before :: after

today, kaitlyn and i (the 9-year-old i'm babysitting for the second summer in a row) sat on our towels on the grass at the town pool, sweating in the sun. she'd just finished the ice cream she was eating and turned to me.

"you know what i was thinking?"

no, i didn't.

"well, we could go into your car and put the air conditioning on, but guess what..."

i don't even have to guess, i know what you're going to say. we can't because it's broken.

"yep, your air conditioner is broken! uuugh!"

and we laughed, because we were both not looking forward to that ride home. the steering wheel and seat belt buckles too hot to touch, the delayed green at the turn onto lafayette ave, the sun in our eyes.

i told her i had shakira's "hips don't lie" on a mix cd, and so we played it twice on the way back.

...

and then i got home, anticipating mail.

i'd been waiting for my two pairs of levi's jeans to get shipped in the mail, or the dar williams cd i ordered off amazon over a week ago.

instead, i got an encrypted message from my art classmate in response to a letter i sent him earlier. i can't crack his code, and he's defaced a newspaper weather clipping... all different words are circled, and the symbolism is one that i can't even begin to comprehend.

life is sometimes interesting.