It's late.

I've been doing my angsty-boy-problems thing. Feeling whiny about problems that, in a broader context, aren't really problems. Wishing for jobs and looking for apartments. Watching the skies.

The night skies have been cloudy and overcast, and I don't mind the rain, but I don't love the humidity and I miss the stars. Fall has been approaching with tantalizing slowness--it still feels like summer half the time, and a handful of the leaves began to change and then seemed to stop in their tracks. The air is as muggy as August's. Two nights ago the sky was grey when I knelt to the ground and pressed my face to the blacktop, and when I struggled to my feet the clouds had moved away, revealing stars for the first time in days. I felt very grateful. It seemed symbolic.



Some of the books I've been reading in the past six months:

the Mistborn trilogy (Brandon Sanderson, fantasy)
BAM (Best American) Science Writing 2010 (various, essay)
At Home: A History of Private Life (B. Bryson's brand of research)
Sandman (vol. 1) (Neil Gaiman, graphic novel)
AWOL on the Appalachian Trail (David Miller, memoir)
A Hat Full of Sky (Terry Pratchett, fantasy)
The Hunger Games (don't you already know?)
I started something by Charles DeLint tonight, but I can't remember the title.

I have begun and (for the time being) abandoned several more, including a book about leafcutter ants, and another of Bryson's amateur researcher books, and probably several others.


Elsewhere I wrote about a conversation I'd like to have, and produced a train metaphor. Then I typed up a short, one-draft poem about it:


Life runs on ahead, and we jump
from train to train, moving too fast
to read destination signs, packing away
our lives into hankerchiefs on staffs, tied up,
minding the gaps and wondering what lies
ahead.

Harvest Moon

The first slivers of fall are starting to seep through into the air. I am told that tonight is the first night of the harvest moon, and when I walked out with Miley I swear I felt a nip in the air. I felt the same on the ride home as I halfheartedly tried to sleep in the passenger's seat--I curled up against the wide open window under my folded comforter with the early fall wind blaring against my face and eardrums, and I thought about fall festivals and apple orchards and wood smoke and cider and cool soft winds. The leaves are beginning to change. I can't wait.




EDIT:

I walked Miley and then felt that I just absolutely had to come back and write about it. That's a sure sign of approaching winter, right there. It starts.

To begin: we live on a hill, not far down from the main road--so when I walk, more than ninety percent of the time I walk down the hill, and deeper into the trees.

This means that on nights like tonight, when I walk up the hill, I am astonished by the broad, magnificent stretches of sky that hang over the higher parts of the road. I stepped out and watched, mouth wide open, as the cottony clouds drifted inexorably over the moon like obscuring leaves in a slow stream. The air is crystal clear tonight, the stars like diamonds, and the full moon threw a soft rainbow onto the surrounding clouds and lit them up with a shine that was the color of frozen lightning.

All I'll say on the subject, I promise: the night is so gorgeous tonight. So clear! So much sky! So many stars! And the trees are magnificent.

Has it been since Thursday already? Oh. Oops. Well dinner (ish--I had half a pitiful sandwich and a smoothie at Tropical Smoothie) with David was okay. I think possibly I realized that It (capital I, referring to the two of us) isn't a good idea. Obviously I have come to this realization before, but what I mean is that possibly it's beginning to take. Isn't that something?


I think I also mentioned that the Book To* End All Books was sitting at the library with my name on it. It wasn't on the hold shelf--it was behind the front desk. The reference librarian who found it for me thinks that "it just got put there," but personally I believe that they were afraid someone would just walk off with this most precious of books.



No, I'm serious. Do you know how many holds are on that book? When I requested it, on November 27th, there were already sixteen holds. It came out on November second. I didn't expect to get it until March. 2012. And the thing is eight hundred and forty three pages long. In hardback. The fact that I have it in my hands right now is very little short of a miracle.



An aside: vanilla iced cream with cocoa powder right before bed is a horrible, horrible, completely delicious habit.



























*Come Right Before The Book That Will

On a Friday.

I am heavily tired.

I dislike city driving.

I am utterly sick of painting.


I walked Miley tonight in the early evening, which is out of the ordinary for me. It was so dark, and as last night held a full moon I was confused by this. I guess the moon hadn't risen yet. It was a strange feeling.


I helped my aunt today, and just before I left she gave me earrings and a wool hat that apparently used to belong to another of my aunts. I haven't worn earrings in almost ten years--eight, maybe--because whenever I have tried since then my ears have gotten infected. She promises that these surgical steel posts won't have that effect. I guess that makes sense. They are hearts with copper wire frames, and they dangle. She put the hat on me and decided that I needed rouge and lipstick. It all looked nice together, though (not really owning any makeup) I don't think I'll be able to reproduce the effect any time soon. She is pretty wonderful sometimes.


Shockingly colored sunsets are beautiful, but I love the way a clear evening sky fades up from pale orange to white blue to a deeper, darker, clearer blue than would ever be possible anywhere else. The simple perfection of it takes my breath away every time.


This will be a busy weekend. I want to see the people that I have plans to see, but I don't want all the running around and confusion that it will entail. I am trying to dredge up some enthusiasm. Dear God, please give me a good night's sleep. It has been so long.

Maybe I should re-title this blog.

"Midnight Dog Walking in Va."

It's a wonder I get any hits. I swear I'll stop talking about the moon though when Sara stops insisting that she likes what I say even when I say silly crap. Or at least I'll think about stopping.

Seriously though, I promised myself I wasn't going to do it tonight. I even closed my computer before we went outside. I should have gone ahead and shut it down completely. I just... I just don't even know what to do with myself. I look up and I see the moon with that round rainbow halo it gets around it sometimes, hanging up there and shining through the tree branches, and it's so perfect I just don't know what to do with myself. I feel like I could just stop time and stare at it forever. I get the same way every time I hear wild water running. You're lucky that there's only so much one can say about the sound of the creek at the bottom of the hill. But then, I guess some might say the same thing about the night sky. It has a moon, it has a bunch of stars, there are clouds sometimes, the end. But, you know, where there's a will, there's a way. I was going to throw in a quote about obsession, but my three-second Google search only yielded quotes about how "[x] is my obsession." How profound.

On another note, I would like to say that I am completely disgusted with myself for being up until 3 am. Again. This is so stupid.




EDIT:

Just kidding! Found one! Lucky you.

"I do not think that obsession is funny or that not being able to stop one's intensity is funny."
Jim Dine 

Whatever.

The sky looks fabulous tonight. It's weird of me to say that, I know. I think maybe I'm slightly more biased than most (as though there are more than three other people in the world walking around with massive crushes on their local starscape) because I walk out my front door* every night and look up at it through these massive trees that tower over our house, and then I wander down through the neighborhood until I can stand by the dark, sleepless, singing creek and look through the woods. It's like taking a pretty girl and dressing her up in satin and silver and pearls. She would be pretty anyway, but some nights she is breathtakingly lovely.

Tonight every inch of the ground (not the road) gleamed under the glow of our two streetlights. I love the frost on nights like this. It made me a little sad though to think that for so many centuries of winters this magic lay on the ground, right under people's feet, and no one could ever see it. Perhaps it will show up under the full moon, but I'm not counting on it. This may be the first time ever that I have been grateful for street lights. Wonderful!


































*Toor? Really? I can't type worth a damn tonight.

And now, a few extremely original musings on the night sky.

The sky has been gorgeous all this evening and all tonight. The roof is ringed with clouds around the horizon, and all above the sky is clear, with gauzy tendrils of cloud wandering across in front of the stars and moon. It's a half moon tonight, and golden, and glowing, hanging slightly tilted like a rounded cup set down on the ground. I think it may already have been setting when I set out. It seemed to be sinking fast through its glittering dark sky, and it shone like a low beacon through the branches of the woods at the bottom of our hill.


I seem to have run out of peppermint tea. That is, my mug is empty. The teapot isn't. But it's all the way over there, and I am all set up over here.

While I was gazing around the darkened streets and sky and woods and trying to match words to what I was seeing, Miley was industriously seeking out optimal rolling patches. I've started to be able to see the signs, though I can't describe them well. One thing I can single out though is that she stands fairly still for a moment, sniffing, and then she gives one wag--back-forth--of her stubby little tail, and then she hurls herself face-first into the dirt and wriggles around as much as possible before I drag her away. Tonight she did it at least three times.

I got more tea, but the cozy was left off and the tea is now tepid. What a shame. 

ice

shortly after 2 am I stumbled out the front door with leaden feet and a dog leash clutched in one fist. eventually I began to realize that I was passing most of this walk with my chin tucked down into my chest (no doubt a subconscious message that any person in her right mind would be tucked into blankets just then, rather than scarves), but when I convinced myself to lift my head I could see that it was (is) a beautiful night. the sky is purple. purple! and the stars are, of course, just lovely. sleet obviously has its downsides, but in the small hours every tree branch gleams in the porch lights, and the liriope*plants looked like dim green sea anemones underfoot. Walking on the thick frozen grass felt pretty spiffy, but it was less fun to hit a spot that had been tire-flattened earlier in the day, and slide on the ice-slicked ground. another note: wind chimes on an extremely early january morning sound pretty mystical. That sounds horrible. "Mystical" is not the word I want to be using, but I'm not sure there's another that fits better. You know? When you picture wind chimes, it's sunny and hot, 3pm on a july afternoon. (it's 3. f capitalization.) hearing them in the dark cold of january is so unexpected, and somehow a little amazing.


I noticed on the way to work tonight that the ground was all frosted. it irritates me a little that when you read this, you'll read "frosted" as a reference to cake, when actually cake frosting is almost certainly a reference to the phenomenon I was noticing on the grass. worse, if you're really doomed (like I evidently am), you'll hear "frosted" and think of the "ladies, frost yourselves" diamond commercial from "how to lose a guy in ten days." /shudder.


okay, TO BED. for real this time.






























*Evidently I've never written that word before. Had no idea how to spell it. Thank you, google.

I am exhausted,

but I am waiting up for the eclipse to hit its stride. It's looking like a crescent moon at the moment. This is one of those things that I always feel like I should get really excited for, but don't actually get all that excited for. I mean, I'd kind of like to see it, but the super slow motion and the dull red light generally end up feeling pretty anticlimactic to me. That, and the fact that I still don't have a camera that can get decent shots of it. One of these days I'm going to have to give in and get a DSR.


I have really been doing a lot of snow boot shopping lately, and I am really getting sick of it. The Sorel Tivoli boots came in the mail today, and they are narrow. And I have wide feet. The situation has been improved by the wearing of stockings and the replacement of the (quite thick) Sorel inserts with thinner ones, but I'm still not 100% decided about keeping them. So I've been looking for emergency backups. Here's a possibility, though I'm not sure about wedge heels in snow boots, or in general. Who the crap makes snow boots with heels?



I spent some time this morning/afternoon working with one of my aunts. She shared with me two excerpts from books that she has read. The first is by Melody Beattie, and I didn't catch the originator of the second, though it is often mistakenly attributed to Nelson Mandela. Bold font obviously mine.

"Say thank you until you mean it.
Thank God, life, and the universe for everyone and everything sent your way.
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. It turns problems into gifts, failures into successes, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. It can turn an existence into a real life, and disconnected situations into important and beneficial lessons. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
Gratitude makes things right.
Gratitude turns negative energy into positive energy. There is no situation or circumstance so small or large that it is not susceptible to gratitude's power. We can start with who we are and what we have today, apply gratitude, then let it work its magic.
Say thank you until you mean it. If you say it long enough, you will believe it."

(Disclaimer: I can't say that I completely agree that one should be thankful for everything, but I do think that in every situation, there is something to be thankful for. And while I don't necessarily think that gratitude will instantly fix every problem, I do believe that it saved my life.)

[Going to check on the eclipse*.]

[It now looks like a very fuzzy crescent with a very faint, greyish-red tinge. This might be due to some thin clouds in the way, but it's hard to tell for sure. It isn't a very clear night out here though.]

Second, not-Nelson-Mandela quote:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us--it is in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."



Another note: Chloe parked the car in a somewhat unwise spot this evening, and got sideswiped. The car? My car. This is the second time in just over a week that someone has hit my car while it wasn't moving. PSA, everybody: don't buy a gd navy blue car. Surprisingly enough, it tends to blend in with the navy blue nighttime. Crazy, right?


Lastly, I really want these boots. I want them so bad. They come in navy blue! How often does that happen? I think possibly I should be banned from looking up boots online for a while.






















*I am ashamed and a little bit horrified to admit that when I say the word "eclipse**," I think of the Twilight series.

**Oh God, I capitalized it.

More on love.

I did mention, didn't I, that I love Neil Gaiman? (Neverwhere was fabulous, by the way. Thanks for asking. My father has now stolen it and will return it before the library due date if he knows what's good for him.)

He was on NPR and I missed it. I didn't even know. What kind of a fan am I? (Obvious and unabashed answer: a bad one.) Luckily for me, my splash of mercy came from, as the LotR screenplay writer might have said, "the most unlikely person imaginable." It came, shockingly, from the administrator of one of those momming facebook groups that I follow. She cared because her friend who does something to do with children got to talk to N.G. about babies or something on the show*. I care because, duh, he is fantastic. Here's the interview.

Golden sentence from said interview, demonstrating a lovely illustration of the difference between "its" and "it's":
"It's its own glorious medium."

Golden quotation from the interview: "comics are a wonderful gateway drug to reading."

<3.


Relatedly, I have decided that I want another of the BAm series 2010 this Christmas: BAm Comics**.




On another note, as I drove back from painting early this afternoon, the sky was gorgeous. (Odd that I noticed, I know.) High above, distinct rays of winter sunlight fanned through the soft cloud cover overhead. Halfway between the treetops and the upper range of my sight, the clouds coalesced into separate, soft shapes--that mini cumulus thing that they do sometimes--and crowded edge to edge across the entire sky, with the sun trickling through them and the whitish blue sky peeking out from behind.  The loveliest moment of it was when I drove toward a power pole, and a handful of birds sat scattered across the lines, silhouetted against the winter sky.  


And now, please excuse me. I am off to make sweet rolls. Or to try, at least. I haven't done this by myself before. Actually, in the past I've mostly sprinkled flour and stood alongside while my mother makes sweet rolls. So this should be interesting.





















*Clearly I stopped paying attention as soon as I saw the important part of the status update.

**I am slightly ashamed of this, because I don't even like comics.

Skies.

Tonight, for the second night in a row, I lay down and looked up at the stars and wish I could just fall asleep outside under the sky. This time it was in a pile of leaves next to the road. Last night I went out to lie in the street (our yard is roofed by towering pines and oaks and a holly and a tulip poplar) and see if I could catch the end of the Leonid meteor shower, and I ended up just listening to the night, hearing the faint sounds of a wind chime down the hill, and a dog barking in the distance. At one point I fancied I could see the stars moving on their inexorable paths through the night, but then realized that, at least judging by the changing positions of Orion I'd witnessed on previous nighttime walks, I "saw" them moving in the wrong direction. I got up when I realized that I'd doze off in the middle of the road if I wasn't careful. As I climbed the steps I suddenly envied Larry his dairy roof, where he can go lie out and watch the stars whenever he likes, and sleep there if he feels like it. He has done so, but then had to deal with waking up at 4 or 4:30 am when his father came out for the morning milking.