I visited Haiti once, in the early ’90s, not for a travel story but an article about the South Florida organization Food for the Poor. As the local contact led us through Cite Soleil, the worst slum in Port-au-Prince, various locals attached themselves to us, including a teenage boy who spoke with me in French. Before leaving, he wrote his name and address on a small scrap of paper and asked me, when I got home, to send him a French-English dictionary.
I no longer remember the quarterback’s name, or the team he played for, but after he completed a long pass Keith Jackson said: “You give that young man time he’ll go home with your hat.”
A friend emailed from Germany, asking if I’d made any New Year’s resolutions. Well, the perennial one: learn Spanish. (This is the year!) Also, the other day at Trader Joe’s I bought a jar of kimchee and told myself I would eat more of it in 2018. Though quite different, the two share an international aspect (appropriate for a travel writer) and, if realized, will allow me to combine a bad accent with bad breath.
May this year bring peace, happiness, fulfillment, and at least one literary magazine that refuses to accept submissions from people with MFAs.
"So how many stitches?" I asked my dermatologist after a seemingly longer than usual session of sewing on my face. He had just removed another early stage squamous cell carcinoma.
"Six," he said.
"Hmm, I thought more."
"He's slow," the nurse said.
"I'm meticulous," said the doctor.
Yesterday I showed Hania the makowiec (poppy seed roll) I'd bought at the Polish deli for the condo Christmas party tonight.
"I hope nobody's planning to take a drug test soon," she said.
Steve Harvey hosted the Miss Universe pageant again last night and it was beautifully appropriate that a few of the contestants, in hoping to demonstrate a degree of familiarity, mistakenly addressed him as "Harvey."