last year on this day

last year on this day

last year on this day

Run away!

I finally saw Moonrise Kingdom! Who wants to run away with me? I can't do any islands on the east coast but I think Shovel Point, Minnesota would be an ideal location. It's my goal to go there this year. You can fly into Minneapolis, it's much more reasonably priced than flying to Fargo. And I have family there we can stay with before we run away to the northern wilds.

So it's settled then. I'll see you soon!
(Is it ok If I don't wear copious amounts of eye makeup? Ok, good.)

Until then, enjoy this (our bobble-head dog Oedipus Rex):

Next up: plesiosaur

Outline done thanks to my magical overhead projector. Probably the crowning achievement of my life.... Except for being an aunt. Remember, this is the most stable mammoth ever. And is now the property of my favorite sister.

Look out for more prehistoric animals with the possible addition of India ink dyed fabrics.

Some things from last vacation

Sometimes I can't sleep because I can't remember Terry Jones' name

That will not be a problem tonight.

I got an iPhone over Christmas, mostly compelled by the thought of how much better I'll be able to see the pictures my sister texts me of my nephew. Siri has already gotten really sassy with me.

The university I work for is small enough they don't support wifi for our phones. At first I found this ridiculous, but it's started me thinking more about what has been referred to as our entitlement culture. I didn't really think I was a card carrying member of that society but lately I've realized that's just what some of my issues with small town life are.

I get confused every time I go through the produce section of the grocery store. "This is it? Where are the packages of fresh tarragon?"

Shopping local isn't really an option, that's generally the ONLY option. Yesterday my supervisor and I were trying to decide which little shop she could go to for an ice pack. It takes some thinking to sort out inventory when they don't all come in one big box of a market like Walmart or Target.

But it's frequently enjoyable to frequent local establishments. I had to get some high heels repaired last fall and the shoe repair shop is a strangely crowded madhouse where you're bound to run into someone you know. I tried to draw a picture of it.

all we ever wanted was everything

(except to sleep cheap at El Centro Motel in Glendive, Montana)

I was in Bozeman, Montana, this morning, the first touch of blue mountain horizons in months. We were on our way to our regular Christmas haunts in Utah and spent the morning at a sacrament meeting. After I'd changed back into my favorite lumberjack apparel I walked around outside in the beautiful sunshine and I smelled pine trees.

It is not as though there aren't pine trees in North Dakota but I never get that crisp alpine smell. As I was remembering being up in the mountains in conifer heaven, more memories of junipers, sage, and desert air came back and I thought how much I missed them.

On Design*Sponge sometime recently I saw a picture of a print hanging up on a wall that said, "All we ever wanted was everything." It's me to a T. I want my summer nights in cool desert air; my uncomfortable melancholy mixed with excitement as I spent a 4th of July on a Florida beach; I want to live near my sister; I want to live near Jbottoms; I want to live where I initially know no one; I want to keep working strange blue collar jobs; I want five doctorates; I want big cities and millions of peoples and museums; I want my small town, funny historical museum and farmer's market and bluegrass music.

I really love the people I work with. Last week at the winter farmer's market one of my custodian's was there. He's the jolly fellow with a beard and glasses and stickers from all over covering his old van. He introduced me to his wife and we chatted about Peter, Paul and Mary, The Moody Blues, and NPR, then I bought her homemade bread and picked my mom up at the library. There's also a husband and wife we have on staff--he's lived all over, once in a tipi in Montana in the winter, and he likes to tell me stories and tell me what books I should read. I wish I knew the wife better but she's on the other side of campus working evenings. Someday I may visit them at their farm. And then there's another custodian who loves to play practical jokes and she's always laughing about something.

I am delighted with them all. We have about 30 people in our department and I wanted to hand make them all Christmas cards but I am a human being so I didn't. Maybe I'll start now and have cards for them by the time May Day rolls around.

I want to go to Laus, Belgium, Englad, Wales, and Shovel Point, Minnesota. Some of that will be accomplished in 2013. Namely Minnesota. I want to live in a cabin in the woods and a studio apartment in a vast metropolis.

Bit by bit I can--maybe not all at once, but I'll have it all.

You know, something else happened on our 1,100 mile drive. I've been making a hand-drawn woolly mammoth tapestry and somehow in the last two days he developed a fifth leg. This may be the most stable woolly mammoth ever. Pictures to come later.

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, stay close to good things. (Like me.)

potatoes and Danny Kaye!

Last Thursday was the best. I was looking forward to it ever since we received a Christmas gift bag full of Idaho potatoes two nights before. We could finally––Ma, Pa, and I––be together at home, in the evening, long enough to eat baked potatoes and watch a new (to us) Danny Kaye movie that arrived two weeks ago from Netflix.

Virgina Mayo

In A Song is Born (1948), Danny Kaye, a real square, and his six squirrely cherub friends fall head over heals for Virginia Mayo (and who wouldn't) who happens to be the moll of a murdering gangster. And don't forget Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman and a really inaccurate but fun explanation of the history of jazz. My dad was ironing and laughing, I was laughing with untouched crotcheting at my feet, and my mom was falling asleep. It was a typical family movie night all around.

A lot has been going on around here. (1) I'm the official owner of BUSINESS CARDS and I now stop by the Chamber of Commerce after lunch and drop one off and introduce myself like a fancy lady. (2) Sean and I recorded a podcast Friday night in which, despite our tendency to have the most scattered conversations ever, we covered the made-up origins of East Enders, some of the worst things we've ever said to people, our obsession with David Tennant, what our friend Charlie does for fun, and that one time we shot guns. We're editing it this week so stay tuned because YOU MUST LISTEN TO US. (3) Yesterday I had the kind of day that makes small towns seem like the most magical of places. I went around to the all the little shops buying new sheets, a fisherman's sweater (for $1.50!), some fabric (which I found at the pharmacy and which was cut ever so gently by the man on staff), and some funny, fancy plates. And the pièce de resistance was a farmer's market and blue grass jam session at the county historical museum.

I really want to take banjo lessons. 

sometime (in the past month)

for Alicia and Brock, a year late

old shoe

summer