{"id":639,"date":"2009-05-05T23:07:10","date_gmt":"2009-05-06T03:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/2009\/ritual\/"},"modified":"2009-05-05T23:07:15","modified_gmt":"2009-05-06T03:07:15","slug":"ritual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/2009\/ritual\/","title":{"rendered":"Ritual"},"content":{"rendered":"

I get the Express every day, folded in gloved hand, the Ballston guy hands in syncopated rhythm, “hello, beautiful;thank you darlin, here you go hon,” fwip, fwip, fwip, the papers fly hand to hand to hand. “thank you sir,” I say. every day. in harmony with the clipping shoes, spreading umbrellas, buttoning coats.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

[“Stormy Personalities” by Fu Man Jew on flickr]<\/p>\n

I take out my metrocard in one hand, folded paper in the other, pull out pen, and begin.<\/p>\n

I might flip through the paper – if there’s a picture of the president or news that’s not alarming or mundane, but quickly i get to it: the crossword.<\/p>\n

I like the feel of blue marker ink spreading over newsprint, letters into squares, into clues, into words until the grid is complete. I try to do them by the time I reach the office, and definitely by the time I reach home.<\/p>\n

Then I send it to recycle bin and wait for morning to begin. again.<\/p>\n

words<\/a>, ritual<\/a>, crosswords<\/a>, express<\/a>, ink<\/a>, morning<\/a><\/p>\n

Powered by ScribeFire<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I get the Express every day, folded in gloved hand, the Ballston guy hands in syncopated rhythm, “hello, beautiful;thank you darlin, here you go hon,” fwip, fwip, fwip, the papers fly hand to hand to hand. “thank you sir,” I say. every day. in harmony with the clipping shoes, spreading umbrellas, buttoning coats. [“Stormy Personalities” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[766,622],"tags":[1180,876,1181,1182,1179,1249],"class_list":["post-639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wash","category-words","tag-crosswords","tag-express","tag-ink","tag-morning","tag-ritual","tag-words"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":640,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions\/640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}