brought to you by the letter T

Some days the best part, besides the lovely people you know, is singing to Carole King. I really wished to spend the day at home (home home home in the little upper midwest village) putting on that life-changing King album then laying on the floor and listening.

Because at one point this not at home home home day I felt I had wasted yet another hour and I was hungry and had no prospects for getting any dinner for the next few hours so I stopped by GoodEarth and got my favorite Peanut Butter Pretzels.

I can't do this.

There never was a dinner because my stomach embroiled with the pretzels. I need to relearn my stomach. I write this here, again only talking about myself and not saying anything that will better the world around me, because maybe this blog will serve as my conscience.

So I take this cup of tea and make a toast: Here's to you my estómago.

we'll be real humans now

So I've been watching clips of Sesame Street on YouTube as research for treatments and conceptualizations and stop-motions. A couple of days ago it was "I've got a new way to walk", "It's hip to be a square", that song about how they can't get married because the sign says Don't Walk, and the letter L. Yesterday morning was a reminder of how much I always found Prairie Dawn cloyingly annoying. And how she was probably part of the reason I had that little kid self consciousness over my high pitched voice. I'm not going to think about that too much.

Last summer I developed a desire to be able to ride my bicycle with no hands. Due to my characteristic surprise and delight when I achieve something, I never managed more than a second because after said second I'd gasp, laugh, and lose balance. The last couple of weeks I've taken this no-hands thing more seriously, maybe spurred on by the fact that I went on a bike ride with someone who always rides no-handed. 
End result: I am now a natural. 
This pleases me as I have yet to show any other signs of coordination, grace, or balance.
Take note:
I continue to fall over in Tree Pose
I trip over my own feet
I dribble water all down my front on 50% of all drinking tries
I garble up words in my mouth
I keep finding myself picking up spilled rice grain by grain
I've got dropsy hands
I close my eyes when I'm supposed to keep my eye on the ball
I sometimes entirely forget to speak/carry-on FACE-TO-FACE conversations

This all being said, my life has been all about me lately. Let's escape that.




PS. Karonius and I have a secret project up our sleeves. Stay tuned.

hunted by arachnids

The day in which happily find myself in the middle of nowhere and I work pleasantly until I discover a large black spider settling into my bag yet I manage to remain calm, gently dump everything out over the rocks, put them back in one by one (excluding spider) and avoid being killed or killing anything else.
Until twenty minutes later and I find that same spider has sought out my foot, then I smash it, all without swearing.

Danged human hunters.

But I was so impressed by my bravery I decided I was finally ready to face la biblioteca. On my way home from my new favorite nowhere I checked out: The Book of the Spider: from arachnophobia to the love of spiders by Paul Hillyard.
Right next to arachnids and insects were the birds. I told myself not to look too deeply because I'm trying to learn this new skill of focusing and not being scattered shallowly over many topics...but if you saw something entitled The Bedside book of Birds what would you do? Duh.






the above picture is from Montana's Gallatin Canyon. It's a favorite drive of mine.

vest: a story of risk takings and not talkings

Not in my suggested age range of marrying but the vest! (link to yet another sartorialist picture)

The problem with working from home is that it just looks like I'm chillin out with my laptop. Who wouldn't talk to a girl so technically accessorized? So do I write up a sign that says "I'm not ignoring you I'm working?" Can I get one of those in that old-timey plastic red with white relief lettering? Sometimes I just have to take care of business. Because last time I counted I'm working on five documentary projects. And one will be chock full of stop-motion because I'm supposed to raise $10,000 for a restaurant and millions of films on kickstarter are booooorrrrringggggggggg.

Other current dilemma: At what point do I invest in a camera instead of shlumming around for all of these projects?

we keep these things for days like this

So I took out one of those stored up memories today. 

Standing on a dusty brown, gravel road at the top of a hill in the middle of the prairie, with a slight wind and the largest dusk sky wrapping everything.

pretty good stuff

The Yardbirds sing this song that goes, "I look like a farmer but I'M A LOVER!"
It seems like a pretty good song to me.

Sometimes you should just watch one of these sweet vids that Karonius told me about today.

PS. the video is widescreen and so you might have to go to youtube to watch it.

i wonder how long rogue framed poetry lasts on center street

well. it was guerilla poetry night. we poetry-warred all over this town.

before the battle commenced someone showed me a long poem by a wordsy guy who said, "why use one word when you can use six?" so i read and felt that i would only find the coherency through a thorough study but that, for now, i enjoyed sections of words put together. particularly the use of one word, "scumble."

which brought me back to my topic of thought from yesterday:


why from hence came this book called revelation?
am i looking for angels shaking out the earth like a bed sheet from the four corners?
if i met a man on the street with six wings i'm sure i'd fall over dead.

i read and thought and imagined and wondered
i hypothesized and cross referenced but mainly
slowly and not too deeply, just wondered.


then came chapter five verse eight:
"golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints"
and then i knew that was all i needed to read that day.






Read Revelations 5 here.

i don' want no scrub

Tonight I got distracted and started singing all the old TLC songs I remember singing on the playground when I was in elementary school. Also remember Oasis's "Wonderwall"? or The Verve Pipe's "Freshman" (Can't be held responsible, she was touching her face) (For the life of me, I cannot remember what made us think that we were wise and we'd never compromise) or Brandi and Monica's "That boy is mine"?

Hey remember when TLC sang "Waterfall" and they had that music video where they're supposed to look like people made out of water and all you can think of is a bad CapriSun commercial? Yeah... And remember when Joe Boxer was hot stuff and baggy overalls with one strap undone or tied up around the waist....

And remember their song "Unpretty"? Still so good.

And when the Goo Goo Dolls sang "Iris"?

Alanis Morissette's "Uninvited"?






On an unrelated note...
This summer I am going to learn the business of art.

Tonight I am supposed to be working on a paper. Hmmmm...

moo-oooon

When it finally came to raining last night (as predicted by Bestie J. Bottoms), I didn't mind at all. Pas de tout. Parce que I had defied headache-worthlessness by calling on dear Karonius to massage/beat the tension out of my back. Then I drank water at the command of Karonius as we (M + K + A) all laughed over text prediction knowing not "doodle" but "fondle". (P.S. It also does not know "Bronco". I have now named my phone Pidgin.) Then came the rained on run. Cold, wet, relieving. Didn't mind the hole in the toe of my shoe letting in water. Didn't mind I couldn't really see where I was going in rain soaked glasses. Just ran. Outside and laughing friends heal everything.

Yes. Yesterday was a most blessing-filled day.


Have started incorporating more raw garlic, ginger tea, and more yogurt (is that possible?!) in hopes that my stomach will give up its weird acidic notions. Am concerned that I might have to give up onion. Some lovers just aren't good for you, I guess.

This morning as I dressed, I slipped my tape into the player and was blessed to hear the sweet twangling melodies of Michael Nesmith. At that moment I severely missed my old walkman. All I want to do is listen to Michael Nesmith and his first national band always. But I'm being a good budget child and restraining myself from laying out more mulah before the god iTunes.

I leave this for you to ponder:

freckles on my forehead

This morning.
Rode Bicycle to a meeting place, we did yoga on the lawn. Uplifting. Learned new bits of yoga. Lotsa new bits. Lavender essential oil on my forehead. I could use more lavender in my life.
I could always use more outside in my life.


mid-day perfect text from bestie-J.


BICYCLE RIDE.
Forever. Left my house at quarter to six came home at quarter past eight.
I felt my soul grow.
Here is why:
I am getting better at riding with no hands. I'm up to four seconds.
Wonderful people.
We rode through farmland.
Stopped and watched cows eat.
Out of city confines.


Maybe we should address the always desire of mine to be out of doors. What is it that drives a body so? Some of the best of childhood was spent barefoot, ignoring mother's request to wash feet and brush hair, digging through the dirt for buried treasure, feeling the gloaming air descend as we raced around playing detectives. How do you get better than earth, plants growing, fresh air, and a bit of adventure and wildness? You can go any direction once you've stepped out your front door.


(back to 8:25p.m.) Walked in my back door, grabbed a jacket and was out my front door. We rode north debating eatings/not eatings/time crunch then settled on putting off dinner. For....

Mon Oncle, the little French Jacques Tati pretty, gets better every time. I never laugh less, I only laugh more for M. Hulot is a best friend. He socked that guy right in the jaw! Then everyone is back in the cafe/tavern for an accordianed evening. What silent commedy charm.


End conclusion of grrrrrreat outdoor day: cooking rice in a microwave is tricky.

love.

Lots of thoughts.
Utopia would involve lots of sweaters.
Another marriageable fella? Sweaters get me everytime. A man with sweaters is utopia.


I'd sit with my feet ankle deep in garden earth. Even if you had flock of seagulls hair. It's spring, Mister, we should be enveloped in it.


Talked a lot about sci-fi film music this week. I've got nerd knowledge. Knowledge is power. I've got sci-fi nerd power. All I can think about is how I know I need to be a film major because I've never been good at remembering dates but I know that Tex Ritter singing "Do not forsake me" for High Noon in 1952 changed the way film scores were written.


It's destiny.

persephone's returning from the underworld

I just walked through the glorious outside world (so much inside time lately ughhh). It felt like spring. I feel like I'm going to make it. Birds chirping, a mild humidity to the air(?), one little scratch of bright pastel blue sky, green grass grows all around all around.

Yesterday, I sat under my sister's sun lamp. And when the sun burned through the clouds (though not diminishing them) I stood in the window and I could feel the warmth on my skin! Then the thick, green lawn lured me out and I stood with bare feet and felt grass. We're alive.

I read this poem last Wednesday in Poetry magazine of March 2010.

I have to tell you
by Dorothea Grossman

I have to tell you,
there are times when
the sun strikes me
like a gong,
and I remember everything,
even your ears. 

eye of the tiger

You snowed today and obamaweather says you're going to be snowy/cloudy for the next week but you will not keep me down. I've never let anything keep me down.

hamlet

The sun left much too long ago. I've barely been scraping along this week even with all the wonderful ways I got to spend my time. When I stepped out my front door on Thursday into blowing snow I wondered if I'd ever get the gloom out of my heart. Cold temperatures are difficult but doable, however, land without sun, well, that's no land at all.

So yesterday I broke down and curled into a tanning bed with kindest Roommate E.L. in the next door booth. I have huge qualms about this, it goes against my principals to (1) be tan like everybody else and (2) risk skin cancer. Alack, seasonal depression/vitamin D deficiency effaces my principality.  I filled my pores with SPF 50 because I'm a non-tan, fair-skinned kid and I ignored claustrophobia in pursuit of UV rays. 
I finally felt warm. 
They call this feeling sun-kissed. 
I call it alive.

Today, the grey gloom got to my soul again. By 6pm I'd had a day of spiritual learnings, yoga, bicycle ride on dearest Bicycle to the grocery store, yummy cookings, and yet I had mopey-heart. I finally dropped everything mid-dinner preparation (one of my favorite past-times) and went running. That did the trick.

The world wide says that it's not just me, most everyone feels rotted by sunlessness. But sometimes it feels like just me. By March I start making wagers with myself on what will come first: spring or me cracking. I guess this year I cracked first. 

What does one do?




Invest in a sun lamp?


link to listen to Equatics remix of Bill Withers' "Aint no sunshine when she's gone"