Hello, April

It was downright cold this morning, after a chilly weekend that followed a few days of record-breaking heat. This is all my fault. I took my winter coats out of my closet too early.

But the fresh-cut grass smells beautifully sweet this morning, and the combination of smell and cool freshness felt like a morning at Camp, which is always nice. Made me a little homesick, though.


This past weekend I made two avocados worth of gorgeous, chunky guacamole* and bought two bags of sprouted grain chips by "Simply Sprouted: Way Better" snacks. Both were surprisingly delicious, and I have just run out of guacamole. Really a shame.


In other news, I have temporarily ceased recycling (I'm quite ashamed of this) because our back door (which leads to the recycling bins) is entirely blocked by inchworms and webbing. Also the recycling, which needs to be carried through the house to be taken out, is covered in inchworms and webbing. Gotta love April under the trees.




















*I make it wrong, always, but I love it this way: avocado, minced garlic, salt, and apple cider vinegar to taste.

The air is just so delicious tonight.

Temporal displacement

We keep having these warm days lately, and I keep thinking I'm about to go to Louisiana. Today there's zydeco music on the radio (in Virginia!) and that does my heart good. And Festival International just released their Festival Wednesday lineup. Just waiting on the Thursday-Friday lineup, so I can figure out how much time to ask off of work...



I have a new job, by the way. Working with kids. I was enthusiastic about it, but now I find that I have a bad attitude toward the whole thing. It's a pretty nice place, and they are nice people, and I find that I don't want to be a person who makes a living by working with kids anymore. Or not again. So now I really need to step on it. Pick a direction and get going.


Also, I made a Pinterest, and that is eating my life this week. Last week it was Words With Friends, and now I have at least a half-dozen abandoned games that I'm trying to work up the motivation to finish.

Shift. And I do what I want.

My winter sky is back! The trees have stretched out their arms and intertwined their fingers in sleep, and the stars shine again through the empty spaces. Tonight the cold wind cut through my sweater and chilled my bare knees between the hem of my skirt and the tops of my boots, and I directed a toothy grin toward Orion.

And now, of course, the house feels like it's a hundred degrees, and I'm sitting in the front window (because that's where my computer lives, lately) with no shirt on. Good thing this isn't a highly trafficked street.



I was feeling so emo earlier this week--witness the past couple of entries--and two nights in a row I was rescued by unexpected phone calls from friends. One from a college friend (Katy) I haven't had a good conversation with since, well, probably since before graduation, and another from my we-always-hang-out friend Sara. Katy and I talked for over two hours, which was awesome. And she'll be in town soon! Or in the town where we went to school, which is only an hour away. That's a far sight closer than Salt Lake City, so I'll take it. Anyway it occurred to me that I had started getting emo around the time that I had stopped taking these vitamins that I had started taking. Looks like that may have been the reason, and it turns out that B-complex vitamins really do play a role in emotional health. Who'd have guessed it?


Also: boys.

Weather. And stuff.

The weather right now is beautiful. I walked Miley earlier tonight and looked up at the bare trees and felt that I was finally beginning to welcome the winter back into my world, though the air has been so moist and warm that sometimes I catch myself thinking that it's early spring rather than late fall. As we approached the intersection of our street and the next, a warm, damp wind blew through the trees and sent a rain of wet leaves fluttering and spinning through the beam from the streetlight, each one glowing dimly in its dance toward the ground.

And I need to take my heart the hell off my sleeve.

The rain.

It's been busy lately, for reasons I won't go into yet. Today is a beautiful, warm, quiet, rainy day. the rain is pressing into the trees and the ground, resulting in a continuous gentle fall of leaves. It really is beautiful. I think I'll go take a video. Or I would, if I knew where I had put my camera.

Last night as I drove out to dinner I looked up and saw the autumn leaves swirling in the wind and dancing down through the darkening sky, and it nearly took my breath away.

A shiny bagel

I just took Miley for a walk in the cold October rain, and she swerved crazily as I skipped (no, really) along down the gleaming street. I began to sing to myself (as is my custom), but remembered when I failed to hit a high note that I am still recovering from laryngitis, and fell silent for the rest of the hop-skip back to the house. A few blocks shy of home, Miley suddenly dragged me fifteen feet backward through the rain, then stopped, sniffed, and carefully picked up twice-bitten bagel in her teeth. I laughed, and watched her gently carry it home; watched her jump up on the bed and excitedly show it around; watched her hurl herself around the living room with excitement over her bagel.

It was silly and sweet, and we all giggled at her bagel-induced glee. But then suddenly, for a moment, the bagel became to me a slew, a whole genre of precious moments. The finding of the bagel became every miraculous moment that suddenly shines up out of the rain, out of the drainage ditch, and fills us with crazy, ecstatic, inexplicable glee.

So sappy, I know. So sickly sweet. But I thought it, so I wrote it. Message in a bottle, and all that.

The weather, and my decision-making process.

This evening I walked Miley in a misting rain--barely even a drizzle--underneath a depthless grey-blue sky that faded to pink as it neared the Southern horizon. I realized suddenly that night has been falling sooner, and that made me smile. I looked up as I passed beneath the streetlight, and remembered that there are few things I love more than watching rain or snow filter through the glow of street lamps. It's nearly the only thing they're good for, if you ask me.


I've been working myself into a panic over this mentoring decision I've been trying to (or trying not to) make--to be, or not to be one? I had a couple of bad experiences--nothing traumatic, just stressful and frustrating pairings girls who ended up being less invested in the program than expected--and essentially quit. I've still been attending the odd large-group meeting, but that's all. Recently I was asked to mentor a great girl that I've known for a while, who will almost certainly be more into the whole thing than those I worked with before. (Just so we're clear, all three of the young women I have been paired with in the past are pretty great. Just not that interested in having a mentor, as it turned out.) But still, rather than just say "yes" or "no," I freaked out. This seems to be my m.o. whenever I'm asked to make a decision based solely (or nearly so) on nothing but my own opinions and feelings. My mind likes to work with facts, so here is the conversation I have with myself when asked to mentor:
"Last time it sucked." (-1 to mentoring.)
"But this is a different person." (Possible +1 to mentoring.)
"But the time before that wasn't great either." (-1 to mentoring.)
"But this time might be better." (Possible +1 to mentoring.)
"But it might suck again." (Possible -1 to mentoring.)
"But she was the first one to get her paperwork in!" (+1 to mentoring.)
"Well how do you feel about it?"
Panic and aversion. -1 to mentoring.
But said panic/aversion is illogical. Disregard.

Calculating: 0 -1+1-1+1-1+1=0. Need more data.

Data unavailable.

Does not compute. Enter inability-to-make-decisions panic mode; shut down.

At this point I push the whole thing from my mind until someone asks me again, at which point I reenter panic mode. Anyway, I said I'd do it. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

When I drive home from painting under the welcome threat of rain, I watch the cloud layers slide past one another over the bridge. Blue sky slips beneath whispery grey, which is superseded by fluffy white and then dark, smoky shadows. Rinsing the paint from my hands at the garden hose, I reflect that this may be the season's last smell of warm water and living wet dirt, so I breathe it in deeply. But though the night brings the seasonally appropriate whiff of dry autumn leaves, the next day it's eighty degrees again. Things are what they are.

Beliefs and wishes

It occurs to me that I mentioned Mark a while back, and then never closed out or continued that story. I think he's awesome. I think that he thinks that I am awesome. I kind of wish that we were soulmates, but instead we seem to be two quite similar people who are not attracted to one another. Shit happens, I guess. Though it can be difficult to find a different rhythm with the same person, I hope that we'll end up as friends.

The weather is seesawing between seasons, but I know it'll truly get to fall eventually. Sometimes the lines of brake lights look to me like angry red sores on the skin of the world. Leaving aside thoughts of practicality for the moment, a part of me just wishes we walked everywhere.


I've been reading another Charles DeLint book, which is full of magic. And I'm not sure how I feel about this, but regardless of how I feel about it, part of be believes these things. Fiction. People think I read fantasy because I like fantasy, but really, that's what science fiction is for. That's all entirely made up. It's about technology that doesn't and probably can't exist. Obviously fantasy is arguably also entirely made up, but a lot of it (and the sort I'm most drawn to lately) is based on cross-cultural myth, and it pulls me in. Often I read fantasy because on some level, I believe in magic. Not Criss Angel, not rabbits-from-hats magic, but the kind of magic that lets us sometimes dream the future. The kind of magic that put a stone in my hand while I was sleeping as a child. The kind of magic that can allow us to affect one another across vast distances, or encourage plants to grow taller with our thoughts or voices. I have stumbled into it before, but not for fifteen years or more. I hope to stumble into it again. And maybe "magic" is a misnomer. Who was it that said that magic is just science we haven't discovered yet? But whatever it is, even if it isn't unquantifiable, it is unquantified. So I call it what I will.

A fair and a fire and a late-night stroll

And it's finally cool enough to walk with a hoodie and hat and gloves. This is all so wonderful.

Notes on medicine, honesty, weather, and unnecessarily profound observations.

Prednisone is not tasty, but I am still worried about having just taken my last dose. I still itch. Shouldn't I have stopped itching by now?
 (The poison ivy has improved--drastically, in some places. But it isn't gone. My itching hands and shins still contributed to my poor sleep last night.)


I just had to (or felt that I had to) admit to a guy I've been talking to that I might have met somebody cool and thus might not be around on the site much longer. So now I feel pretty bad. Great. (Cry me a river, I know. Watch it not work out, anyway. How often do these things work out? So far: 1-3 times in 25 years, that's how often.)


It has been raining a lot over in this part of the world. It's kind of nice, aside from the part where I don't get to do the outdoor work with Rick that I was supposed to do earlier in the week, and thus do not get paid for it. A particularly close bolt of lightning (and crash of thunder) shook the house quite hard this morning.

And when it is raining, I love hearing the birds still singing--even through the lighting and thunder sometimes. I guess I don't have much else to say about it. I just love those sounds together, and the symbolism that I can make up and put in there.


And here is a quote from Style Rookie, which I rarely read but which often amuses me when I do, despite my almost complete disinterest in style: "The thought of summer and its nearing end is causing me to make unnecessarily profound observations about the way the light is hitting all the crap on my desk while the sun sets."


This reminds me so much of myself, except that I make unnecessarily profound observations about the way the light is hitting all the crap on my desk (and so on) almost literally all the time.

Oh, it's been weeks again. My bad.

Things I Never Thought I'd Say pt 27:

"I really hope I have poison ivy on my mouth."


This is because if I don't have poison ivy on my mouth, then I have somehow just contracted oral herpes after 25 years of successful avoidance, despite having two immediate family members with the virus. So here's hoping for poison ivy. I guess the odds are good, since I'm covered in it*.

Speaking of which, in case anyone is wondering why people always say "DO NOT POP POISON IVY BLISTERS," rather than "you can pop them, as long as you then immediately wash them with lye soap or something else similarly effective and then cover them with calamine lotion," here is the reason:

popped poison ivy blisters do not stop running. Apparently ever. Learn from my mistakes. Please.






























*Hypothetically, if you were ever to have to do something like running outside during a hurricane to set up garden-hose siphons in your backyard to prevent your basement from flooding, and if your backyard is full of, among other things, poison ivy, you should probably wear long pants and long sleeves and lace-up shoes. And then after you're done you should probably wash yourself with lye soap. What you should not do is run around in a t-shirt and cropped pants, and then take a shower with some random, totally-ineffective-against-poison-ivy body wash, and then go back outside to restart the siphons, and then just kind of hope for the best. That might not be the best plan.

Sun and not enough swimming.

Suddenly, walking through the humid night air, it's clear that I'm walking through a mid-growth forest. Suddenly the weather turned and the deciduous trees bloomed into the foreground, and now I walk beneath a low roof of leaves, rather than under the open empire sky.

Today, I tutored Layla out on the dock in the bright sun, and we began and abandoned a story about three geese, and she sounded out words--water, sun, swim--that  I had written on the white board, and we counted and wrote numbers in chalk up to 100, and practiced a few addition and subtraction problems, and I wanted nothing more than to dive into the lake and swim around with all my clothes on. The water looked delicious. The dock isn't even close enough to the water to wet my toes, which is really a shame. But tutoring went relatively well, and afterward I helped Sannah with her fractions homework*, and just hung out and talked for a while. Layla and I started late, partially because I was late (thanks, Hunter) and partially because Sannah and I talked for a while before Layla and I started working. I love them. They're pretty great.


On another note, is it just me, or are there about eight hundred times more inchworms this year than usual? I've always been rather fond of them in the past, but bugs*** seriously lose their charm when they show up en masse.



Tomorrow, hopefully:

Clearing the driveway

Doing laundry

Packing for Lafayette (I leave Wednesday, and probably will not have internet access.)

Picnic at the park with Sara (<3)

Tutoring Layla

Introducing Hunter to the magical world of Talladega Nights

Drenching myself in epsom-salted water in an attempt to get rid of this stupid poison ivy. Why did it have to be on my face? I want to just take a bath in bleach, which is my usual remedy for the stuff. Not baths in it, obviously, but just pouring it over the affected area, or soaking a paper towel in it to accomplish the same thing. I'm not totally insane, no, though I do realize that this is not an option for those with more sensitive skin than mine. This remedy works because poison ivy is highly acidic, and bleach is a very strong base--so it neutralizes the acid. Or that's the explanation I've gotten, at least. The point is that it works. And I'm thinking of showering in it.

































*Maybe I'm just a late bloomer, but lately it truly amazes me to realize how much easier math has become as I've gotten older. It isn't that I've practiced any of it, or even looked over it--but suddenly I can see the logic behind so much of it. Suddenly it makes sense, and I can't see why it seemed so difficult before. It's all geometry.**

**I mean this metaphorically. Geometry was the only math that seemed to fit with the structure of my brain when I took it in high school.

***Please note the use of "bugs" rather than "insects," as I am fairly certain that worms of any kind do not technically fall into the "insect" category. Six legs, and all that.

Happy day-after-Easter, loveys.

I haven't really been writing anything lately, except for short little things on my cell phone which are largely about sunsets. Perhaps I'll copy them over here. I haven't decided.

This past weekend though I was in upstate New York visiting my friend Lindsey and my godson (her son) Ian and his twin sister Adrienne, for their birthdays and, incidentally, for Easter. It was tiring and also really good to see them. Also though, it was cold. And when I stepped off the plane tonight into the warm, humid Virginia air, it was almost like a religious experience. And when Jack and I drove home on the interstate with the windows down, and talked the whole time. And when I walked with Miley through the moonless night, under the quietly, constantly rustling leaves of the trees. And when I smelled the wet dirt and the little creek and the hay strewn across someone's lawn. It is emphatically spring, and I love it. I do not ever want to move to the North.


ALRIGHT. Some of the things I wrote on my cell phone notepad:

4/22--This April morning the sun rises like a rocket, drawn up by invisible strings into the low hanging clouds, from the horizon to some unseen place behind the rainswept cloud bank in a matter of minutes. Last evening I watched the spring in the treetops, the sinking sun kissing and melting through the outstretched arms of warm wood, bathing the earth in green light.

4/24--We're flying through the ethereal world between cloud layers, in a perfect palette of muted white and graded blue. Slivers and spots of light from the setting sun spread softly and quietly across the Western horizon.

And tonight (and this I did not put into my phone), we flew near a thunderstorm on our way between LaGuardia and my hometown. Though I know I look like a small child and a person who has never flown before whenever I do this, I love to press my face up against the airplane window and watch the lightning in the clouds. The clouds themselves are rather stunning--sculpted shapes of the darkest possible gray filling the sky above the city, and enormous banks of it piling up in the distance--but in the darkness they have no definition. Each lightning strike looks like a tiny sunrise, and it highlights the hidden depths of the clouds for the smallest instant. It's gorgeous.

Early spring softness

The night air is so gorgeous this evening--soft and warm. It makes me want to sleep outside. I considered doing so for a moment, but it is important to remember that as warm as 50 degrees might feel while you're walking a dog, try to sleep outside in 50 degree weather and it's suddenly cold as anything. In early summer in the mountains it gets down to the lower fifties at night, or upper forties if we're really unlucky, and I end up supplementing my blankets with sweats and socks and longjohns and a hat. It's really flippin cold.

But anyway my point is that it's a beautiful night. Summer is coming.

UNTITLED. Because I do what I want.

In what world is it acceptable for the outside temperature right now to be 28 degrees? Miley and Faith and I are all curled up warmly in front of the wood stove, and that's great. but very soon I am going to have to take Miley outside. I'm not looking forward to it.


On another note, here (http://writeordie.com/) is a really awesome program that I bookmared yages ago and then completely forgot about. It is awesome. I think I might buy it, if only to support sheer awesomeness on principle.


Speaking of buying, I did not buy any Leona Lewis albums after all. I did buy a couple (a few?) of her songs.

Also, I'vce realized that (I think) that yesterday's reference to Marcus was the first I'd posted here, and it was negative. That's not really the impression I want to give. Marcus is super cool. I just, you know, suck at communicating with people I haven't known since infancy. It's an issue.


LASTLY, I just want to say that almost all of the above was typed without looking at the screen, because I am comfortable and don't feel like picking my head up off my arm. This would make more sense if you realized that I am literally lying on my stomach on the floor in front of the wood stove. Anyway, this is why I put the "write or die" link in parenthesis instead of as a hyperlink, and this is also why there are typos--because I am proud of there not being many, and I have therefore decided to leave the typos that I couldn't correct without looking because, you konw, there aren't that many.

From Firefox, for a change.

I had forgotten about the storms forecast for tonight, and Miley and I stepped out into a drizzle and walked through the gently growing rain. We went down to the creek, and it sounded like summertime. The water was swollen with the beginnings of its wet season wealth, and I could hear a frog calling a little up the way. Miley splashed through the stream and I remembered again how much I love the sound of feet walking through water.

We left the woods after a few minutes and walked on up the street, and I loved the rainy midnight shine of porch light on slate walk. I loved the cool-not-coldness of the air and the raindrops. And now I'm exhausted, and still have not done laundry. And won't. Goodnight.

Heat

I mentioned extraordinarily early spring flowers the other day, yes? Well today the temperature (on my car thermometer, anyway) hit 91. On March 18th. It was odd to drive with the windows down and not feel any lessening of the temperature inside the car. It was odder still to be doing so with a winter coat on the floorboard of the passenger seat, and to know that I'd probably be wearing the coat again within a week.

Chloe and I went back to Carytown--

Oh yes, I never posted that did I? Thursday Chloe and my mom and I used our massage-and-manicure vouchers from Christmas. Now my nails are red and awesome. While waiting for our turns to be rubbed down and painted, Chloe and I went to Ten Thousand Villages and commenced drooling over scarves and such. So today we went back with (on my part, at least) scarf purchases in mind. I dissuaded myself though, and bought a messenger bag and a change purse/wallet that looks like an owl. It is rather adorable.

My mother sang in a concert performance tonight of John Rutter's "Requiem," so we all (except my brother, who was working) went. Relatedly, I have made a mental addition to Dream House Extraordinaire: a singing room. Or a music room, whatever. This doesn't necessarily mean a room to play musical instruments in so much as it means a room with COMPLETELY AWESOME acoustics. I'm such a sucker for them. When I was exploring ruins alone in Scotland I found myself in a domed stone room and I couldn't help but sing. And then (tonight) I remembered the acoustic "echo spots" at Mary Wash and decided that maybe, in addition to the singing room, there should be sweet acoustics hidden all over the house. Yes. Yes, there should.

I have forgotten what else I meant to write, as usual, and also as usual I don't really feel like uploading pictures. (Don't be too disappointed, dearies--just cell phone pictures of things I bought and considered buying at the store.)

It's nearly 1 am again, so goodnight.

Mmmm.

Junior came to the movies too, which was awesome, but did not see Red Riding Hood with us. He said that it would be just like Twilight. We said it would not. He was correct, which was kind of a shame. 

None of us (except Kelly and Jr, anyway) had seen each other in what felt like ages, so we hung out in the theater parking lot for a while before going home. I missed them. I missed seeing them and being with them. Taylor makes me so happy, especially. And I missed Junior's hugs. He gives the best hugs of pretty much anybody ever.

Of course, there was that time while Jr and I were playing foot-stomp that a car full of teenage morons drove away and then yelled racial slurs back at Junior. He shrugged it off, because that's how he does things, but I really wished I had a javelin to throw into their car. Or, you know, a grenade. What the F is wrong with people? Seriously? I can't even express how angry and upset this makes me. He's one of my best friends and he's so much fun and he's a truly great guy--but you're going to say the most insulting thing you can think of to him--not even say it to him, but yell it from your car window as you drive away--just because he's black? Fuck you. You're a fucking moron.

Um, but other than the remembering of that, it's been a pretty good weekend. Seeing everybody really was great. And Chloe's home from school for a little while. And I finally caught up on my sleep. And the weather today is wonderful, even if I didn't go enjoy it properly at the river or in the woods or at a park. I'll have time later in the spring, and later this summer. AND IN LAFAYETTE. (I finally bought my tickets. Did I mention that? I'm going, suckas. Going alone again, but it'll still be good. I feel like it would be difficult for Festival International to not be good. I'll just have to be more careful this time about removing my contacts after a crawfish boil. For reals. I'll bring my glasses this time, just in case.