I decided to post what I wrote today: i thought these sketches were entertaining:

So my grandmother used to roast whole cloves of garlic in her tiny GE oven – those ovens that came out right after the cold war, those ovens that were still in use when the Wall fell.

I used to work at the Jewish Community Center and one day they put me in the infant room. I normally dealt with the four and five year olds – the ones that were about to enter kindergarten and could at least form coherent sentences. But not that day. Instead, my boss thought that she would try my hand at the infant room. It smelled of Clorox and wet wipes.

My German grandmother has this tiny bathroom that she never uses. It is located inside of her room, the master bedroom, while my grandfather sleeps in the tinier bedroom. Older people seem to do that these days: they never sleep in the same bed. But my grandparents don’t even sleep in the same room.

I used to work in this store that sold work on consignments for artists. There were odd little things in the store, all made by hand from local artists in the Tucson area: mainly southwestern. Anyways, the only thing that was sold there from a corporation was Burt’s Bee lip balm, in a variety of smells and flavors. I wanted the original so badly, for some reason.

My mother and I, when I was a child, would always go to bed together. She had a king size bed, which, at the time, I thought was more than fit for a king. My dad would be fast asleep on the other side, waaaaay over on the other side. We would always eat an orange, and I can remember her peeling the orange and the smell would stick to our hands. I could never sleep and my mother would tell me to think about all of the energy flowing out of my chest and into my arms and legs. And then the energy would migrate to my hands and my feet, and eventually all the energy left would coagulate in my fingertips and toes and I swear I can still feel that energy there from time to time. And if I could hold out long enough, I would be able to hear her say to me, “…and now all of that energy is seeping out. From every nail bed, from every pore, from every hair follicle…” I never made it past that point.

In Chile, they have the most wonderful wine. It is best enjoyed straight from the tap. I have learned through my less than sommelie days that wine isn’t necessarily better the older it is. Especially white wines, which is what was featured that cloudy morning just south of Santiago. In the Casa Blanco vinyards, there is the most lovely scene: the rolling hills, that picturesque row by row by row of sauvignon blanc, the settling clouds on those same rolling hills, the smell of manure. That is what chile is to me.