Evening: the sun sinking behind the hills behind the trees.
“What is this weight on my mind?
And what is this new sense of time?
It’s the open fields and the friends that are gone…”
-Gillian Welch
Cleaning up, I spotted this book, and thought of this poem, because yesterday evening I looked at dogs on petfinder* and cried my eyes out:
There wasn’t much excitement to be found
anywhere nearby,
so people would just go to the cemetery
when they wanted to give their
visiting company something interesting to do,
and they’d show them
the man and his dog,
and folks would marvel
and say things like,
how do you s’pose they
got them ribs in that dog,
and
I wonder if the dog’s buried, too,
and
how much you figure a tombstone
like this’d cost?
Then, without fail,
before leaving
each had shyly to
lean over and stroke that lovely dog’s head,
swallowing back the “good boy”
that was on their wondering lips.
*not for me of course :)
I have checked this listing about 75 times in the past 24 hours. Look like anyone you know?
Hazel gets to spend her birthday eve eve at Luca’s first birthday party, her birthday eve as a spectator at her ten year old cousin’s pre-birthday-slumber-party-fashion-show, her actual birthday at a halloween carnival for which her Grannie Anne has been meticulously constructing an alien, the day after her birthday having a party with her family at her Ma Ruth & Pa’s party house, and the day after the day after her birthday at a tiny Beany-hosted gathering (of two adults and three children) at Nazareth Farm.
She is going to be so sick of celebrations by the time we get back to Toronto that Mikey and I let her open her gifts today. She could be a professional present-unwrapper. Note to self: always save books for last or she will not be interested in the rest of the packages.
Tiny family. Banjo from daddy.
Horses & books. All good things.
Dear Hazel,
You already love books. The first thing you do every day is pull your books off the shelf. Mommy and I know you will someday come to love this book too. It’s one of our favorites.
Happy first birthday. We could not be more thankful for you.
Love,
Daddy and Mama
If we had hinges on our heads
There wouldn’t be no sin
‘Cause we could take the bad stuff out
And leave the good stuff in.
-Shel Silverstein
With no dog or baby around, Dorothy and Dietrich ruled the roost. This afternoon while packing up some books I read Pablo Neruda’s Oda al Gato, and it made me want to look at this photo. I found it. Taken exactly three years ago – strange.
Man wants to be a fish and a bird,
the snake would rather have wings,
the dog is a lost lion,
the engineer wants to be a poet,
the fly studies the swallow,
the poet tries to imitate the fly,
but the cat
wants only to be cat,
and every cat is cat
from whiskers to tail,
from hunches to live rat,
from night to its yellow eyes.
Listening: Patti Smith
(I am) Reading: recipes in old Vegetarian Times
(Hazel is) Reading: Eric Carle’s From Head to Toe
Packing progress: four boxes
Crafting and watching LOST until 1:00 in the morning.
Worse idea: blogging after that.
Hazel and I keep listening to her naptime mix from Aunt Janet at all hours of the day, not just naptime, and she always does a little extra dancing for Regina Spektor. I can’t help but smile to myself when I see her bobbing and flapping away to this song, because of course she has no idea…
And I wouldnt raise my child inside the city, anyway
They grow up too savvy and they grow up too fast
And they know about buying shit and they know about sex
And they know about investment banking and also about brokerage firms
And they know about the numbers and they know about the words
And they know about the bottom lines and also about stones
And they know about careers and about the real deals
And they all grow up and become peoples’ people with people skills
As a city kid, though, she has made far too many trips to Ikea for an eleven-month-long life. I went for a few specific things and left with only those things… including this tray. I have a weakness for serving trays. I like my food to be pretty. I am a nomadic crafter, always carting projects around on trays to work on everywhere but at my craft table (because it is now covered with Work Laptop and Stuff and Finished Projects and In Progress Projects). I plan on having lots more babies and my midwives will need trays to hold all of their instruments while they follow me around. Jess, you will have your pick of birds, elephants, polkadots, stripes… all sorts of cheery and colorful possibilities when you birth babyfrate number two.
Listening: Regina Spektor, et. al.
(I am) Reading: The Blue Cotton Gown
(Hazel is) Reading: still stuck on Mary Had a Little Lamb
Working on: ephemera packs, but I think I’m going to have to cut myself off – they’re overflowing my work table
Packing progress: packed one box
I’m never gonna know you now
but I’m gonna love you anyhow
I had another murder dream last night – second or third this year. I was standing in (not my) yard, and some really really young kid pulled up in a vintage mustang convertible and asked if I wanted a ride.
“Where to?”
“Anywhere.”
And I pulled out a gun and emptied the whole clip into his chest.
WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH ME??
I keep telling myself that yesterday Mikey, John and I discussed guns, and this is why I had this dream. And plus I sell collectible cars at my job.
That reminds me: sometime last week a mid-thirties looking guy came in and wanted to look at a bunch of different cars – average $50 - that are kept in floor to ceiling glass display cases. We looked at a couple of Bentleys, a Porsche, a BMW… at some point I asked if he was the collector or if he was looking for a car for someone else. He just stared at me for a moment and then said “well…. I collect the real thing. These are just for my little son.”
Oh. Cool. I collect… a Honda.
Long cats, chillin’ during some LOST. I don’t know if Dietrich’s tail will ever have the puffiness factor that it possessed before the Allergic Reaction Ass-Balding Episode.
I need something from you people. The handful that I know read this, and the lurkers who never comment (Lauren is now out of the closet – who are the rest of you?). I know you exist. When I started linking photos to my flickr page, views there tripled.
Make up a name to comment, I don’t care, but I need the following things: good sounding song lines or poem lines (one or two, maybe three lines would do); appealing words (for example, I like how “Zimbabwe” looks); figures of speech (you know, right as rain, fit as a fiddle); back-to-backs… like the jeopardy category (ozone layer cake, etc.). Stuff like that. Things that would make good text. Lots of it. As many as you can think of.
In the past three days, I have knitted through three discs of season two. That’s twelve episodes, forty-five minutes each. I never want to stop either of those things.
Today I wandered around for awhile looking for retail / coffee shop jobs. I slowly began to realize that none of these places hand out applications. Even at the Second Cup – which is a huge coffee shop chain – they just ask for a resume. I eventually came home because I had none with me, since I was expecting to just pick up two million annoying applications that would take me four hours to fill out the exact same way, over and over. Tomorrow I will go back out armed with a folder of resumes. God knows I can make coffee. My new, separate job goal is to find a job that’s tolerable and well paying enough to be worthwhile, but not so amazing that when they say “no you can’t have that weekend off” – referring to either of the two wedding weekends coming up – I can just quit and I won’t care. The second cup in the downstairs of my building is sort of hiring – they’re doing renovations right now so they said it might be a month or so at another store and then back there. It would be sweet to work downstairs and never have to go into the snow if I don’t want to.
Last night I spent over an hour on craftster reading a thirty-something page thread of people whose hearts have been broken at Christmastime because people didn’t care about their handmade gifts. It made me want to scrap every Christmas present idea I have… until I remembered that my friends and family are not consumer-freaks who can’t appreciate a good pair of knitted socks. Kidding, kidding. No one is getting socks. I will need all of them here in Siberia.
This is a good album.
Don’t let your soul get lonely child
It’s only time, it will go by
Listening: Ray Lamontagne : Till the Sun Turns Black
Reading: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Saw Billy Bragg tonight. He’s an enigma… a genius musician who is NOT a good guitar player. His stage banter is excessive and comic gold. The altered lyrics about Bush being gone soon are just what this sad little american needs to hear.
On the way to the show we walked by this spectacle that I have passed at least ten times since it was arranged a couple of weeks ago and never really paid attention to. There are always people crowded around taking photos, and I still did not feel the need to observe more closely. Today, for some reason, I looked harder, and then had to take a photo for myself. It’s a huge granite table on the sidewalk, set for twelve or so people with china and silverware and champagne flutes. In the middle is a lime green Lamborghini. There’s always a security guard with a clipboard standing inside the red rope enclosure. I just thought it was some strange Wedgewood china vs. fancy car sales scheme, and it sort of is.
It’s being held up by four teacups. One under each tire. I suppose that’s not as impressive as the cohesive/adhesive abilites of water molecules and the way THAT can hold up a car, but it was at least photo worthy.
Maybe I will find a job this week. Kathy’s theory is that she’s not going to find a job until she wins a game. If this is true, I should definitely find a job this week because Mikey and I kick ASS at games. And we won last night. Again. I haven’t won anything by myself, but we are in the lead as a pair. Does this mean I’m inferior as an individual?
I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them
but they were only satellites
is it wrong to wish on space hardware?
I wish, I wish, I wish you’d care…
Hardest weekend ever is over. I did nothing but say goodbye to people and cry. My three year old cousin wrapping her skinny arms around my neck, saying “don’t move” over and over about did me in. I’m sure most of my heart is still broken into one million pieces all over my Grandparents’ driveway.
At least I can stop panicking about it now that it’s done, I guess.
Dear Katherine Hepburn,
Thank you for paying my student loan bill with your face, which I just sold on ebay for fifty-five dollars.
Dear summertime,
Thank you for finally containing summer-like activities. At least in Ethan’s backyard, where we danced to John Prine songs on an uneven surface of creek rock, dripping cold-beer-can-sweat onto the tops of our feet, spinning and jumping perhaps a little too close to the fire pit. I promise that I kept one motherly eye on him while the other photographed Mikey from every angle.
Dear Lucero,
Thank you for coming back to Morgantown, where I might actually get to see you if these paper dolls keep selling and fate will allow. I love your whiskey and mountains voice, even if you are cocky.
Dear JK Rowling,
Thanks to you, I am going to be in grief counseling with Janet, Cooper, and Maggie at least. How does it feel to know that you are going to be torturing the very souls of MILLIONS? Maybe you really are evil.
Dear Mr. Iafrate,
Thank you for being one of those loathed people who has everything good happen to them with very little effort, because it’s rubbing off on me. I now have a GOOD summer job that I did not even have to apply for – it just fell into my lap. Also, you fell asleep face down on the floor behind me, and now the rest of your beer is getting warm. Wake up and drink up, son.
