swear I can smell them from across a room

and anyways, Gummi Bears have gelatin

and I'm a vegetarian

those days are over, but the thought of floral print leggings still entices me.