Monday, January 31, 2005

pigeon...

today during the lunch break i went to sit under the usual tree. someone had already visited. grizzly visit. little bits of down pinned to the tips of grass. two bodiless pigeon's wings. one pigeon egg, unharmed, in a down-filled hollow. the wings were quite a pace from the down. the egg at the base of the tree. looking up there was no nest. no remnants even. sometimes reptiles expel eggs when stressed. maybe birds do, too. the egg was whole so i doubt that it fell from tree limbs. i laid down and looked up into the branches again. a pigeon nest is crude. there wasn't sign of a crude nest.

i feel like that brown gold dogs hide. that canine calling card. i think i'm catching the terrible flu everybody seems to be sharing. it started this morning. my throat hurt. i sipped my green tea. i sipped it some more. i went to the store and replenished my cache. i took an aspirin. i don't like to do that. i did it. i still feel like dog droppings.

there will be no perambulating this evening. natch!

maybe the pigeon met a feral cat. dunno.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

well...

that's my worst nightmare! i hear that often. people talking on the bus. people laughing privately together. i overhear talk of nightmares. it's odd. worst nightmares have eight legs. are razor sharp. they have big teeth and hidden clauses. all rational in part. what we think we are afraid of.

i wake up cursing, terrified of a mason jar (i'm fictionalizing. have never dreamt of mason jars. let's pretend). a run that has no finish. sand. a box of foxes. luncheon meat. a train without rails. little boys who are silent. an unraveled string. grass blowing under a wind. the old fashioned hat. what we don't know we know we are afraid of.

i suppose people also actually dream of their worst nightmare. dunno. dunno.

tonight's walk featured nightcrawlers. raw rasping in darkness. i always think they are leaving the saturated soil for the less wet. it's very scientific, what i think. (indignant throaty noises). but i really don't know. only guessing. maybe earthworms also guess. maybe they're not equipped for that. again, i don't know. it looks painful. skinless crawl on diamond bright pavement. skinless? no. but tender.

hmm. that is all. have to do that sleep thing. and that curse at my alarm thing.

buenos noches.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

takin' it off here boss...

a pack of preschoolers all tethered one to the next passed by.

me: chaingang.
sister: yep. off to the lego mines.

i had to wipe away a tear i laughed so hard. she's quick, that one.

also...

the heel of the good and plenty progresses. my work is slow going. i'm always slow going. i'm not sure i have any other gear. 's okay. the sock will be crafted carefully.


Monday, January 24, 2005

swoon...

i think i love a crocodile. today my cheburashka dvd came. i've watched two episodes of the four on the disc. gena crocodile is so freakin' cute. what a crushworthy reptilian gentleman. all the characters are cute! and they're kind. they go about building playgrounds for roly-poly little boys and girls. they illegally borrow compressors and power tools. they throw melon rinds. the animal characters don't live in the zoo-- they work there. gena is a crocodile. gena works as a crocodile. there's something to that. maybe. and cheburashka. my good god. i haven't seen any creature that cute since totoro. i'm going to savor the two remaining episodes. i wish i knew a crocodile that played the accordion. a mischievous old lady. a creature of unknown origins with jug ears and a russian accent. i suppose that's what we have stop motion for.

wellidy. it's the mom's birthday today. yes. along with neil diamond. brilliant. is it neil or neal? hm. dunno. in any case, i won't be baking him a cake. i will be baking the mother one.

later.

Sunday, January 23, 2005

oracle...

it's that time of year again. the supermarkets blushed. the indecent gloss of bagged candies. white paper doilies. love in iambic pentameter (such romantic feet).

the sister and i have a valentine's tradition. we buy a box of those candy hearts with the words printed on the face. we form questions in our minds. we choose hearts at random. it's like sugary mad lib. it's like an oracular practice. except we don't huff fumes from fissures first. we don't peer into entrails. we just read from the wisdom of the brach gods.

too cute. call me. yr sweet. nice. b mine. luv.

it seems that every year there are more and more hearts that don't make sense. the phrases are more cryptic. there's something missing. the relevance is suspect.

wintergreen is dominant. the lavender heart tastes like a lavender heart. tastes like a lavender heart. tastes like a lavender heart. the sugar cracks, cleaves. compacts in the low dents. throbs. how else can a cavity. that's consistency.

anyhow, it takes away when the automatic doors slide apart and everything left and right is flushed and florid. red corrugated borders and some dumpling shaped children are elbowing each other over the last plush dog.

the last plush dog. that would be. oh please.

i'm going to send orange valentines.

in other news...

it's incredibly moony outside. a stray cat keeps coming to my house and eating the food i set out for my cats. it will rub along my legs each step i take. it won't let me pick it up. when it sits down to relax it sticks out its tongue. cheeky.

oh. look at the time. 'night.

Friday, January 21, 2005

snow blind...

today a postcard arrived from the dentist. the front is a peanuts cartoon. kind of. snoopy is walking across a snowy field with a gigantic toothbrush and tube of paste. the bubble says: yes, sir...i'm armed and ready.

the sister examined the postcard.

sister: hmm. i don't get it.
me: it's from the dentist.
sister: and?
me: i think you have to be a dentist.
sister: yes.

it is cute. but why a snowy field? is there some metaphorical reason for snow? it is my cleaning card, afterall. but that would be a pretty big claim to make. and honestly, who wants teeth as white as snow? goggles, folks. they're to a purpose.

a frame out of context.

is not that funny.

a talking dog with novelty hygiene implements, that's my speed, though.

i'm so tired right now. i think i might actually have instant sleep. to try. g'night.



Wednesday, January 19, 2005

this and that...

this morning was such a good, good morning. i give it a ten. i had insomnia last night and really dreaded having to wake up when that gadget by my bedside bade me. but after stumbling around for a minute or so, i felt good. and when i sat in the courtyard, drinking from an inordinately hot styro cup, listening to my headphones, my day seemed to be shaping up nicely. and it did, too! i can't believe this is january! it was so warm outside. i wore a t-shirt! i'm grateful for the break in stormy weather, but i hope this doesn't spell the end of winter. anyway, my morning was luverly. and i'm not usually so jolly of a morning.

two black lambs. two white herons. two white sheep. two different fields.

s.b. is going to tutor me pianowise. it's been a longed long time since i've played anything. and i was pretty bad to begin with. but it will be fun. although, i think s.b.'s confidence in my abilities will need some ratcheting. i'm not just being colorful when i say that i suck.

the russian is not going anywhere yet. i think i'll have to resort to plan b: kidnapping native speakers. i jest. that would be silly.


Tuesday, January 18, 2005

flickr, flickr, flickr, flickr here you are!

i borrowed that from robert smith. anyway, i'm flickring. i know not what to do with a camera. i should have taken photo class with all of my school friends. i didn't. and now we must all suffer because of it. for the brave.

Monday, January 17, 2005

collected letters...

i like to read diaries and collections of letters. other people's correspondence. i like them because they are almost always about nothing. about passing the salt. about what they had for lunch. maybe they write about something they saw when they were walking to buy bread. something they saw from the window of a train. every once in a while something exciting happens to them. then they pass the salt again. mostly, i'm only passing salt. i tend to think that's exciting, too. somehow.

Sunday, January 16, 2005

errmmm...

i've just realized that my previous post sounds suspect. i was very wee when my brothers drew a cowboy portrait on my bare backside. very wee. but i remember it vividly. they cried with laughter. i cried in earnest. but it is really galldarn funny now.

also funny:

brother s.: open your mouth and close your eyes and we'll give you a surprise.
me: aaahh (complying)
brother m.: hehehe (putting my own hand in my mouth)
brother s.: bite it!
me: aaaarrrgggghhh! (crying)
brothers all: hahahahahaha! (crying)

i'm embarrassed to say how many times i fell for this same trick. i later had my revenge, though. and that is all i'll say about that.


Saturday, January 15, 2005

yu-ro...

i have a new niece today! yay!

welcome to the world! good luck! blessings! and trust your mali goo-goo, you're going to need them. oh, and try not to fall asleep naked or else you'll wake with a mustachioed portrait of eli wallach (ca. the good, the bad and the ugly) scribbled on your bare behind, compliments of your dear old da. whenever he laughs with his face all squinched up, i die a little inside, remembering. some wounds never heal.

Friday, January 14, 2005

how well for the birds...

also from the book sale: kings, lords, and commons, an anthology from the irish translated by frank o'connor. it was free. they just wanted to get rid of it. the poems are from the seventh to the nineteenth century. i opened directly to this poem and decided to keep the book:

how well for the birds that can rise in their flight
and settle together on the one bough at night,
it is not so with me and the boy of my heart,
each morning the sun finds us rising apart.

how well for the flowers when my sweetheart goes walking,
how well for the house when he sits in it talking,
how well for the woman with whom he'll be sleeping,
her morning star and her star of evening.

as white as the sloebush in spring is my darling,
as bright as the seabirds from wave to wave swarming,
as the sun fills the ocean all day with its gleaming,
rising and setting he fills all my dreaming.


the author is not given. but an editorial note says something about the "version" given. it's in a section of the anthology called "peasants and dreamers" so it probably survives in many versions.

it has birds. i opened to it. that struck me. so now it's here.

also, there was a copy of two short tales in beginner's russian. i don't speak russian. but i think i want to. i've already started learning my letters. soon i'll have the sound of a little russian. and with practice, a bigger russian. and so on and so forth. doug, i'm practicing on you. and you can't stop me! mwahahaha.

oyster mushrooms are growing on the willows. yay! yay! and yay! they look like fleshy ladders. and doesn't that sound dirty. kinda.

i go.

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

a little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men...

wellidy. i've gotten some flack lately for my love of cartoon and musicals, for cuddly things and creatures with big melty eyes. hence that previous bit about twee etc. i can't help it. i genuinely like them. but also, sometimes, i genuinely like to make fun of them. sometimes even both at once. so, tired of being jabbed i thought i'd jab back. silly really, on account of the fact that the one jabbing me doesn't even read this. gah. oh well. 's okay. there's no sense jabbing somebody who can't remember why they liked to sit cross-legged some saturdays and watch mighty mouse or scooby doo. or even little lulu. something tells me if i jab back i'll only find sawdust. maybe crumbs. i'm not endorsing a return to jam-dirtied hands and piss pants or anything. just, mind you don't lose your sense of humor. please don't shun something for being nonsensical and easy on the eyes.

end rant.

today at the book sale i was given a free copy of a book i had when i was about thirteen. it was one of my favorite books (along with ishi), hanta yo. it's an account of several generations of dakota peoples and various subtribes (?) the lakota and nakota. it had a glossary of dakota words in the back and notes on pronunciation. yesterday i was telling my sister how i really wanted to read that again for some reason but i didn't have a copy. and then today i found one! this is much nicer than the edition i had before. it's hardcover. anyway, somewhere in the story there's a bit about a healer who faces a really difficult task. he has a critically wounded patient and any kind of effective treatment, any hope for recovery is looking fairly grim. he knows the character of the man in his care. he knows the man is stubborn and has a quick temper. so, he begins trying to revive the guy by flailing a whip right in front of the recumbent man's eyes and face. it eventually pisses him off to such a degree that he grabs the whip from the healer's hand. hmm. i don't know why that has remained with me for so long.

anyhow.

a break in the rain. yippee!

Monday, January 10, 2005

missing...

twelve are missing, not dead. ten have been killed in the recent series of western storms. i'll go before i sound anything more like a talking head.

mudslide...

there's been a terrible mudslide south of us. santa barbara county. apparently, twelve folks have died. sad. we needed rain so badly and we're getting it all at once. the reservoir here is full. tonight we may get another five inches of rain. another two foot rise in the res means it will breach the dam. gah. i really hope they get all of those people down south evacuated. ocean front/cliff front property is not the place to be tonight.

ahoy...

the squirrels are dustier than i had imagined. i'm just popping in to say hello. i haven't written anything since i haven't written here. i fear atrophy. (a trophy!) i must keep the fingers adequately musculartured. muscularized. muscularated. anyway.

imaginary armies with real squirrels in them.

i hope not.

the jug-eared and beguiling cheburashka is probably already en route to my very post office box. yay!

any moment i'm supposed to renounce all things twee and precious. they are, i believe, holding their breath for it. but god bless the suction. the gaseous. born on bloat. aloft. bye-bye, balloons. twee is a sound that birds make naturally. precious is life, too. there's also enough room for cynicism and jades. once in a while i wear them around my neck. but i can't afford the good ones. only the cheapest cuts. enough!

the sister clipped me 'air last night. i am significantly less tressed. i have wispy pieces skimming my jaw. and swingy bits where formerly none swung. i was a little nervous about the operation but i reasoned it was better to hand the shears to the sister than enact my own plan. that plan involved my grabbing a giant hank of hair and lopping it off without regard to aesthetics. such was my frustration. a person can only have so much hair. unless you are country western music star crystal gale. the sister cuts her own hair with magnificent results. very beautiful. she did well with mine. i am pleased.

within the week i should have a new niece. yu-ro, tentatively. i hope i spelt that right. it means "tender rain" which is appropriately related to my nephew whose name is "grateful for rain." i've never had a niece. yay!

it is STILL raining. we now have canals. it would even be romantic if it wasn't for the slightly sewer-ish smell the town is acquiring. hrrm.

it is the time of the frogs. they swarm the streets at night without regard for traffic safety or their own welfare. berserkers. obviously they're hatching a plot. or, they've hatched a plot.

well crap. i wanted to say something lasting. something stick-to-the-ribs to keep us until the next installment. but, unfortunately, i'm fresh out of that. i'll return in a less moldy state. i promise.


Wednesday, January 05, 2005

oh crumb!

being young in an old world. that was satie. i forgot that part. i don't think he'll mind.

despair...

i haven't read this one. last night i began.

from the foreword:

'the ecstatic love of a young writer for the old writer he will be some day is ambition in its most laudable form. this love is not reciprocated by the older man in his larger library, for even if he does recall with regret a naked palate and a rheumless eye, he has nothing but an impatient shrug for the bungling apprentice of his youth.'

--v. nabokov

what about the woman? maybe some day i'll report.

oh, this other bit from the foreword was good, too. observe:

'hermann and humbert are alike only in the sense that two dragons painted by the same artist at different periods of his life resemble each other. both are neurotic scoundrels, yet there is a green lane in paradise where humbert is permitted to wander at dusk once a year; but hell shall never parole hermann.'

so far, like most experience with nabokov, i am transfixed.

new yarn. new socks. i've dubbed these the "good and plenty" socks because they resemble colorwise the movie theater candy favorite of my elder brothers. yum. black licorice. i doubt, however, that i will ever produce the horrid "sugar baby" sock, "jujube" sock or "bit o' honey" sock. some things should not be subject to imitation.

i'm in a quoting mood. reap it. here:

'i've arrived very young in a very old world."

hmm. perhaps a misquote. a hundred thousand pardons, i've only strained the juice.

i may not post for a few days. i need to dust the squirrel army. but really i made that up. the squirrel part, not the absence. fear not. i'll return to grace you with my girlish wonder and inane...inanities. ttfn.


Monday, January 03, 2005

fog...

the begonia leaf i pocketed from the plant in the cafe is loaded with threads of roots. white ones. they look crisp and brittle middle. they look pliant and fragile end. but that's to be expected. i'm not meant to see them. they should be in soil. they are in glass.

oh strange dreams last night. an old woman on her porch and warnings of gleaming wolves. my quick-to-hide motion was her amusement. but my absolute terror was real. and the blood was real. and the splinters of the loft i hid in. so real. but the thin fragile beings on the light littered grass also real. and their complete calm. the old woman just knitting and watching. fir trees. i put my face into the lowest branches. sweet. grass under my belly. and all of the calm viewed through a hole the biggest gleaming wolf ripped through the battlement. and he had, briefly, a face. human face. and then i kicked him there. and then he was a wolf again. and the old woman stood chuckling. was it before or after i walked by the library? i had to get down and crawl. the stairs inchwormed under me. my fingers were raw from climbing. i stared at a branch too long and became embarrassed. a hand on my chin and then i was standing upright and had to speak to the assembled crowd. it was right.

i gave brussels sprouts a second chance last night. i've discovered the slight bitterness is actually very tasty. i think they are one of my new favorite vegetables. vegetable love.

a grey day here. but the rain has halted for now. i need to poke around out there.

watched "hedgehog in the fog" over and over. that one is so beautiful. and funny. charming.

hmm. that is all for now.

thank you. come again.

Sunday, January 02, 2005

all summer in a day...

this storm is bradburian in proportion. outside: ink and cheeses. it just keeps raining! flashflood warnings. leaks. and i just gave lola her bath. wet night. i'll try not to forget what the sun looks like. great big ball of burning gas.

i read on the imdb today that yuri norstein was making a film of gogol's the overcoat. but funding ran out. boo! hiss! hmph. i'll keep my fingers crossed in hopes some philanthropic soul will get it going again.

it's raining at the back door, ma. open the front door where it's dry. this is lola's stir-crazy reasoning. back door. front door. back door. front door. perplexed. and ultimately moody. clearly, the fault is mine. mommy dearest over here. i control the deluge. have a perverse need to torment lo and an even more perverse need to be scraped, scratched and nudged by her as she wades out frustration. worse than an antsy kid. those don't have claws or such well developed motorskills.

listened to satie last night to fall asleep. the gnossiennes are my favorite. number three is very haunting. number four, too. but it's good to be haunted now and then, i guess. sure. why not. the gymnopedies are really beautiful. they shouldn't work. that's satie's way. it shouldn't work. but it does. the melodies don't conclude. they reach a point and then they reach a point and then they reach a point and then they reach a point. but they don't seem to set you down smoothly. they step forward and then recede. blue balls. but just so so pretty anyway. and that's why we keep listening. at least, why i keep listening. but what do i know about music theory. not much.

well.

i suppose this is where i awkwardly take my leave. don't watch.


Saturday, January 01, 2005

happy new year!

a patch of sunlight today. brief respite from rain.

the sister hums:

in the sweet by and by...

today is not the day to have such solemn music stuck in my head. i'll have to scare up some more mirthful sounds.

recent viewing: the last man on earth. vincent price fights zombies with coconut mulch hair. a helpful church bulletin board reads: the end has come. and i'm briefly glad of such careful observation and thorough reporting. as i have said before, i'm a great one for missing bulletins. and it would be a slight embarrassment to be among the uninformed during such an instance. oh, those are zombies? i just thought they were eccentric. and i did, too. they really just seemed befuddled and tired. like they were exhausted of being undead. with eternity on their decrepit hands they flank price's home saying, "c'm'out morgan...aaarrgghhhoohhh...we're going to kill you...oooohhh...gurgley gurgle...aaahhh." an irritation more than anything else. but an eternity of irritation is terror enough. i give props to the foley crew, though. price refuels his generator: glug et glug et glug. and somewhere i hear the barely audible hiccup and a plaintive 'more please.' price drinks his gin and tonic: see above. price plays with his lathe: lalalacluttle da cluttle da cuddddddle cudddddle cutttlety cuttttley cuttlefishcuttlefishcuttlefishcuttlefish aaaahhhh cluttle.

also viewed: the stranger, starring orson welles. nazi on the run and a crack detective on his heels. not to fear-- everything works out in the end. hmm. orson is the nazi, not the detective.

grocery shopping. catsup or ketchup? catsup or ketchup? thankfully, the men in white coats didn't haul me off to the whacko basket. perhaps they should have. i wasn't even in the catsup aisle.

made lime curd. uh, it's more delicious than the name implies. still, i'm unloading it on the willing as quickly as possible. i'm currently not incorporating sweets into my diet. we can thank the baby jesus and his birth anniversary celebrations for that. but i had many many limes and not enough peppers for anything more imaginative. so. lime curd.

wellidy. hope your new year will be good and rife with tasty curd.

mail if you're short on the curd part.

also, whilst your in a mailing mood, shoot off some money to those devastated by nature's less gentle side. i'm talking about the tsunami victims. if i knew anything about anything i'd post a link to the appropriate repositories. but i don't. so i won't. which is also why i have no blogroll.