I hardly ever make eye contact and when I do, it's electrifying in it's own way. It's because I hardly ever like to do it, unless I'm trying to intimidate someone. I choose to see the world in a different way, to save sight as a last-ditch effort to understand my surroundings. I never made eye contact with the waiters in Naples, but understood their language through the food. Stilettos walking on marble and the slightly monotone sermons I heard the Sunday I moved to Italy at 18 echo deep in the recesses of my dreaming conscious. It was invigorating to experience things, dreamful things, in a way that wasn't hearsay.

I've always wanted to combat the feeling of distrust that comes from second-hand lives. Spoken words mean nothing to me. It's the written form that creates a contract, that solidifies the veracity of life not yet experienced. And so, I choose to read.

I'm picking up books at the library like four-leaf clovers. I've been this way since June of last year. They sit in stacks, in piles and on shelves by my nightstand and I feel lucky to be surrounded by so many words. Currently, I have anthologies of Didion, Neruda, and Eliot, a French grammar book, two Hemingways (one featured below), and Wuthering Heights. My fine at the library is $6.50. I have had the Didion book since September. I'll never finish all of them, and I don't expect to. I am just lucky enough to have them as guests in my home.

And so, I choose to read them. I remind myself of their ephemerality. I remind myself to learn from them and to experience the world that's contracted in the pages and to believe them to be true, because my elders told me so.

And maybe, one day, I'll be thought of like this, too.

I read outside last week, drank and espresso and ate a scone. I realized how many worlds I've lived in, and that I need to write them all down.

I once stood where Caesar was stabbed. In the Largo di Torre Argentina, in Rome, when I was nineteen. There are lion statues there and the myth goes that one puts his hand into the lion's mouth and if it closes, he's deceitful. I didn't put my hand in. I'll never put my hand in.

I lie a lot. I lie about small things that aren't even white, they're paler than that. They are innocent, but entrapping. They are gnat-like and hover around sweet things, sweet people I find attractive. I want to impress. It's been a characteristic about me since I was a child. I don't know if I've ever really impressed anyone, but it's always fun to pretend.

Loneliness is the most unkindest cut of all. I am often left in a dissatisfaction at my own amusement with simple pleasures. I have had the house to myself for two days and have taken Murphy to the sitter's and drove in the car for nearly an hour and a half total. I put a bid on a house, a house that's shared, a house that has a concrete backyard and is close to a tennis court. A house that's in a nice neighborhood, but is equalized to our standard by the budget we set for it. I could never live alone.

Then I wonder why I crave it so much. Why I sit facing a certain way, away from others. Why I am so bothered by the constant, incessant need to ask how my day is. Why do pleasantries make me recoil? I think it's the inauthenticity of it all, the mechanism of courtesy and the lack of true, distinct attention that I may get from so-and-so. I cannot impress the disinterested. I need an audience to survive.

I'll wait patiently. I will go to the dog park that doesn't have grass and is volunteer-driven and I will talk to a woman named Mariel about our dogs and I will drain my battery to 10% talking to my dad about his business trip to Arkansas and I will drink a whole Gatorade and wake up at 5:45 am to ensure I get to read A Farewell to Arms in the brown leather couches of a Starbucks close to work. I applied for a part-time job at a French bakery and lied on my resume (as I always tend to do). I ate cereal for dinner last night. I made tacos today.

And while I wait for my audience to come back, I will listen to Murphy breath heavy and taste the goods I made myself.

Cornmeal Cookies (via)

Ingredients:

1 stick unsalted butter, softened (1/2 cup)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
Zest of one lime
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup 100% yellow cornmeal + extra for rolling

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 Fahrenheit
In a large bowl, whip softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Beat in salt, zest, egg, vanilla.
Add flour and then cornmeal once incorporated. Use a rubber spatula to mix to ensure full incorporation, as mixers often do not get the bottom/sides of bowl.
(Variant from original) Allow to rest in freezer for a few minutes.
Pat or roll onto floured/cornmeal-dusted board.
Cut into rounds.
Place on parchment-lined baking sheet.
Bake 8-12 minutes until just golden on edges.
Allow to cool.

(I paired these with a grapefruit curd, which will be featured in my next post)