i have not updated this particular blog in years now. so, if you've somehow found me here, please hop over to bananie.com.

gracias.

come on over here...

friends, the blog has moved! we've outgrown this place, are making room for more family--redecorating, putting up new dry wall and painting. (how do you like sky blue? grey?) but our home is your home, and so please come over. bring your friends.

as julie lee would sing: we got muffins and cheerios, someone to paint your toes...there'll be a child to hold, so come on over here: http://bananie.thehummingbird.com

love.

pee ess: to those of you who have me as a link on your site (gracias), can you change the link? many thanks...
(oh the annoying details of changing address.)

what we gots

unbeknownst to me (because of the whole i'm in london thing) my shannon had a baby on saturday evening.

would everyone please give a warm welcome to a tiny, 6 pound beatrice abbot quiggle!

i heard her voice tonight over the phone; from erie, pa to belfast she cried, and i get to meet her in four weeks.

i'm in love.

i have mascara raccoon eyes after hearing shannon tell, so matter-of-factly, a story of contractions, the epidural that would never be, push, don't push. a tall, weeping husband holding his little bean for the first time with shaky arms. thick black hair (that will probably all fall out) and the longest eyelashes. full lips. skinny legs.

home is where i want to be. pick me up and turn me 'round.

while waiting in london for jude to be done with work, i wrote:

He has ordered a glass of red wine. Bald, hunched over with bamboo walking stick and dignified umbrella, tweed coat and nearly matching tie, he tottered in. and now he is sitting next to me, folding his money, bill by bill: Elizabeth upon Elizabeth. He clicks his tongue and mumbles incoherently to himself in a grumbly Yoda voice. I'm sitting at the tiny table next to him, smoking a Camel Light, drinking a lager. He looks at his watch, clicks his tongue. Stares blankly forward. Whitney Houston is asking where broken hearts go. Can they find their way home? He is a perfect fixture at the Horse and Groom pub.

And now, another man, middle-aged and bushy-haired is struggling with a bottle of beer at the bar in front of me. His back is to the bar; he's facing me, wearing a remarkably bad sweater of some native design. I won't look, I won't look. These are the men who always want to chat me up, buy me a pint, ask me if I have a boyfriend. This is my demographic, I always joke with my friends. And it's true. Oh no, he has stood up, looking out the window behind me. Yoda clicks. He sits back down. Saved. For the moment. Yoda crosses his leg and gnaws a toothpick. Did he bring it with him? What kind of man brings his own toothpicks to pubs? I light another cigarette. Clear my throat.

It took an extra three hours to get to London today. Delay upon delay due to the fire brigade strike. Instead of the simple Piccadilly/Victoria Line tube trip to Oxford Circus, I had to detour along the District Line. And it was so crowded, full of people to stare at because you have to look somewhere. You pick your favorites: the ones who look the most interesting and also don't seem to notice you're staring. Therefore, you don't feel like one of those staring kinds of people. I found two: The first was a Hasidic mother, blue-eyed with olive skin, holding her baby and keeping her eye on her two boys and two girls, who were all very excited to be on the choo choo train. Her husband sat idly, distinguished in his black woolen trench coat and yarmulke. She looked so tired. Her lips were full and quiet. She had a sleepy profile.

Then, as I stood cramped in against a door with all my weight shifted onto my left ankle, I watched a woman in purple: knitted cap, scarf, and jacket were all various shades of lavender. She was small and pensive with animated blue eyes. She was seated next to a bearded Indian man—they were obviously a couple—talking quietly. She often looked past him as he talked with her ear cocked toward him. She had the deepest crow's feet around her eyes when she smiled, but she still looked very young. She held his hand with her pinky; appeared to be elsewhere much of the time. We made eye contact once, briefly. I looked down at my aching ankle. We arrived at the station. I nearly fell out the door. That was goodbye.

Yoda seems to have fallen asleep. His chin is buried in his chest. He's leaning, leaning…sits up with a start. Looks around, clicks. Closes his eyes and leans. Bad sweater man is talking to a friend, laughing.

this is where the days go

carrie says i should write about the corner store. let me tell you about the corner store: the co-op. i frequent the co-op at odd hours; it is my own personal oh-shit store: oh shit, we're out of...milk. bread. tomato soup. yummy chocolate/caramel biscuits. goodfellas pizza-for-one.

there is a security guard outside the co-op (like most businesses) in the evening, and he has kind eyes. he looks like a sailor, with his navy blue turtle neck--thick and woolen--and pipe and hemingway beard. we're now on nodding and smiling terms when i walk in the door. sometimes i say hi, and he gives me the what-the-hell-is-an-american-doing-in-east-belfast-especially-at-this-time-of-day-and-in-that-outfit look. i shrug, usually, giving him the i'm-just-getting-milk look.

once inside the co-op, you're in for a party. two aisles of great deals on various canned things. and fantastically bad music while you choose between heinz or campbells tomato soup. it's the only place i've heard the R&B group, SWV (sistas with voices) since 1993, when dad drove mom and me down to florida in the ford festiva with no air conditioning. i bought the tape then, specifically for the song "right here" (which was also featured in the movie, free willy). SWV and janet jackson's wildly popular janet were my soundtracks for that trip.

memories of busch gardens and the gulf of mexico, palm trees for the first time and bad hair all come racing back hilariously as i buy some wheaten bread and diet coke.

right here. be right here. no fear. lovin' is here.
great lyrics, eh?

so. that's the co-op.
don't get me started on the chip-shop.

november

the quiet and dark of november muffles words sometimes. it's a lesson in resting in the contours of silence.
but is this rest or breath-holding?

because it feels like the world is in wait for the arrival of my best friend's baby.
or. maybe it's me, an ocean away at 2 am, knowing that the due date has come.

and nothing else matters.

(it's enough to make a girl homesick.)

all in the family

guess what? my sister, catherine frances has started a blog! (i'm so proud!) i knew she had the words. and here they are, laid bare.

go read!