edicion especial: a prickly pair

FROM July 5, 2006

yes:

* TV on the Radio, the only band I care about the way I care about, and this TV on the Radio-commissioned short: "Mr. President, what do you think about the social injustices of the last 450 years?" "BOOOO-RRRing"

* Ana Castillo

* Elliot Spitzer for Governor

* the mexican election would be the 2000 american election redux if mexico hadn't already perfected the process

* the climate crisis: "Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through."

* vintage jazzbo: more fun than a bushel of advil

no:

* "new york" (as symbolic cultural endzone) as dead, alive, resurrected or getting a $650 haircut at ted gibson -- fool's gold. red herring.

* you and your buddy, upon noticing my la virgen de guadalupe lightbox / shrine, invent a dating-fuckstory for the motif of juan diego and his apparition, and whether you "feel" "uncomfortable" at my correction of your narrative. i also do not care whether you will ever comprehend the magic of the words "Tonantzin" and "conquistador"

* whether tequila is my birthright or just distracts me from your lack of backbone / your character, of flimsy build / your public face, a ruse

* whether tequila is my distraction or just births me from your lack of backbone / or from my gait, impenetrable. And if it seems like rage is the only character i can accurately portray these days, that's the only instinct you can trust: i want my home back.

* happy 60th birthday, george w. bush.

in other words:

The window was wide open, the screen splayed, and slices in the shape of fangs gave up its fate. Our cat, growling and poised on the third floor ledge, had waited to race off until we returned home at dawn's pique. When all we ever wanted was to love her, and for her keep away the mice, she stayed until we could witness her departure, as if to let us know how little she thought of us, how thin her respect. One last swipe. She fought with a small, butter-colored Tom on her way down the fire escape and as the sun lifted, she vanished into the shrubs below in the neighbor's courtyard garden, somewhere in the dirt between a lawn jockey and the head of a small plastic donkey. This was Saturday night. I watered and pruned her cat-mint plant and left it on the sill with her saucer of kibble, but still, she has not come back. Not even a hiss in the tone of her voice wafts up the building from below. She has erased herself, or us. I always imagined her to be part feral but the screen is still off in case she decides to return, because we cannot stop hoping. Realistically, though, a rat or squirrel will sniff out the bits of cat food and jump through in her stead. I pray our grief is not so blinding that we can tell the difference.

If you live in the Brooklyn neighborhood of the peeping tom, the giant iguana, my substitute abuela Victoria, and the two golden bodegas at the crossroads where the street names change -- and if you happen to see our tortoiseshell tabby, please send her home. Like me, she is brown and white, and responds to many names.