you want other people to sing along
February 26, 2009 | Filed Under ordinary | 2 Comments
lola is sick again. all of this sickness this year, bah! she cries my name in the most pitiful (and repetitive) way. poor lola! i miss your sunny smile and your sideways glances!
somehow, however, i am managing to make some progress in my studio, the sunporch, a variety of names it is called. i hardly ever work out there because it has been one pile after another and after the show in december it was piled so far and wide with mess that working in there was impossible. gusts of green winds have sent me in there this week and most of the room seems to be boxed and bagged for the lucky workers at the salvation army. do you see my sewing machine in the middle of that mess? i’ve been thinking a lot about you, little zipping machine. i have been thinking about little dresses and linen pants and summer shirts in summer colors. alas and alack, it has been too long. i don’t even remember that last thing that i made out of fabric.
the boys are running through the yard in weird costumes. they are, to be true, hooting and hollering. lola is sleeping, the oven is baking bread, rolls for dinner, the counter is cooling dessert (dessert? how did this happen?), the sink is groaning with the weight and slime of the dishes, the day turns gray again but there are miles to go before sleeping. i always feel the longer minutes of the day most in the late afternoon.
little lame balloon man
February 25, 2009 | Filed Under ordinary | 2 Comments
the world, mud luscious, is not really just spring. i’m ready, done with the gloom and cold. february is nearly gone, here and there in a pink blur and i am glad, ready with boots in a pile, sometimes in a line, in the laundry room, phrases like “i need a slicker” slipping out, frequent pots of soup so that when it’s no longer soup weather we will feel like we’ve had enough.
lola has new shoes with which to stomp. she thinks she is the greatest girl ever when she’s wearing them, such power in a pair of vintage sandals that are a wee bit big.
jude needs a haircut. he is affectionately called “wiggy.” ernie seems to be in paralysis about cutting it. if i cut his hair it will be worse than any wig. he reminds me of this girl i knew in elementary school. she had a mullet and too many bangs and i think that these were the shallow reasons that no one liked her.
the mailman is playing with my heart, he is, i tell you. for a week, longer, he delivered the mail at the strange and early hour of nine o’clock. sometimes i would wake up and there would be mail in the box to greet me. i loved him for it, gleeful and giddy. this week he scorns my love and delivers it late, often right before dinner when darkness creeps up the yard like a woolen gray knee sock. “is today a holiday?” i ask. did nothing come to us today? i’m done with you, chubby, ancient mail carrier. it’s over.
the perfect refrigerator
February 18, 2009 | Filed Under lists, ordinary | 2 Comments
happily
clunking around on the wooden floors in totally rad thrifted boots
being much taller while clunking around in said boots
having a computer again, although everything on it is backwards
thinking about outdoor parties and breakfasts
enjoying a clean refrigerator, thanks to an extraordinarily long nap of lola
napping for an extraordinarily long time
flipping open the lid on new toothpaste tube
watching puppet shows
listening to this american life late into the night
finding the kitchen counters again
sleeping on clean sheets
picking yellow flowers from the grass
considering lots of old wooden chairs and where to put them in the house
thinking in haiku syllables
all in the morning betime
February 14, 2009 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
ernie really surprised me with a terrarium of love by lily which includes these amazing hand built ceramic mushrooms. long after i kill the plants inside, those mushrooms will live on. boy, what a lucky girl am i, the one i love loves me.
put you in it and push you around
February 13, 2009 | Filed Under haiku, ordinary | Leave a Comment
we did not make truffles. there’s always tomorrow. we did bake pink cloud cookies that tasted good but are not gatsby like in appearance at all. i can blame this on the condition of the kitchen (disastrous) and the mood of the baby, i’m sure, and not on the recipe or on my mad baking skills, right?
1.
february pink
on the wind a valentine
we notice first blooms
extra company
February 11, 2009 | Filed Under ordinary | 2 Comments
overcast all day. the baby is frustrated trying to communicate and freaks out about it all day. i can’t finish anything and am frustrated and freaking out about it all day. so even though i do try, most of the time, to be here in the now and the moment, i’m letting my mind wander to other things which is probably for the best since being in this moment, this moment of overcast and freak out, this may send my mind wandering permanently into crazy land. thus, a list! it’s been a long time…..
thinking about
gardens, tomatoes, sprigs of thyme
getting my haircut on friday
LOST
haiku
good colored pencils
doing something amazing like this to my unamazing ottoman
secret messages
fine, i’ll do it myself, and all of amanda’s other terrific pieces
cleaning out the sunporch/lost work space
colorful tissue paper
whales and octopuses as mobiles
swimming
still, the truffles!
forgetting about
the mess on the sideboard
how to make dinner without everyone falling apart
trying to brew only one press of coffee a day
getting a puppy
lovely hallucination
February 10, 2009 | Filed Under ordinary | 1 Comment
the sun loves us today, yesterday, tomorrow? lola is not content to stay inside these days, so i do not stay in and clean the crowd of messes while the boys turn the yard into more mess. i go out and push swings to and fro, and i kick the soccer ball while wearing sandals. henry especially likes this as the shoe flies through the air and i tiptoe across the gravel and prickles to retrieve it. sandals! annie said it was time for a pedicure. poor winter feet, i forgot about you, only thinking of you when you were cold. i am not really ready for spring, as nice as spring clothes and sandals and the hope for flowers and green happen to be. i don’t mind the february this year, the gray and a brown eternal all over everything. maybe because there are crocuses to find, maybe because the wind is not moaning for days on end to please, please come inside. it’s probably because i’ve been preoccupied with the shop, but i like to think it has more to do with handfuls of yellow on four dollar wooden folding chairs.
ernie has equipped my desk with an old laptop, the old thing i used when i first began this blog, a long time ago in the middle of a winter. my mac is dead, old girl. i like and don’t like the thought of buying a new one. of course i want one. and i definitely need a computer, but i could also pay someone to reupholster the sofa, maybe even that hideous red checkered chair for the same price as a new computer. it’s a hard decision. it’s not hard for ernie. i think that boys are always ready to say yes to electronics and maybe girls are always ready to reupholster the sofa or the hideous red checkered chair.
it’s a week for valentines. i’m inspired to spend a long time making truffles and fling pink things across the dining room just for these little hearts that i love in this house.
sitting in the back of my memory
February 7, 2009 | Filed Under ordinary | 3 Comments
if i would clear off my desk i’d have room for the computer ernie has fixed just for me. the desk is really that bad, not a spot for a laptop anywhere. really not a spot for anything anywhere. i work on top of the piles these last few days and that’s okay. but i do miss a computer nearby…
the sun was shining today. the boys ran in the yard and raced each other. we played “red light, green light, run around the shed light” until they were very tired. i don’t know why they aren’t so tired when we come back inside. lola wants to be outside all of the time. she stands at the window and points and nods her head yes at me. february is usually gray and cold and will come to her frozen senses before long. but today we flew away on a green wind that rattled the bones of disgruntled sleeping trees and it was the best way to be on a sunny saturday.
these are iphone shots, as well. love it! especially when i’ve no computer to load pictures into. there are so many little iphone apps that i only know about because ernie finds them. the app for these is called “polarize” and of course you can tell that it makes them look polaroid and classy in a giant black instant camera way. my dad used to have a polaroid in the back of his car for taking pictures of things for his job. we used to think we could just take one or two photos when he wasn’t around and that he wouldn’t notice. of course he had to notice, as an adult who knows and notices i know this now, but we thought we were so clever. so most of the instant photos we took were of ourselves being stupid in my dad’s company car.