blessed virgin izzy.

today, i went to a 7 a.m. yoga class, returned to georgetown and puttered worked and then went to swim at volta pool (that was packed today). i did some more ella watson work and while i was in the shaw neighborhood, i saw mr. judd's taxi cab...and sure enough, there was sylvester judd at the wheel. we got to speak only briefly because i was in the road and he was stopped at a traffic light, but it sure was great to bump into him. i had only gotten to inquire about raven, his granddaughter, when i needed to keep moving. but it was a welcome and fortuitous sighting.

in the early evening, i met tom + miri for another evening yoga class with angela. i peddled to and from yoga both ways. i am tired from all the exertion especially in the sun, but i am determined to stretch out my sciatica and psoas and to mend my wrist + tendonitis and to turn my frown upside down. on all three points, it is working.

yesterday, i went to Mass at st. stephen the martyr because it was the feast of the assumption and my mother called this fact to my attention during a phone call early in the a.m. she was about to sort of let me off the hook, but then i remembered all the sacrifices my own mother has made for me, and i do feel close to the BVM. and, like i said to my mom, the BVM helped me to get to first base in fourth grade. (when i played softball and was a fairly hopeless hitter, my mother made the first of many deals with the blessed virgin mary on my behalf. and BAM! i got right on base).

at any rate, i should have known i was in trouble when i saw several filipinas in mantillas. i was impressed with the undulating ceiling and the overall Modernist interior of the parish, and i got lost in thought about stained glass and naves and apses. at some point in the Mass (after Liturgy of the Word when i typically do pay more attention), i tuned into what was going on around me, and i realized that people were singing in latin. i got out of there pretty quickly before i was abducted into opus dei.

then, i met izzy and her friend byrann for a pancake mountain dance party at 9:30 with X. i so love john doe; henry rollins was also on hand so it was fun. spotted some of the pals from the guster dance party there. but the sound check took way too long and scott had crafted a pretty elaborate scheme involving 25 letters for the event. so, we left before it was over because IZZY HAD A DATE. a double date, but a date nonetheless. i was so grilling her about what's up. she is 13 years old for god's sake. i remember when she was a little girl and she and katie, her cousin, had a mad crush on googie (a.k.a. dreamy david silver). i want her to remain the same sweet child who could put any three circles together and see mickey mouse's head. i want her to be the little girl who would make spike lee pictures with me (she had a way of saying sparkly -- that is glitter -- that made her parents wonder what precisely we would do together). i want her to be the little girl who would read me the descriptions of girl scout cookies into my answering machine -- when i physically had a machine -- attached to a phone that had a cord.

as we walked from the U street metro stop to 9:30 club, i seized upon the chance to offer a little neighborhood history. i explained the history of black broadway, segregation, the violence of 1968, and how the U street corridor had only recently started to turn around. en route, we came upon a man on a mountain bike who was trying to figure out why we were headed to a show in broad daylight. i ended up engaging him for too long. i realized it was too long when i focused on the DVD case he was carrying...it was a porno called something involving chocolate pudding pie. (i think that there might have been a lot of Black girl on girl action in it.) i sort of shooed him along and then asked my pals, les petite enfants, whether they saw what he was carrying. it crushed me to hear izzy talk about chocolate pudding pie.

when we saw her mom later, i immediately told liza about it because i think that parents should know these things. i blurted out the details as she was making sure that the girls were walking on the sidewalk rather than with me in the street. really, it was a little more like i was in the gutter exposing these young girls to a gritty street life that doesn't really play out in such unseemly ways as this on guilford road in college park.