Hello lovelies,
I’m in the process of going through old blog posts and assigning (or reassigning) categories and tags. Partly to make this more user-friendly, partly to give it a more consistent feel, and partly because organizing things makes me happy. Let me know what you think.
1. The Mabacle is no more. A got rear-ended coming home from work Thursday night. He’s fine; the car is not. In fact, it’s no longer car shaped. The insurance adjuster hasn’t come out yet, but I can’t see any possible scenario in which they don’t total the car. The only question left is whether the universe was telling us not to drive a Miata or not to drive *that* Miata.
2. Stillness, Patience, Compassion. This was the theme of the yoga class I went to on Friday. While I generally find the “teachy” bits of yoga class a bit too new age for me, this one resonated. I am a very goals and action oriented person; stillness and patience are definitely not my strong points. When I’m with Z, I have to remind myself – often – that it’s not about getting to the end of the trail or making our way through a list of activities, it’s about spending time together. Stillness. Patience. Compassion. I expect I will be thinking, and possibly writing, about these ideas for the next bit.
3. I’ve fallen in love with a house again. A series of them, actually. Z and I biked over to the Mare Island Preserve this way, doing a bit of exploring as we went, and we came across the old officer’s quarters on Walnut Ave. These seem like they’d be perfect for shared housing – I’d love to see them filled with writers and artists and makers. Anyone want to buy a house with me?
4. Have you read Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Boys? It’s been sitting on my bookshelf since I came back from WorldCon 2014, and I can’t believe it took me almost a year and a half to read it. It’s a bit like Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising Series, but with teenagers, incredibly beautiful, literary writing, and a house full of women seers.
5. Up in the air. I’m heading out to NYC the week of the 7th, will be back for the weekend, then am heading to Dallas either the week of the 14th out the 21st. At which point we head into wedding season and, with any luck, D will let me pick up a bartending gig or two!
Closing tabs
The title of this NY Post article says it all: “People in India are literally killing themselves to take great selfies.”
I found these absolutely stunning photos of modern dancers via an interview at My Modern Met that came through my Feedly. It’s called the NYC Dance Project, and I love that they were inspired to do this because their daughter wanted photos of current ballet dancers to decorate her room.
I’m all for wiping out mosquitoes, but this reads like it’s straight out of 1950’s pulp sci-fi. If there’s bunch of tetracycline dependent kids born in 9 months, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
The best part of this article is the graphic in the middle telling you how many days a year your commute adds up to.
This one’s a bit grisly. Turns out, sneakers are made so well these days that they will keep your feet from rotting after you die.
Question of the Week
[yop_poll id=”10″]
The city seemed preternaturally quiet today, almost like an indrawn breath. The news oscillated between a live feed of the world trade center and a live feed of the floods in Jersey. I suspect it will be like this until Monday, at least.
I’ve been tracing the labyrinth in the mornings. An old girlfriend sent it as a wedding gift, which I thought at first was a bit of a statement on how far apart we’d fallen. (I’d brought her to the one in Pass-a-Grille years ago, back when I was still in Florida.) The last time I went to a labyrinth, I was living in Oakland and had just had my heart broken. Suffice it to say that was a long time ago, before Kincaid’s, before law school.
When I opened her present I looked at it and wondered that the memory of a pink church on the beach had stuck, and placed it in the dresser for lack of anywhere else to put it. Where it promptly became buried under a pile of clothing.
And then one day a few weeks ago I took it out from under the clothing and sat down to let my fingers trace out the path. The wood is varnished, shiny and almost sticky at times, and as I run my fingers along it I can’t help but think of the day it will be smooth and shiny, the varnish rubbed out and replaced by the oil of my fingers.