Personal Perestróĭka

I used to be all, “hey, let’s move someplace sunny!” you know ’cause it can be quite grey in the PNW.  And now I live someplace sunny, and I realize it isn’t enough.  I should have chosen some place that was sunny and warm, year ’round.

And then I wonder, have I become so soft that a few (short) months of cold is unbearable to me?  Apparently so.  The forecast tells me that tomorrow will be positively springlike, before temps drop back down.  It’s like a little ray of hope. I can make it until March.  I can make it until March. I can make it until March. I can make it until March. I can make it until March. I can make it until March. I can make it until March.

Today should be a good day.  I have no expectations for it, but I do have plans and if it all comes together it should be quite enjoyable.

Here is a little extra glee for your day:

Is it just me, or is that extra toe incredibly cute?

And look at these grumpy little faces!!!!

Days ago I wrote that I wasn’t going to complain about recent happenings.  And really, I am past complaining, well in to the ‘all one can do is laugh’ stage.

So I had a series of small mishaps yesterday.  And then Ladybug came home.  She closed the door behind her.  In a normal, non-violent way.  She took a step into the house and the glass shattered in the front door. Those of you who have been here will recall that most of the entire front door is glass.

I called the landlord and did my best to explain that it just broke.  That we weren’t playing indoor hockey, or fighting with redneck, half-toothed boyfriends or anything.  It just broke.

This month, the glass just broke along with the fridge, the dryer, the deep freeze, Ladybug’s windshield and my car.  And the pipes, the water heater, the neon sign and the ice machine at work.  Not to mention countless tiny problems in communication and household things.

Now I’m not saying nothing good has happened recently, because good things certainly have happened, but you’d have to do some pretty serious convincing to prove to me that there’s balance in the universe right now.  But I am thinking positively.  I mean, we must be generating a serious stockpile of good luck right now.

And really, I guess I’m not explaining the complexity of each situation.  For instance, while taping cardboard over the door (to keep the 30 degree temps out until boards could be put up), I tried to cut out a bit of the cardboard around the lock (you know, so we could still use the door) and the scissors completely broke in my hand.  As I rushed off, late for work, leaving poor Ladybug to finish taping up the cardboard, the packing tape dispenser completely broke in her hand (we couldn’t even find the duct tape).  With each new, small disaster, things have gone much the same.  As if it isn’t enough for something to break, it has to also be unusually complicated to deal with after it has broken.

And so once again begins a day when I would like to set out and run some errands but am, instead, sitting around waiting for someone to come fix something that is broken.  I have plenty of work to do here, I guess, but really I am too agitated to focus.  I suspect I won’t feel calm in my house until I have a front door again.  Nor will I be going anywhere.  I’ll just sit here feeling anxious and stressy.  Maybe I should have some more coffee.

luck

what’s bad about all
this
is watching people
drinking coffee and
waiting. I would
douse them all
with luck. they need
it. they need it
worse than I do.

I sit in cages
and watch them
waiting. I suppose
there’s not much
else to do. the
flies walk up and
down the windows
and we drink our
coffee and pretend
not to look at
each other. I
wait with them.
between the move-
ment of the flies
people walk by.

- Charles Bukowski

I’ve been confused by the rapid changes in Tennessee weather since I got here.  Last night as I left work, I was sure there was no way the predicted snow would come.  I mean it was 1 am and clearly way too warm to snow.  I think the difference is that in Seattle the weather comes right off the ocean and is hung up on the mountains for a while so no sudden changes happen. Whereas, here things sort sweep in from any and all directions and are subject to change at a moment’s notice.

So yes it ’snowed’ here.  On the one hand, I get it.  I mean a tiny bit of snow here is much bigger deal because it happens so rarely and no one knows how to drive in it.  On the other hand, no one here knows how to drive most of the time anyway and everyone actually acts quite panicked and absurd about the snow.

Luckily I have plenty of work to do here, since I don’t think I’m going to go out today.  And right now I have coffee, I have apple cherry cobbler that I took from the restaurant last night and I have fuzzy blanket.  Perhaps I will try and preserve this moment as long as possible.

Here are some of the search terms people have recently used that have landed them at my blog:

• white wine before bed
• mediation letters
• shipment has left seller’s facility
• boys wearing dresses
• lords of the cosmic jest
• how to come out of the closet to your parents
• nowhere near your neighborhood
• overwhelmed and unable to prioritize
• discontented, disgruntled
• come out of the s&m closet
• crackerjack kinda guy
• “gas stations” tennessee
• what does whopperjaw mean
• tom waits paper doll
• feel weak and head hurts
• cops in dreams
• the land of the sneezes
• storm raincoat hood dress story
• old tin dolls

I suspect most of these people went away terrible disappointed.

While searching for something completely diffrent, I accidentally stumbled on this guy’s pictures.  Check out, especially, the nature and animals & insects sets.  Lovely!

I am currently dyeing some things green and paiting other things purple.  I should be quite a mess by the end of the day!

Thanks, Cabbage Babble, for reminding me that it is Chinese New Year! Gung Hay Fat Choy!!  It is now the year of the Ox.  I was born in an Ox year, I wonder if that means something precipitous for me this year?  In honor of the New Year,  am putting money in red envelopes (per the tradition) and giving them to people I see today.

Today I:

made breakfast
bought socks
ran an extension cord over a door
whined
organized a couple closets
sorted boxes of crap and chucked a bunch of stuff
fixed a toilet
spilled lemonade all over everything on the side table
watched the end of Best in Show
solved a not enough outlets problem
went shopping
ate lunch
painted a picture frame
sorted piles of stuff to get rid of (ebay, goodwill and other)

Not particularly in that order and fortunately either worked with or kept Ladybug company all day, so at least it almost seemed like fun.  Now I am eating wasabi peas and watching Superman Returns because I am too lazy to change the channel.  I suspect I am not getting much more done today.  I might eat candy.  Or find something decent to watch on TV.  Eventually it’ll get so cold in the living room that I’ll give up on TV and go read in my room where it is much warmer. Yeah, those are the big plans for the evening that I got.  How ’bout you?

This is the best ad I’ve seen in a long time.  “I don’t know.  He just wants them out of his back yard. ” HAHAHAHAHA!

Is it wrong that I kind of want one of these?

LOLCats are always funny, but kittens are the best.

Today Citizen Twang and I went to the Country Music Hall of Fame, which was very crowded, since it was free admission day.  He gawked over Jimmie Rodgers’ guitar, I mocked the people that were more impressed with Hank Jr.’s suit than Mama Maybelle’s guitar.  Then we had delicious Mediterranean food and shopped a little.  Poor CT suffered through a 75% off sale with me.  But hey, I got a couple wine glasses, a couple bowls, a bracelet and a Buddha all for $15!  And nice things too.  Then CT suffered through my long rant about urban planning and what Nashville should be doing to revitalize downtown.  He really is the most patient person ever.

All in all, a very nice day.  Now should I take a nap before I go to work or should I try and get a head start on tomorrow’s massive spring cleaning?

Poem for today.  Though the title is Italian for ‘The Weeping Girl,’ I find this one of Eliot’s most beautiful poems.  The imagery in it astounds me.  It makes me both painfully sad and utterly awed by the beauty in the world.  So much beauty!  Mmmm, sunlight in hair.

La Figlia Che Piange

O quam te memorem, Virgo …

Stand on the highest pavement of the stair–
Lean on a garden urn–
Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair–
Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise–
Fling them to the ground and turn
With a fugitive resentment in your eyes:
But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.

So I would have had him leave,
So I would have had her stand and grieve,
So he would have left
As the soul leaves the body torn and bruised,
As the mind deserts the body it has used.
I should find
Some way incomparably light and deft,
Some way we both should understand,
Simple and faithless as a smile and shake of the hand.

She turned away, but with the autumn weather
Compelled my imagination many days,
Many days and many hours:
Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers.
And I wonder how they should have been together!
I should have lost a gesture and a pose.
Sometimes these cogitations still amaze
The troubled midnight and the noon’s repose.

- T.S. Eliot

I woke up a new woman this morning. Everything was different. Okay, well really all I did was flip my room around, so I woke up on the other side of the bed. But it feels strange, new, and a little exciting.

As I was sitting in bed reading the other night, I was sudden struck about how much I stick to one side of the bed. I mean it’s my bed, I sleep alone and yet I don’t sleep in the middle of the bed. And I will probably never sleep in the middle of the bed, but I can change it up. So I flipped the chair and the lamp and the bedside table and last night slept on the other side. Quelle différence!!  Now no one can say, “Looks like someone slept on the wrong side of the bed,” when I am cranky.  I swear it is definitely the right side of the bed.  At least it’s right as you face the bed.  Left if I’m in it.  But it’s still right.  HA!

It is sunny and lovely today. I was going to complain about the shitty problems and complications of the last few days, of the last month, but you know what? I’m not. I’m going to rally. I’m going to have a good day and a good year and everything is going to be a-okay.

I have posted this various places over the years, but I can’t repost it enough.  It’s just too beautiful.

Sonnet XI

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

- Pablo Neruda

Facebook has been so weird.  I have reconnected with a good friend from elementary school.  It is odd, like telling a stranger your secrets, but at the same time, more like lost family than a stranger.  I’ve also found a lot of people from high school, most of whom have turned out to be very interesting people.

I feel so stretched thin right now.  Some is my own usual crazy-making internal drama.  Some is just me taking on too much and then being mad at myself for not getting it all done.  But it will get done.  I just need to slow down and take some deep breaths.  And just accept that there are weeks more of winter.  I find it so unbearable, the cold, the lack of long hours of light.  But it is uncontrollable, so I should just move through it and not bear it as a burden.

I should also spend time reconnecting with the friends I have. I have just been so scattered for the last few months.  Am buckled down now, will get back to list making and checking things off.  On that list is to regularly write to the people I love.

And hey, Mercury is in Retrograde until Valentine’s Day.  So that sucks.  Though apparently the screwed up communications can work both against and for me.  And really what comes out of Mercury Retrograde, even for all it’s frustrations, is unforseen change, and really that isn’t a bad thing, it just is, right?  Just remind me not to make any important desicions and to relax when things don’t go right.

Random things from today’s online adventures:

Futuristic bike lane

Take the moon with you

I don’t know why I keep going back and reading Post Secret. I find it kind of unbearably sad. Especially the ones clearly written by teenagers.  So painful.

I like to think I don’t have secrets.  And I guess I don’t, in the sense that there will never be some be reveal where you’ll find out something about me that you never would have suspected.  But really I love secrets.  I do things all the time that I never tell anyone about.  Not bad things, or gross things, just mundane things, normal, everyday things.  But I don’t tell anyone because then the moment, the instant belongs only to me.  I also write letters to people telling them exactly how I feel about them and never send them.  Again, not bad things, or mean things, though some times painfully true things, but mostly just things.  But I can’t put it out there, it would make things too raw, or too uncomfortable, and somehow it would make the emotions less mine.

My own Post Secret would be:  I have so many secrets, most not even worth sharing, but I can’t let them go.

I spent my day sleeping, reading and periodically crying. You know how sometimes, when you are sick, you just cry because it hurts, and it sucks to be sick and you want your mom? And it’s just lonely being sick when you are grown up. And you’ve disappointed the friends you are cancelling plans with because you can’t function well enough to get out of your pajamas. Yeah, it was like that. I’m not telling you for sympathy, just, you know, I had that kind of day. I feel better. More in a fever’s broken way, than an actually good kind of way. Ladybug brough me hot chicken soup from the Turnip Truck and cookies and OJ. My mom sent me a little present. These things all helped, though probably the codeine is what is really making me feel better. I’d probably feel even better if I got up and showered, since I am sort to sweaty and gross. but I can’t be bothered. Hopefully tomorrow will involve bathing.

I read this and agree, and yet also think, “oh ho ho, really?” and yet still agreeing.

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning January 15
Copyright 2009 by Rob Brezsny
http://FreeWillAstrology.com

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): This week’s advice comes to you entirely from the great jazz pianist and composer, Thelonious Monk. It all happens to be in perfect alignment with your astrological omens. 1. “Don’t play everything or every time. Let some things go by. What you don’t play can be more important than what you do play.”  2. “A note can be as small as a pin or as big as the world; it depends on your imagination.” 3.”Whatever you think can’t be done, somebody will come along and do it.” 4. “A genius is the one most like himself.”

I might need to take a few days of news media black out. It’s getting very depressing everywhere in the world. Still I can remember that there is goodness in the world as well.

Last night I was out with some friends, including a new friend who was visiting from Germany. When we parted company my German friend pressed something into my hand. When I got inside I discovered it was a tiny angel figurine.

It was a very kind and beautiful gesture. I have been meditating on it all day. Pulled from context it was simply a reminder to that I need to really notice when there is loving kindness and goodness in the world.

This week’s reading: Learning Kindness.

I can, and do, generously and selflessly offer kindness to others. Or at least I try to when it is possible. But maybe I don’t accept kindness as well. Ladybug really helped me out a lot this week. Purely from living kindness. It was hard to accept, because it was asking for help. She told me that asking her for help wasn’t the same as asking for help. And she’s right. She’s right partly because she simply helped me out of the kindness of her heart, and she’s right because sharing both joy and burdens is part of life when you are genuinely connecting with other people.

And so I shall also carry this tiny angel with me to remind me that I am both an angel who watches over others and one needs an angel watching out for her.

I made two server aprons today.  One for me, and one for a coworker.  I patterned them off one of these.  The each have three pockets and heavy seams.

One is grey twill with a little guitar patch that I made.

The other is some heavy brown cotton I had left over, with birds appliquéd on from some other fabric I had laying around.

I am quite pleased with myself.  Unfortunately, as with most sewing projects, it took me twice as long as I had anticipated (mostly the ironing, I always forget to factor in the ironing), especially making the long ties for the waist.  But they look great!  Hurrah!  I’m still very much a beginner on the appliqué.  It’s not really hard, but it definitely takes practice and level of seam control with the machine that I just don’t really have yet.

I spent most of the morning looking at pictures of the flooding in Washington State and trying not to cry.  I didn’t succeed.  I cried a lot.  And I’m still looking.  Partly because I still feel like I can’t even guess at how bad it really is and partly because I feel fact obsessed.  I want to know all the rivers that flooded, how high they went, how that matches with past records.  As if a stack of facts could help me make sense of it.

It seems like every time the really bad flooding happens, people act like it’s okay because it’s a once in a hundred years thing.  But it isn’t.  For a while I have been 100% certain that the flooding has gotten substantially worse in my life time. And apparently I am right.   Not just climate change, but logging and floodplain development are to blame.  The only thing about that article that pisses me off is the meteorologist guy saying that we don’t know which individual storms are caused by climate change.  Okay, buddy, so no blame on climate change since we can’t identify individual storms? Isn’t enough to say that storms are increasing in frequency and magnitude?  Do we have to pinpoint which are normal freak storms and which are caused by climate change? Does it make a fucking difference? There are more and worse storms. It’s bad.

So Washington is washing away.  Tennessee is being buried in toxic sludge.  I’d say that I better start planning that move to Barcelona, but the droughts there are causing pretty bad fresh water shortages .  So one wonders if there is anywhere safe to go.  Should I just move into a self sufficient little cabin in the Rockies somewhere and hope I don’t die in a snowstorm?  Or maybe a little adobe in rural New Mexico?

Well, I thought I was done sewing for the day, but I guess not.  I hemmed a couple pairs of pants (it’s like having new pants!) and took in a blouse a little.  Not enough, it needs a couple new darts in the front and I am too tired to measure properly, so maybe tomorrow.  I also did the finish work on one of my other projects.  ApparentlyI felt the need to accomplish something today.  Something with tangible results that didn’t involve sitting at the computer.  So, all in all, successful, I guess.

Now I could either shorten the sleeves on another blouse, go to bed, watch Tomb Raider 2 on TV, go out for a drink, or go read.  Reading, I guess, since I’d have to put on pants to go out, my wrist hurts, and I can watch Tomb Raider 2 unedited on DVD any time I want.  I am exhausted, and yet I feel if I tried to go to sleep I’d just lay awake worrying about everything in the universe.

I worked on two projects this morning.  One, well, the stitching is done, but it needs a bunch of finish work.  Hopefully I’ll get that done tonight while watching a movie or something.

The other started out as this incredibly boring t-shirt:

Very, very drab.  Almost no color at all. Rarely gets worn.

I took this tank top:

Which is awesome, but has never really fit right.

I appliqued them together and TADA!

Also the back is neat, since I offset everything.  I mean t-shirts with stuff in the middle are so last year. Heh.