Tre Miller Rodriguez's Blog, page 71

In honor of Laurie’s impending trip to NYC, the first live...

In honor of Laurie’s impending trip to NYC, the first live Christmas tree since I was widowed is now twinkling in the living room.
Since I inherited many of my late brother’s ornaments, and (obvi) inherited those gifted to Alberto, the big box of ornaments in the basement has been a source of ambivalence for me since 2009. Yet for the first Christmas in five years, I wanted to see and touch these trinkets. Felt myself looking forward to sharing the 30-something years of stories that go with them. And Laurie’s first visit to NYC seems like a shining moment for a mash-up of my own firsts…and greatest hits. 

I Can't Even...With the File Folders

Maybe because the wet cough that’s haunted me for three weeks was magically dry this morning or maybe because I’m all hopped up on oral steroids, but suddenly, the hard-copy notes I’ve made for a super-secret blog = a thing that needs to be in my life today.

The notes ain’t in the most likely corner of my home office. Or the second-most likely. And during the chase, I encounter 26 files and hundreds of sheets of paper that have outlived their use. I can’t resist a good house-cleaning—especially when legal chemicals are involved—so I recycle client notes, presentations, scripts and Web-site proofs until a thin stack of miscellaneous paper remains.

Every one of these sheets are charged with meaning.

And I’m compelled to save all of them, but where the fuck do I file:

+ The napkin inked with the birth/death dates of a 29-year-old man I never met but whose mom and sister made a huge impression at one of my readings last winter.

+ Notes about a Skype fling—surely, a snappier phrase for this exists, kids?—which I quite satisfyingly shared with The Fling…but not The Internet. Because despite early indicators, he was just a rogue wave who crashed into my world for Lent. 

+ The eulogy and ancestry records for a Massachusetts woman I never met but who adored my 94-year-old grandmother, whose continued adoration of reading, writing, and traveling is a big part of my origin story. 

+ A card with Alberto’s famous handwriting that wishes me “a Wonderful! Day”; and closes with “Love you with all my heart.”

With all his…heart.

His extraordinary, incomparable, lethal heart.

The note is dateless.

(Naturally.)

These un-file-able piles might be why I should clean out my desk more often.

Could be the reason I’m ambivalent about all correspondence turning digital.

Or maybe they’re proof that despite a grillion folders with titles written in confident, capital Sharpie letters, there are still pieces of life in which mementos do not neatly fit.

I Can't Even..With the File Folders

Maybe because the wet cough that’s haunted me for three weeks was magically dry this morning or maybe because I’m all hopped up on oral steroids, but suddenly, the hard-copy notes I’ve made for a super-secret blog = a thing that needs to be in my life today.

The notes ain’t in the most likely corner of my home office. Or the second-most likely. And during the chase, I encounter 26 files and hundreds of sheets of paper that have outlived their use. I can’t resist a good house-cleaning—especially when legal chemicals are involved—so I recycle client notes, presentations, scripts and Web-site proofs until a thin stack of miscellaneous paper remains.

Every one of these sheets are charged with meaning.

And I’m compelled to save all of them, but where the fuck do I file:

+ The napkin inked with the birth/death dates of a 29-year-old man I never met but whose mom and sister made a huge impression at one of my readings last winter.

+ Notes about a Skype fling—surely, a snappier phrase for this exists, kids?—which I quite satisfyingly shared with The Fling…but not The Internet. Because despite early indicators, he was just a rogue wave who crashed into my world for Lent. 

+ The eulogy and ancestry records for a Massachusetts woman I never met but who adored my 94-year-old grandmother, whose continued adoration of reading, writing, and traveling is a big part of my origin story. 

+ A card with Alberto’s famous handwriting that wishes me “a Wonderful! Day”; and closes with “Love you with all my heart.”

With all his…heart.

His extraordinary, incomparable, lethal heart.

The note is dateless.

(Naturally.)

Way to fuck me in the sunshine while I’m surrounded by paper, honey.

These un-file-able piles might be why I should clean out my desk more often.

Could be the reason I’m ambivalent about all correspondence turning digital.

Or maybe they’re proof that despite a grillion folders with titles written in confident, capital Sharpie letters, there are still pieces of life in which mementos do not neatly fit.

To the already absurd list of 19th-century infections I’ve had...

To the already absurd list of 19th-century infections I’ve had in my lifetime, I can now add “pneumonia” right between “scarlet fever” and  “the gout.” 

This episode. This Olivia moment. This GIF.

This episode. This Olivia moment. This GIF.

Had I known Rogue Thanksgiving entailed 36 gourmet hours of...

Had I known Rogue Thanksgiving entailed 36 gourmet hours of drinking, eating + cuddle puddles…I’d have said ‘yes’ years ago.

Had I known Friendsgiving entailed 36 gourmet hours of drinking,...

Had I known Friendsgiving entailed 36 gourmet hours of drinking, eating + cuddle puddles…I’d have said ‘yes’ years ago.

Milestone Mash-Up

Thanksgiving has been one of those oh-shit-it’s-here holidays that I’ve done six ways to Sunday since Alberto died.

The first year, I fled to London alone, spread his ashes in Hyde Park and took E with a stranger. In the November Thursdays since, I’ve fed the homeless in California, feasted at the Standard in Meatpacking with a boyfriend, and taken a 97-year-old neighbor to lunch in Chelsea.

Last year, I finally returned to Alberto’s family’s table in New Jersey, but without contributing the signature dish I’d always brought when I was his wife.

Thirty pounds of potatoes are boiling on all four of my burners tonight, and it isn’t until I call my mom with a question about my grandmother’s recipe that it occurs to me that I haven’t made garlic mashed potatoes since I became a widow.

What startling beauty is found when you’re halfway done with a thing you’ve subconsciously avoided for the last five years?

You didn’t overthink: you just accepted a Thanksgiving invitation to the loft of one your gays and a fancy NYC chef.

And instead of agonizing about who was or wasn’t alive the last time you boiled this many potatoes on a November Wednesday, you just agreed to bring a side dish.

And instinctively knew which one it would be.

(Mostly because it’s the only one that you—the family vegetarian of more than 20 years—have managed to perfect.)

Doesn’t matter how or even when you finally arrived at this stove that’s firing on all cylinders.

You and your apron are here.

On your own volition.

Postcards from the Snow Me State

Postcards from the Snow Me State

The Steel Rainbow

The Steel Rainbow