rain. and more rain.

okay so it’s the end of march. as previously stated, blogs don’t suffer from neglect. but perhaps there was an effect on me?

first is of course the gardening news. the seeds are sprouting! so far, three tomato, one eggplant and one very precocious pepper sprout. i am planning to do almost all of the back yard garden from seed this year–it’s much cheaper, sprouts are ridiculously adorable, and most importantly, i thought ahead and started them in time. the average last frost date for phila is 4/14, so i will (somewhat cautiously, as things have been odd weather-wise lately) plant the direct sow (ie–outdoor starters) sometime this week. a delight–the rosemary and thyme have successfully over-wintered; while they remain delicious and thriving, the sage remains to be seen. i have also purchased some proper mini-trellises for the green beans. last year’s were droopy! and the seed potatoes are guaranteed not to have blight. and perhaps, maybe, possibly there will be a small blueberry bush. that’s if we decide we could harvest any out from under the noses (ahem, beaks) of our new bird tenants. (outdoors, no new friends in the house, there isn’t any more room!) they are a collection of sparrows, per usual, and a delightful group of mourning doves. they make me recall fond childhood visits with the paternal granparents. they sit on his office windowsill reminding him of (not-so-fond) childhood mornings being dragged out of bed for school. they are idiotic, and lovely. so far, though, nobody has moved into the birdhouse. it’s quite cozy, the first year it housed some very happy (and very productive) little wrens. at least i think they were wrens.

it’s really very late. i’ve been on a kick of 4am to noon sleep, which feels in some ways lethargy-inducing. need to get back to the far more natural 2am to ten. other news will have to wait. hopefully not two months.

living on the surface

blogs don’t suffer from neglect. they don’t.

peacefully moving along, living on the surface. there were the weeks of getting back into the swing of things, then the weeks of 12 hour day after day after day, then the weeks of settling down. and now the weeks of simple and enjoyable work. it’s not perfect, of course, but near enough.

meanwhile, there’s been some excitement. that’s what my mother always calls bad news. my nephew wound up in the hospital for a while. he is home again and fine, and i’m through processing all the scary what ifs. in the meantime, we went up to visit for a few hours. in that time we read new books (mr brown can moo, can you?) colored (triangle dogs, square dogs, round dogs, all with spots and stripes) and introduced his new toy. after a few tries he was able to say and remember nautilus. no, brother, it is not a snail, though that was a good try. i also introduced the concept of monster-walking, a big hit. towards the end of the night, he gave me a big kiss and said ‘i love you.’ what a charmer!

it was pleasant to live on the surface for a while, but having been shocked back under i’m thinking a lot again. of what, i couldn’t say, but the thinking mood is back. along with some free time to (read! knit! sleep!) be a bit more social again. and try a new gym, as sadly, the beloved yoga studio couldn’t make it in this quasi-recession. there’s a muscle in my right butt that is very displeased. then there’s the hopeful end to the blog and haiku lapse. and perhaps finally taking care of the parts of the garden that couldn’t withstand winter. and i’ve still been meaning to learn to make cassoulet. and to organize a stitch and bitch. and to go to the aquarium in baltimore. and to finally get a new laptop. and to try wearing contacts again. and to take long cold walks holding hands and snuggle up on the couch with blankets and tea and my feet tucked under his legs. you know, live.

can’t get off the roller coaster

lots to catch up on, but not now. now, just this: rollercoaster ride has begun. now the challenge is to balance all of the things in life i have been enjoying at leisure with the non-stop craziness that is my work schedule for the next month. the birds might get a little cranky with me. the laundry might not get done. the cold-hating herbs might live in the kitchen for a while before i get to harvesting. the new knitting projects, though, should get plenty of time. there are after all dinner breaks.

catch up; look ahead; ignore the now

catch up
so we won the world series. very long final game, silly weather. it’s been a decade since i watched baseball regularly and was a fan of another team. long enough that i got a bit happy and proud to have my city earn a win. and then everyone went nuts. see, when folks are happy, they’re supposed to act happy. turning over cars, smashing gigantic (gorgeous) planters full of new plants, ripping up newspaper holders and throwing them through store windows DOES NOT EQUAL HAPPY. seriously people. NOT well done. then, halloween. immediately prefaced by the victory parade, and full of a bit more frantic and scary energy than the lovely halloween should be. having celebrated in a most satisfactory manner all things halloween the weekend before, i chose to hole up in my house and ignore everyone else on friday. then, of course, election day. yet another reason for people to spontaneously parade on broad street. it seems this time, though, no mini-riot. just lots of happy people acting happy.

look ahead
plans are a-planning in full force now for the new show. in a week my official prep starts, and shorty after that rehearsals. so many exciting things happening on top of the usual excitements–original music, paper animation on giant screens and FALSE GROSS TEETH! which is of course my favorite part so far. so pleased to be working on this project. also, i plan to go to the zoo this week. we’ll see how that turns out, as you may remember, there have been some serious zoo failures in the past. i also plan to finish the new filing system to cure a certain tiny closet from its own personal hell-paper-virus. heh. we’ll see how that turns out as well. also plan to figure out the technical difficulties (why do flikr and ravelry not get along?) and add tremendous amounts of information about what i have/am/will knit(ing) because why wouldn’t i do that? of course, i plan to also finish the three open knitting projects during the rehearsal lunch breaks. hah!

ignore the now
well, it’s been a crappy week or so, punctuated by some very lovely days. i am lately susceptible to being consumed by my own livingroom. much more pleasant occurrences if i bother to actually talk to other human beings. left to my own devices too much equals not good this time around. (and yes, i still do live with someone i very much like to talk to, but he’s been on a night shift work schedule for a bit, so my own devices have had plenty of time to work. seriously, how do people do this for entire lifetimes?)  really i’m not as codependant as i sound… it’s just a funk. which is why i am ignoring the now, obviously. except for tomorrow at yoga, where i will luxuriate in the now, that’s what yoga is for, sometimes.

[in bonus news, today a certain old friend became a dad, and certain relatives celebrated many happy years of marriage, and tomorrow someone might decide to adopt roscoe the awesome cat who loves to chew on long hair]

when pumpkins try to grow brains

that’s right. brains. made of lovely, fuzzy grey mold. eh, the randomly carved pumpkin lasted for less than a week, but it was pleasant to create and look at. i attempted to make sun-eyes, which worked out much better in my mind. there was pleasant company in the carving, lots of flying knives, toasty seeds and good conversations.

also. try to imagine the idea of an egg sized hole in a hip left by a defeated tumor. then rejoice with me that the hole was filled, and the hip gets to stay in. our aunt, that is, not me. i didn’t forget to mention any cancer. but she is doing well, and i feel relieved.

that’s all for now. i’m not up for a massive recap. i’ll cover more of the time lapse soon and try not to disappear again. i’m saying this to myself, you know.

first person; a chilly retreat; variable speed

hallo blog. so i’ve been trying to write this story in the first person. it feels like lying. see, this character is not completely unlike me. just mostly. i mean, yes, i’ve pretended before, and i can be quite good at it. but what i’m pretending to be is ‘myself slightly disappointed’ rather than spitting, crying angry. or ‘myself entertained’ rather than dying to be somewhere else. it’s still the way i would be, if i were entertained. and only if i have to appear professional, or… well, suffice to say, i’m usually straightforward. so writing in the first person as someone else feels very, very strange. yes, part of why i am not an actor. just need to sandblast a bit of rust off the old storytelling segment of the brain.

perhaps being in the cold, cold, and very cold mountains (well, valley, actually) will help me feel like the writers and readers of old, who had nothing to do in the cold dark hours but curl up with a story. it will certainly be the last hurrah of a fairly roaming summer-to-fall transition for me. in the midst of all this running around, i took today to get the car inspected and myself equally inspected. we are both fine. car needed some new tires. i could use a few plastic joints, but that will have to wait a few years. for now, hurrah to the mountains we go. more on that when we return, i’m sure.

variable speeds–and i’m talking about the people, not the cars. they worked in a chaos of bits and pieces moving with purpose. i sat and read. and sat. and read. for hours. i could very well have shuttled back and forth, but it was nice to have a forced quiet time. reading felt good. i’ve been nursing along this book (which i am enjoying) for almost two weeks now. today i got a good chunk into finding out what’s happening. only thing that would have made it better: non-fluorescent lighting. i can’t help it, the damn things are so bright, so cold, so glaring. give me the closest approximation to sunshine i can get. sorry, earth. i promise to be extra-nurturing to you in other ways.

knee socks require balls?

i am known for my crazy socks. this has been true since i was old enough to influence the sock purchasing. particularly knee socks–i get cold. also, they are awesome. (let’s put aside for a moment my monumental resentment that knee socks have been dubbed as hipster. along with knitting, and several other things i enjoy that used to be somewhat unique. not that it matters. but i liked them first, jerkwads.)

right. so i was walking down a boardwalk in pt. pleaseant of the jersey shore, in knee high socks of chartreuse and chocolate horizantal stripes, of heavy, loose-weave cotton. delightful, and yes, a bit unusual. many comments through the day. my boyfriend and i debated as to the positive/negative nature of these comments, as humans tend to be excellent at the sarcastic backhanded insult. but one comment stood out. a relatively young woman said to me, i love your socks. i said thanks. then she said, i wish i had the balls to wear them. i smiled and quickly said, it’s not hard.

i was so surprised. it takes balls? guts? self-esteem of some kind to wear knee socks? i guess in her small portion of the world, they haven’t become cool. and i guess to her it mattered. i feel pretty sad about that. if i knew her address i would mail her a pair of socks, perhaps over the knee toe socks in lemon and navy argyle. i would wear those, wouldn’t you?

a plague of indecision; looking ahead; north tower

a plague of indecision
indecision, but not apathy. feeling in a very particular mood makes it tougher to choose– consequence of the so-called wrong choice looming. this afternoon i made the bold and sure choice to have blood orange sorbetto. i stand by that choice, it was delicious. but beyond that, who knows.

looking ahead
snapping at indecision’s heels is old friend inability to plan ahead. who knows what’s happening next week? next month? i have a firm start date for the next show, which i am anticipating with gladness. (gladity?) from now until then, there is an amorphous cloud of thing’s i’d like to do. we’ll see how many of said things are actually accomplished. meanwhile, i am indeed looking ahead to over-wintering some herbs. this, i can plan.

north tower
north tower being the place i made my first new friend in phila six years ago. a rare visit is bringing memory (that horrible itchy plaid sofa!) and some downright happy. and an opposite reflection–he is in the midst of the final preparations to carry out a most forward thinking and bold choice of a major relocation. we are hitting up some of his old (my current) stomping grounds and plan a nice sloth monday in commemoration of our exhaustion day of rest (and laundry and errands and social time) in the midst of 80 hour weeks. what an odd and amazing year that was.

hibernation; lactation; it remains to be seen

hibernation.
or rather, the end of. this summer has meant a resurgence in my tendency towards feeling writer-ly. mostly, i think, because of an abundance of time. party, i also think, because of moodiness and the idea of having something to say. i don’t care why, i’m enjoying it. i’ve been letting thoughts percolate and will shore up my ego enough to attempt something non-blog, non-haiku to bring to first fig writers’ collective. which is, of course, another writer-ly result of this summer i had little to do with creating, but am determined to make excellent use of. (i very proudly ended that thought with an of. deal with it.)

lactation.
i started paying attention to a law and order episode this afternoon when the issue of mastectomy was raised, over pizza, by two male detectives and their female boss. the men found it impossible to believe that a woman would hesitate to have the surgery if suggested by a doctor as treatment for cancer. the woman asked in response, to the order of, isn’t there any body part you would hesitate to cut off? she went on to explain the growing sense of womanhood that begins with the growing of breasts, and the continuance of the breasts as a source of femininity/sexuality throughout life. now, point of wind-up: being with a man who very much likes my breasts, and who would very much like me without them, there would be no hesitation. life over breasts, certainly. but if the situation were different? maybe i would have to think about it? why are these bags of milk producing flesh so damned important?

it remains to be seen.
everything. and i mean that not hysterically, not philosophically, but plain and simple. i believe that tomorrow will bring a trip to the italian market for produce and good cheese, lots of catch up garden maintenance, a quick stop for an allergy shot, a yoga class, a cat-sitting-movie-watching-laundry episode and a late dinner cooked together on our grill. but who knows?

improvement, stagnation, confusion, oh my!

but i don’t want to talk about any of it.

everything else seems trivial. i’ve taken up yoga, daily haiku, concrete gardening, i’ve been devouring books and knitting projects and the food network. all so very worthwhile and enjoyable, but none providing daily routine. i really don’t mean to offend when i say this, but know of no better way to describe–the meandering existence of a housewife is driving me mad. i miss work. problem is, i’m fussy. i want satisfying, challenging, well compensated work. alas, i am twice elitist.

in the meantime, i am left bouncing from small enjoyment to the next, with omnipresent unease twining throughout the days and restless nights. does having legitimate sources of worry, or being aware of the general state of things make this any different from late-teens-malaise? does it matter? screens and keyboards seem to steer me towards this mood each night. perhaps it’s time again for the warmer and welcoming pencil and pocket-scruffed notepad. or perhaps it’s just time for me to stop indulging myself.