01.08.02 - 10:43 p.m.

the clouds from our last couple days of snow all cleared out today, so that by the time i was walking home - after sunset - just after sunset - the sky was clear as a bell. oh, and so, richly blue you could have skewered me then and there, and i would not have noticed. sometimes a color just sets all your senses singing, all your cells tingling - so rich and breathingly hued. this dark-blue, jewel-toned and rich as the luxurious aftermath of an orgasm, the kind where you're drifting off to sleep and snuggling under the covers and flinging a casual arm around familiar shoulders that once again seem a little less familiar, a little more mysterious, a little more delicious and opaque and necessary.

and, with the sun just set and the sky so dark blue and the winter's short twilight, and the sun's light spilling but barely over the horizon sort of backlighting the night sky and the buildings, it all seemed fake. like i had wandered onto a street on a movie set, and all the buildings looked real, but they were just fronts cleverly faked to convince me that they were real.

still breathless from this encounter with the sky, i walked past (of all things) the fire hydrant i walk past everyday. it's surprisingly tall for a fire hydrant, it comes up almost to my chest. if i had to describe it in one word, i would say it is lanky.

and i remember once upon a time being fascinated by fire hydrants. my grandmother lives in a small city in pennsylvania. she lives on a quiet residential street in a quiet residential neighborhood that is sort of sandwiched between two busier roads, and less than a quarter block from the streets dead end at the creek. the next block up from her, the street is divided into two halves by a grassy island in the middle. i think the fire hydrants are on the island, but that isn't the important bit about this memory.

see, maybe during the bicentennial, they had a contest to paint the fire hydrants and all the fire hydrants were painted by area artists, or perhaps high school students. usually, they made the hydrant look like a person, though i suppose some had other themes.

and as far back as i remember my grandmother's house, i remember those fire hydrants. i was fascinated by them, and i loved to go for walks with my grandmother so i could see the fire hydrants. i don't know whether or not i asked her endlessly about the damn hydrants, and why they were painted, but i think the story must have come up a time or two.

the bicentennial story could be apocryphal, something i've filled in since then. though, absent the cool fire hydrants i can't see why i could have been aware of the bicentennial by the time i was old enough to accurately remember such things.

in any case, i literally looked forward to going to grandma's because i knew i would get to see the decorated hydrants. i loved them. i TOTALLY loved them, and i'm not sure why. i remember, though, sort of imagining how COOL the people who painted the fire hydrants must be, to have painted the fire hydrants - FIRE hydrants. to have painted something permanent and serious in all these festive colors, in all these clever ways. how cool and defiant and just, just unique these people must've been.

i don't remember giving the individual fire hydrants personalities of their own, though i wouldn't put it past myself. i mean, i always anthropomorphized things. like my stuffed animals. i was convinced that they woke up when i went to sleep, and had big old confabs about me, and discussed me in depth, in frightening detail.

oh, maybe that's where my paranoid comes from. maybe it's a fuzzy paranoia, and can be traced back to those early nights when i would lay awake, breathless and half-wondering what my teddy bear would say to the others. and, if he was in my bed, would he get up and walk back to the toy chest? would he should across the room? or would he just hafta wait until i returned him to his co-conspirators, lambie, big rabbie, and dolly?

(wasn't i clever with my names for my stuffed animals? i had big rabbie, a big rabbit. and i had lambie. he was a lamb. and i had my teddy bear, who didn't have any seperate name. and i had a few dollies. generally, i think they were called dollie. i had a big dog, and i think (you guessed it!) he was called dollie.

when i was a little older, i was in love with the names Kim and Kendra and Sherri, but I don't remember naming any stuffed animals. although i was apt to pretend that i had an older sister named kendra. ask my parents. if they were having a dinner party, i would put on my blue dress-up dress (as in, the game dress-up, not a sunday dress) and my rhinestones and sail downstairs to clear the table.

except i wasn't me, i was kendra. kendra was cool. kendra was a waitress, and thus particularly cool. and thus, she didn't mind clearing the table, where i would dislike it immensely. if asked, i would deny being myself and claim to be kendra, elizabeth's older sister. unfortunately, i never knew enough to ask for a tip.

oooo. i'm going to email my parents and ask if they remember kendra. i'll post their responses here tomorrow.

and even though this trip down memory lane has not reached a conclusion that will tie it all together, it's ending. i need to get to bed. i hafta be up early tomorrow.