Greetings! Yes!

It is I, Hannah, Queen of the Universe and Conquerer of Many Small Children, Redhot & Blogging you from a bed barely three inches off the floor! Yes, in my lovely new sublet at 49 Admiral Street in good ol' New Haven, I sleep on a mattress that is what I can only describe as the absolute perfect height off the rug below. It's on this wooden crate-type item, and it makes me feel like some sort of mendicant monk or artsy troglodyte. Here on this cute little bed, I am a new woman: low-maintenance in an earthy kind of way, utterly practical, and very very cool. As you can see, summer has already changed me.

AND I mention the small children because, though you may think you know me as the shamefully gung-ho chick who sends you far too many e-mails, these days I pass my waking hours between the four-to-six walls at New Haven Reads, a non-profit book bank that provides free one-on-one literacy tutoring services for local kids. Children, I have learned, are out of their tiny minds. On Thursday, little Jaylen and I were drawing with colored pencils. I drew a sunshine. He promptly told me that Jesus lives in the sun. I asked him, who told you that, Jaylen? He said, But don't talk to the bad Jesus; he'll kill you. (Well, I suppose Jaylen does not speak with semicolons. The child can barely read.) I said, oh, and we moved onward with our lives. 

But the calm never lasts – not when your name is Hannah and you have a tendency to hum quietly (or not so quietly) to yourself. HANNAH MONTANA, they shout, joyously, as though they have finally found me after so many years of waiting, wondering, and watching my sitcom on the Disney Channel. HANNAH MONTANA HANNAH MONTATA! Do they actually believe that I am, in fact, that beloved icon of the torn identity of twenty-first century tweens, or is it some other instinct that causes them to shout her name every time I speak my own? For my second tutoring session with little Jennie, she arrived clad entirely in Hannah Montana gear. I thought it was just the t-shirt until she stood up and the full horror of her outfit was revealed to me. Why, I asked. She couldn't really put it into words. 

So, snapshots, snapshots. I miss singing things with you people.

Bon soir,

Hannah