Tuesday, May 30, 2006

a man somewhere in alaska found a boulder on his claim. a jade boulder. with twisted wire and bicycle rims and a gas engine he made a saw. one slice took two months. dedication. i learned this only today.

natal plum bloomed. beautiful. now maybe it will form that triangular fruit. looks like a dog's junk. i'm just sayin'.

listening: hotel california--the cat empire.

auntie passed on. better than life in the zoo. fare you well.

i like those slightly unfinished ice cubes in the freezer. they're a shell. a little pressure from the roof of my mouth makes them crackle and shatter. i keep eating them. lately prefered to hawaiian shaved ices.

Monday, May 29, 2006

how exciting! new cheburashka! yay!
they must be cliff swallows. those live in colonies. the violet-greens not so much. but the one i found dead in my vegetable garden last year was a violet-green. ridiculously pretty too.

Sunday, May 28, 2006

oh! we had the best walk just now. a long while ago someone made a tree map. i could never locate the tulip tree. but as we turned down one of our favorite alleys i noticed orange light in the corner of my eye. tulip tree blooms. i snapped off two twigs. so pretty!

under the bridge the violet-green swallows have built many houses of aunt beru. going back with my analog soon to take a photo.

and here's a cute interview with aki.

listening: zou and chou-- aki tsuyuko.

now i want some banana milk. mmmm.
this is the day that the rooms finally become too full to be comfortable. books and albums take over. a murphy bed begins to seem reasonable. so too the headline about the girl folded into her wall with headphones still in place. what happened to her? she lived on bread crumbs and spider eggs and licked dew from the bedrails.

listening: owlet hymn-- aki tsuyuko.

we learn of tahitian marine bacteria from the pages of travel guides. it reverses one's sense of hot and cold. numbs one's lips. one can hardly say oui or non thereafter. but would it be a problem. eat a mango. take refuge in that palm. forget about using the powers of speech. enjoy the chilly polynesian shores.

invisible friends what happened to accord? it snapped.

snarey chaser.

merci. i'm here all week.

listening: dance at happy night-- aki tsuyuko.

tra la.

Friday, May 26, 2006

r.i.p.

desmond dekker has died. he was one of my musical heroes.

listening: fu manchu-- desmond dekker.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

i've borrowed a book about papercutting. i've started snipping already. my work is poor. with practice i'll improve.


stir crazy. can't wait to be gone. and there's still quite a while to go. sigh.

g'night.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

this afternoon in the park was our town's first farmers' market. the best smelling apricots. we left without them. sister is not a fan. we compromised and bought two baskets of strawberries to share as there aren't quite enough in our garden yet.

listening: agua de rosas-- lila downs.

we came upon a man bent over in the grass with a sickle. straightened and waved hello. just after passing the man a dead bird was on the street. i don't know what sort. but it was really beautiful. it had light-colored speckles on its back. the shoulder was checked with reddish brown.

Monday, May 22, 2006

there's the best sort of wind blowing now. at lewis dog's house the cottonwood is lapping the lightpost. the branches look like japanese woodblock prints. so pretty.

i met someone i hadn't met in a long time. she's very ill. she kept telling us how much she wants to die. she followed each telling with a round of laughter. someone i've liked my whole life but who has rarely had a care for another human being in all that time. someone who swindled my father when my family most desperately needed the money. suddenly so frail and friendly. seemed so compassionate in a way i can't convey. this switch i thought only happened between the covers of dickens.

i chased a toad around in the street. put him in the railroad easement's grass. i really love toads. they're so cute. and they seem so benevolent. and this one didn't even piss on my hand. yay!

the natal plum is going to bloom. i'm pretty excited. this will be the first flower it's ever set.

adieu.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

cleaning up. the purging of many years worth of notebooks. i'd have liked to create some kind of fire from them. but no. instead they all went into plastic-y bags and will become a part of that future fascinating archeological landfill dig. right next to the perfectly preserved hotdogs somebody threw out. or the entire buried lawn mower.

someone showed me a video of an elderly irish guy who had discovered 150 year old butter preserved in peat on his property. he ate the butter and proclaimed it delicious. paper is much less hardy. what now does ephemeral mean? well.

my great-aunt has been sent to live in a convalescent home. i'm in a very poor mood. i rarely get very angry. but this news has really done it to me. really in a bad way.

tomorrow i'll resume sunshine and unicorns.

there wasn't any thunder with our rain. surprising. but there was quite a lot of rain! hooray!

to bed.
one of my new neighbors is an elderly woman. this morning we discovered that her nondescript granny mobile is equipped with a car alarm. she doesn't move swiftly enough to disarm the sirens in a timely fashion. nothing about her current living situation necessitates automobile anti-theft devices. nothing. about 150 feet from her front door is a rather lively cow pasture. to the left of her house is an empty lot. to the right of her house a utilities building. my house is between her and the cows. i'm not going to steal her car. i think the cows can safely be counted out as well. and the utilities people have very soupy utilities vehicles that can move at a good clip. i don't believe they have an interest in trading down. rarely do outsiders venture here (foreboding!). in the evenings can be seen droves of local family units. children in peppermint trolleys. older children on bicycles. and sometimes adolescents on dirt bikes. nobody blinks when they spy the beige-y blandness on four wheels that is my neighbor's car. probably until the alarm alerts them of its presence anyway.

i'm being peevish. i could forgive the alarm in a place where car thefts were the norm. here a gaggle of geese would be more effective and less irritating means of protection. also far less conspicuous.

it's raining. how strange. i thought we'd not get more rain until next year. it's getting a little late in the season for precipitation. the air feels muggy.

cat caught a mouse. the soap aloe is blooming.

listening: pull up the people-- m.i.a.

Friday, May 19, 2006

the shopping carts were performing an exodus. when leaving the lot one was struck in the intersection. another was wrangled and stowed in its stanchion.

watched miranda july's you and me and everyone we know. i'd never seen it. when it finished i couldn't decide whether i felt very melancholy or very happy. i've since settled on the latter. yes. and i hope to see more from her soon.

listening: the dark of the matinee-- franz ferdinand.

picked strawberries in the yard. they were warm from the sun and tasted good. a little tart though. probably i should have waited another few days to pick them.

g'night.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

a mother with her gaggle of children at the supermarket asked one to retrieve a purple onion. her will was done. then the youngest girl who was sitting in the cart seat put the onion to her forehead. the siblings began chanting onion onion onion onion onion onion. and the girl pulled a face just like that picture from the time-life book of the shaman possessed. i swear for god she did. looked like she was divining the future. and she waved one hand around with the onion still pressed to her face right between her eyes. just staring at the onion. and she started whispering onion onion onion onion onion onion. and then suddenly a purple onion sounded very good to me. so i got one. extraordinary.

listening: float on-- kidz bop kids.

sister brought me a matilija poppy pressed in newspaper. huge. and the boss still smells like apricots.

and we'll all float on okay...

good good good.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

it's jonathan richman's birthday. yay! listening to his oeuvre in celebration.

a pitbull came at us in the dark. when we turned away it followed. quickly gained us and sat down at our feet. nuzzled our trouser hems with its nose. no tags. no collar. no bringing it home for fear of giant canine battle. hope it will find its way safely.

everything is blooming and pollen laden. the air smells so very good but even i'm beginning to have allergies. i don't normally suffer from those. at night i want to sandpaper my eyes and steam treat my lungs. not to mention the sneezing.

the pinecone ginger is up. i'd been thinking i'd need to fashion a eugoogoly soon. but no. hooray!

my neighbor's barred rock clucks some right below the window where i type. scares the eff out of me at times because it has the sound of a horror soundtrack. and then more come. an araucana that's got the look of a reaper. get her! she's stolen colored eggs in this time of famine! clearly i put too much into it. my imagination runs wild.

i wonder where the city has been recruiting bus drivers. really i do. methinks straight from the bailman's lobby. i'd like to support public transportation in california but sometimes it's so ridiculously frightening.

to bed.


Friday, May 12, 2006

my grandfather worked testing johnny weissmuller's vines. he also worked at goebel's lion farm. as far as i know the closest he ever came to a real jungle was southern california. or maybe the migrant workers' fruit orchards.

i'm having an almost jungle moment. it's not as tasty as the real thing.

the interior of our continent used to be forest. perhaps in some point past i could have brachiated from the coast ranges to whitman's door. the second is a forward unit. my hands don't bend so deftly. my palms are soft. jets dehydrate. cars are slow. should i start with my left foot.

listening: the skin of my yellow country teeth-- clap your hands say yeah.

if hesitation made acorns i'd be there by now.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

pecking away at these keys and there's a wee lilac-colored birdie on my shoulder. newly arrived from brooklyn. she has a miraculous repertoire. i'm especially surprised to hear her sing the songs of plastic bertrand! i haven't heard ca plane pour moi in yonks and i've never heard it covered before. so cool! what a perfect day to receive a parcel. thank you so much, anne! this is the best compilation i've gotten in days unnumbered. enjoying it greatly!

listening: ca plane pour moi-- thee headcoatees.

seriously brilliant comp. yay!

i believe i'll do some sewing. this week's afternoon of library servitude was slow. but i got to nose around in book stacks for hours. found three very cool vintage sewing guides. they're supposed to be boutique-ish. it says so. and a good number of the contributing authors were parsons/new school alumni or teachers. i won't be making the chain maille cloche anytime soon but the glove and wrap skirt patterns are quite nice. maybe i'll start small. a handbag or sommat.

listening: close to me-- the get up kids.

over and out.

Sunday, May 07, 2006

gathered firewood with father yesterday. he's really one of the most stubborn people. insisting he get to buck the large pieces into the truck while i rick them. he'll celebrate his 76th year of stubborn at the end of the month. still he splits his firewood alone.

smashed my arm in the louvre door. sometimes i'm so entirely clumsy i wonder that my pieces still adhere. i've got a big ugly welt near my elbow. gah.

voodoo lily is gigantic! i had to stake it. there are three others besides.

well. so much for this afternoon posting. i'm going back outside to plant.

listening: suzanne- leonard cohen.

there's always a guy with a guitar at a party playing this song. always. somewhere. i'm convinced of it.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

transport...

slayed. as a guy on a motorcycle blazed by on one wheel sister said, "he finds the wheelie to be the most efficient form of transport. little does he know nobody thinks that's cool...except jackie chan villains." love her.

also some funny tales related to martial arts. a real life miyagi. if you were contemplating it think twice before attacking that elderly japanese gent.

listening: i believe in a thing called love-- the darkness.

best line ever: my heart's in overdrive and you're behind the steering wheel.

second best line: we'll be rockin' 'til the sun goes down.

what sort of rock band is it that ceases rocking when the sun goes down? really. i want to know.

Monday, May 01, 2006

a circus beetle scared the shit out of me today. crawled right across my wrist while i wasn't looking. he did not fire his stink gun at me. grateful.

humans are so visually oriented. sara's blue eye tale has me constantly circling back and pondering. and those are just the exteriors. the interior furnishings another sight altogether.

the brown-eared nanny produced two kids! they're so damned adorable. both with brown ears. but the paler one has a remarkably sweet face. nanny instructs them with the flat of her head.

can't locate the mp3 so instead new order's "temptation" is on repeat courtesy of my ibrain (patent pending).

jeff goldblum and conan o'brien together is somehow dreamy. now there're two beautiful funny gangledons. i think i made that last word up.

adieu.