I have two “milks”. They are the same size as my bellybutton. Also in tonight’s bathtub sketch-fest: a cat, a dog, a bear, a scary monster, herself, a spider, and a ladder.

Love this kid.

I know it exists. I see it often, in people “like me.” Just not in my family. I am genetically predispositioned to collect things, and although I have tried to fight it at times, I have consciously let it in a little in my adult years. Mostly in the form of Pyrex.

But also in the form of swizzle sticks that my grandfather (the one I never knew) brought back from his travels for my child-mom. My aunt got the matchbooks, my mom got swizzle sticks, and my grandmother kept the latter in a little office nook under her basement steps forever after he died, next to a mug full of pencils and pens and an unnecessary amount of letter openers. When I was little I’d always get them out, examine and read every location, and put them all back. For Christmas this year, my mom felt guilty about gifting a family quilt to my brother and his girlfriend without giving me a “family thing”, and when she asked what I wanted that was what I chose. Why? I have no idea. It makes me happy to see them on top of my cabinet – in a glass whose maker I learned to identify in mid-twenties (Hazel Atlas), stickers placed in the middleish by my mom when she was ten. It gives me much greater joy than any Pottery Barn item ever could.

And also in the form of family handmades / things previously owned by family. In taking a load of things to goodwill for my Ma a couple of weeks ago, I pilfered a great-grandma-crocheted cushion for myself. Almost weekly I wear glass beads that another great-grandmother slipped around her neck, with an apron, to farm and run a home every day of her life. I wear my grandfather’s chunky silver fraternity bracelet pretty regularly. For twelve years I’ve been wearing a ring that my mom bought in college for no real reason other than that I slipped it on in high school to see if it would fit, and didn’t ever think to take it off. There are blankets. There is a wooden silverware server that belonged to my great grandparents, which has never held silverware in my lifetime. An antique Fiestaware carafe. Is that even collecting? Or is that just passing down?

There are other little things here and there, but mostly, in the forefront of my brain at all times, are not the things that make up the collections I grew up with and continue to grow around – the collections of my family and my lifelong friends: stone jars, Fiestaware, Viking glass (and pretty much any other West Virginia glass… and Ohio… and, well, whatever depression glass), stoneware mixing bowls, arrowheads and other local artifacts, antique tools, guns (definitely not guns), dolls (since the freaking dawn of man), mostly-Navajo pottery and artifacts, costume jewelry, Apple Kitchen Stuff, Horse Stuff, Peanuts Stuff, figurines, TOOTHPICK HOLDERS, WVU memorabilia… if it needs to be dusted constantly, the people in my life collect it. And always, books. And records. Or whatever makes music at any point in time.

Mostly in the forefront of my brain is Pyrex. I can’t tell you why. I have pondered it, and I really can’t. My Ma has four bowls – a primary set – that she has had and used since she and Pa started keeping house. That is the only vintage-style Pyrex I can ever recall in my immediate life. Somewhere two years ago, though, I realized that – since I am not a Baker of Casseroles – I did not have a suitable baking dish for making a nice, deep, crispy batch of homemade mac & cheese. Shortly thereafter I goodwilled the largest of the spring blossom cinderella bowls, for $1.99, for purely practical reasons. Near as I can tell, that is where it started. I have since gifted out that bowl to a spring blossom collector. And… I just started………. wanting more Pyrex. And people just started….. giving it to me. And since I live in West Virginia, where people use things for their entire adult lives and then die, never having swapped out their mixing bowls for something more modern, there is an abundance of Pyrex to be had here, if you thrift often enough and get lucky. Even if you are in competition with your own brother, who scours for Pyrex for his loveliest-Megan-ever. If I walk into a thrift shop in town and bump into my brother, I either get a smirk and a glimpse at his prize, or a “there’s nothing good today.” I don’t buy it all, or even close to all of it. I don’t particularly like cinderella bowls. I don’t collect mugs or any other tableware. There are many patterns I will always pass up. But Pyrex? Oh mama.

It just happened. And it is the happiest, most functional thing I have ever collected. Way more functional than my childhood rocks, stamps, and animal-shaped candles that were always too cute to burn.

So Hazel has been down for the count with a fever and nothing else for 48 hours, and after spending most of those holding her and cuddling and doing absolutely none of my daily necessary tasks like showering and keeping things clean and tidy, she had a good morning. She pranced around in fleece pants and a sheer pink dress-up skirt and nothing else, assuring me that she was warm enough because she was “wearing a pretend shirt”, and allowed me enough time to accomplish something. I took advantage of the sunshine and spent half an hour photographing my collection, which I’ve been meaning to do for awhile. My brain is starting to require a few thinks about where did I get it / how much did I pay when I’m cooking or doing dishes. My grandpa just turned 83 and he can still tell you the purchase price and location of every single piece of everything that he has collected over the years and none of it is anywhere except in his head. This stresses me out. I’m 29. Better get started documenting to avoid stressing out my future granddaughters.

I don’t trade (yet), I don’t have a wishlist of pieces, I still have room for more with none in storage, I don’t buy online or pay antique store prices… I just look for Pyrex in thrift shops and if I like what I see and it’s fifty cents or a couple bucks, I buy. I like to think that I am pretty laid-back, but that doesn’t mean I won’t stroke out from excitement if I ever find a balloon chip and dip set in a thrift shop.

Listening: John Prine pandora

I can’t remember if the preorder happened before or after this video of the author reading the first chapter. I know that watching this video (and the one he did later on, of the second chapter), just about wrecked me… with its John-Green-is-awesome and all that.

I cried like a baby reading Looking for Alaska, so I’ve been equal parts elated and scared that this new one was soon to arrive in the mail.

My signed copy arrived in the mail last Saturday morning, and I’ve only cracked the spine to check for a hanklerfish (nope / that doesn’t make sense to anyone probably) and to do the without-even-thinking-about-it-take-a-whiff thing that I do with books.

I don’t really know how I am going to deal with a teenage cancer patient named Hazel, because based on real life (which this novel is not based on), I can guess how it ends.

But the Hazel that I love is sound asleep, and I have two cold beers in the fridge and a hundred other things I should be doing, including but not limited to: dishes, laundry, Work work, Etsy work, phonecalls, knitting stripes to add to the Valentine’s day blanket that I started for Hazel LAST YEAR and have resurrected from the Pile…

instead, I’ll go read. Almost always the superior choice.

Listening: Nick Drake pandora

So I wandered up. Was greeted at the door by a very enthusiastic old man who told me the story of this former pharmacy – closed down many many years ago, but the building was boarded up rather than being sold. Now the family was finally clearing things out to make the sale. The inside was like a fossil record of the 80s and beyond. There were some other normal-looking yard sale patrons paging through books. The guy shooed me inside and begged me to take things. He said he’d give me a deal.

Over an hour later I emerged victorious. And really really, dirty. Like, I went home and showered kind of dirty. Feeling a little guilty and like I had just committed some kind of yard sale robbery, but also sure that my grandpa would be proud of the price I paid for my haul, and positively giddy about my treasures.

For part of a sweltering hot Friday afternoon, I sat on a grimy chair in this grimy room and pawed through grimy boxes full of pristine greeting cards that were older than me by decades. They were amazing. I drooled. I fawned. I sorted out two boxes of the ones I wanted. What for? I didn’t know. I was completely consumed with the wanties. They were going to go in the trash the next day. There were hundreds and hundreds, most in multiples. They were almost entirely packaged neatly in flat, brown paper envelopes, reorder tickets sticking out of the tops. No bends, no creases, no fading, no de-glittering or de-flocking. The vellum was beautiful and crisp. They were all stock that had never been put out for sale.

I emerged into the sunlight with two big boxes of greeting cards. And then again with a box of lovely antique cameras, plus a couple of 70s Kodak gems (most have been gifted – I kept one). And then a box full of half-empty, ratty scrapbooks, which I devoured to learn a little of the family and the past of my town. On top of that last box was a super-ratty quilt, which lives on to enjoy outings onto the grass to listen to music and be sweated / bubbled / hummused on by happy, dancing children.

All told, I had paid the guy a sum so small that I can’t admit it here, even after fighting him and rounding up to something above “really fancy Starbucks coffee drink.”

So the cards. What in the hell do I do with hundreds and hundreds of beautiful vintage greeting cards? Aside from use and gift, I came up with two solutions. Some I will sell on Etsy. They have been in plastic totes for half a year because I felt a little guilty doing that. However, practicality wins and the first batch will be up shortly. Beyond that, I am scanning all of them and making them available for download here. They are all uploaded in their original size, for graphic taking and crafting in whatever way you are able. There are many, many more to be added to that set, so check back often.

The people who owned the pharmacy were German. They had a nice collection of cameras, mostly German as well. They were good photographers. The man – the pharmacist – had two doctor brothers, both lived in Florida. They took a lot of photos of snow. They sent Christmas cards. They baked cookies from stained, handwritten recipes. They rode horses on Kingwood street. The women had excellent taste in clothes, but, alas, were not my size.

Enjoy.

Listening: Nick Drake pandora (probably for the rest of “winter”)

Four days ago Hazel and I had a self-proclaimed snow day – the streets were sheets of ice and seven busses weren’t able to run, but they didn’t call school for our county. I stayed home from work, and she from daycare, anyway. One of those days where I am extra-grateful for my job. Now it’s almost sixty degrees, and yesterday she and her little buddy, Xavier, made “snow angels” in the pea gravel at the playground, with no need for outerwear / hats / gloves.

I’ve ventured into the worlds of air plants (so weird and impossible, inspired by these open-faced christmas balls that I bought on clearance for fifty cents each.) And the world of green smoothies (so far mostly spinach and celery and avocado, with some berries thrown in, a little juice, some chia or flax seeds… whatever leftover fruits or veggies are in the fridge… so far I haven’t had one turn out green because I am still playing it safe with my spinach : berry ratio. Two giant handfuls of spinach is my max.) Only a few days in, and I have markedly higher energy levels, which is much needed after two months of limping along, nursing some now-mild shit-in-my-throat illness that may or may not be whooping cough (apparently it’s going around? Hazel never got what I had?)

And I made a Pinterest. God help me.

Listning: Nick Drake pandora

I wrote a WV Etsy gift guide, in case you are in need of any last-minute gift ideas :)

(While you shop there, Hazel is currently pretending to shop in Target [kitchen] for her baby [stuffed dog]. She is buying treats. There are even automatic doors.)

There was a stalling-bedtime-inquiry about why twins she knows are referred to as their given names, but sometimes also as “Bubby and Sissy.” I quickly explain the concept of nicknames to an exhausted three year old. Kisses on her bean and that of every stuffed creature in her bed.

Ten minutes later I think she’s sound asleep when her voice comes trailing through the slightly-open door.

“Mommy?”

“Yes, honey?”

“I’m Hazel-banana.”

Comprehension.

Listning: John Prine