I´m It

I got tagged by Jordancito at Pigeontoes. He wrote about five reasons he blogs, but I´m hoping that he isn´t expecting me to come up with five things to say about why this page exists. I´m hoping its sufficient to say that I do it because it seems like a good thing to do and leave it at that.

Five People I Miss at Home.
Not the Top Five. Not the Only Five. Just Five, among many, many others.

Karen. Karen and I eat Vietnamese and Thai food in Hell´s Kitchen. We drink white wine in her house in Washington Heights. (She can´t come to my house because she is horribly allergic to my cat.) We talk about how silly it is that everyone feels the need to get married and have children. We talk about our families. We complain about work. Karen also lived in South America, long before I did and made me want to do the same thing. Karen lifts weights three days a week, at least and can squat more than most folks I know. She also has fabulous long curly black hair.

Angela. Angela was witness to my first halting attempts to learn Spanish. When we worked together at the Medical Center in Washington Heights, we used to go eat Dominican food three or four times a week and complain about our office. I feel my stomach bloat up when I think about those heaping plates of yellow rice. She always has beautiful silver jewelry and her husband Benjamen, (also someone I miss) throw lovely dinner parties.

Laure. Laure writes pithy commentary on film and hockey. She always has excellent shoes, and the best color lipstick. Laure thought she could escape from New York, and successfully stayed away for almost nine years, but now she is on her second stint. We fought over a boy in 1989, a very silly boy, we both repented of it later, but of course at the time, it was terrible painful.

Marcus. Marcus was one of my chief inspirations for doing the Peace Corps. I´m still haunted by his stories of Cameroon, and the first conversation I had with him, he was peering at a map of Africa, explaining to me how he wanted to be there and not in North Carolina. He is one of those people to have gotten married and just had a baby, little Vaughan, who I hope to meet at Christmas. Marcus and I shared many New Year´s Eve´s together, one time we fought for five hours to ring in the New Year. I recall that I went down in Round 6, at about five in the morning.

El. Elliot is an artist. He has a gigantic loft in Los Angeles and a solo show in New York. He lived in Rome and dated a beautiful Italian pop singer. But Elliot is also the salt of North Carolina red earth. Elliot and I used to warm up Stouffer´s Corn Pudding in his parent´s kitchen in North Carolina. El still has a southern accent and sings me James Taylor and Patsy Cline.

I tag Emily, Erik, and Laure. Give me five answer. You can pick the question.