PickledCherub

Lindsay and Chris moved a loveseat onto the front porch this afternoon, after I had gone to work. The loveseat, a gray tan, is soft, and warm, and allows a prolonged exposure to the evening air. It is cool tonight, and there's a little wind, and it is a good night to sit outside. Work was productive: I entered data, I ordered some things, I counted money. I waited on some tables, answered questions. I wrote notes, made phone calls, sent emails. I am preparing to go to San Francisco, mentally at least. I'm looking forward to it, to leaving town, to a long drive with Shauna.

Across the street there is a vacant lot. The neighborhood children pick blackberries in it, Lindsay plays fetch with Sedna over there. It is like a park, but with gravel and an overgrown driveway. You can cut across it to walk to the bus stop. it is private property, but nobody seems to guard it.

A lot of cars drive by the house. Some drive by slowly, with loud bass setting off car alarms. A lot of bicycles go down this street as well. And some people walk down the middle of the street.

We all like it here. I like how secure it is, not in a gated community sort of way, but in a sticking around way. In a putting down roots way. Planting plants and trees, watering the plants, cleaning and sorting, the things that make a person feel connected.

I pulled some tomatoes off of a broken plant two days ago. I set them on the pillar on the porch, they were completely green, and the plant had been snapped by a long pipe that is now our sewer. They are reddening, becoming ripe. It's slow, but noticeable, like watching paint dry. Satisfying, even though I've done nothing.

All of these pleasures are more acute now, they seem more severe to me, since there is a baseline. There is this house, which I will stay in, but the things around me change, ripen.

The moon is low, truncated, yellow, right above the vacant lot across the street.