the wind is ruthless, the trees shake angry fingers at the sky

how i've missed these giant winds. the kind that makes relatively young palm trees uproot themselves and commit hara kiri in front of your car, the kind that finds the tumbleweeds that were exiled from the western sets at paramount studios (the ones big enough to completely engulf a european car if so inclined). the kind that makes you lean forward with all of your strength to walk into them.

however, pants is driving up here in his fairly lightweight car through canyons and at the base of the mountain passes. where the 65 mph gusts are channelled as high as 100+. the kind to tear up your fence and whisk away your little dog too.

i'm checking the CHP logs and i haven't seen any accidents, but i'm still a teensy bit worried. i'll be glad when he gets here, and loathe to let him leave. but that's also 'cause i dig him.

heather and incognito

it's only like work because you work at it

there are so many times when it's easier to fall asleep. to fall into that deep, velvety pit that opens a gateway to the world of surreality, comedy, tragedy, terror and tears that are covered in a faint haze of memory the next day. it's escape. it's living who you aren't quite. it's like living in a movie.

i don't want to fall asleep for this. it's been scary, it's been sad, it's been harder than almost anything i've ever done. but i wouldn't trade it for sleep. i think and think and think and think; sometimes my brain hurts, often the hurt is lower down. somewhere closer to my thoracic-abdominal line. a little line i like to call my diaphragm. sometimes it aches with the memory of the pain. sometimes it doesn't hurt even a little bit and it's like a scientist examining a foreign object, holding it with forceps and squinting a little at the unusualness of it all.

it's also been better than anything i had imagined. it's been fun, it's been exciting, it's been steeped in that quiet sort of peace that i call joy and that everyone else calls contentment. joy is a quiet, delicate little creature that will scatter at the smallest flutter of sheaves of paper. i go through periods where i tingle from top to toe for just long enough that i almost forget that i'm tingling. then i stop just long enough to remind me again.

when i was ten i hurt all the time. my legs made me cry at night because they hurt. we shout "grow up!" to childrenpeople like it's an easy thing to do, but time made us forget that it aches and pulls and makes you long for advil and heating pads, and especially for your dad's spaghetti. when i was ten and a half i decided that i liked the pain. not in a sick and twisty way, but because it was actual proof that i was growing. pencil lines on the wall don't change day-to-day, hour-to-hour. i liked it in the way that it sort of feels good when a molar is growing in and you prod it with your tongue and your fingertips and you bite on the end of your pen to feel it more. because when you feel it, you're know you're growing. and if you're growing you've got to be alive.

that's the same reason i like the hurt now. it's not constant, and the source of it changes from day-to-day, hour-to-hour. usually it's from the same vicinity. but you sit down at the end of the day, take account of your aches and pains, and think of all that you've fought for and lost, all that you've fought for and won.

at the end of the day, i can't help but notice that everything i've lost makes everything i've won that much more precious. in fact, i realize that i've had to lose it in order to win. some might call it collateral damage. but i really know it's part of the balance. and it's all about balance. it's not music without the silence between the notes.

so i'll wrap it in yellow silk, drop it in my pocket, and fight to the death for it again tomorrow.

there's nothing wrong with working a long day, every day, for what you know is important.

and this is important.

stupid syndication...

so, sometimes my rss feed isn't updating. and i've seen a lot of people on blogger having that problem.

(like how i attribute the lack of posting to the rss feed instead of me not posting?)

and i'm also seeing people say that changing the feed url to one ending in rss.xml instead of atom.xml takes care of that.

but if you do that for my blog, the most recent post is from august 25. so i don't know what to say other than what i always say:

stupid blogger.

i must be doing something wrong

at the end of yoga today, there was blood on my mat. a lot of blood. not like i severed an artery, but more than a speck.

that must be a new asana with which i am unfamiliar.

in good news though, i almost fell asleep in savasana - it's rare i actually take that time to really relax.

so much gratitude

yesterday was a good day. there was so much to be thankful for, and in so many ways i never saw coming. we were even able to discuss religion and politics without anyone being offended! i made the pants a pumpkin pie, he made us mashed potatoes - the food economy of family.

also, my sister googled pretty ways to fold napkins for our thanksgiving china. she did this cool thing:

napkin rose

if you'd like to see the jacquard pattern on the napkin and tablecloth, here's a shot with a blinding amount of flash:

that's what i call jacquard

i hope your thanksgivings were as lovely as mine. may you remember to be thankful every day.

internets, i know you can do it!

it's time to send your collective good thoughts and healing vibes to my college roommate, callous lily.

you see, she kicks major booty. she's a roller derby girl. she is one tough mama. and last week, she took a clean hit that sent her ass-over-teakettle, with her landing on her shoulder then her face.

and broke her shoulder. but not her face.

so she's in a hurty and immobilized way.

but what a freakin' awesome reason to have a broken shoulder.

in which i try to do a blog post, but wherein i'm simply posting to give the pants' best friend the opportunity to mock him because i call him pants

pants and i went on a date on friday night. it was clearly time, since we hadn't had one in quite a while and we were respectively planning our own dates with one another.

but we settled on pants' date: indian food and the new james bond flick. is it just me? i find daniel craig to be ridiculously unattractive. he looks like a monkey to me. but that's neither here nor there - it was a decent flick. i liked that it wasn't so much about the gadgetry as about the development of bond into bond... seeing the development of the gadgetry, the callous philandering, the ability to be beguiling and scheming (although that may be innate in some anyway) at the same time.

i also realized that somewhere along the line, i developed a fear of heights. i was having major issues with the first fight scene where they're fighting on construction cranes hundreds of feet over the ocean.

the indian food was good too - we went to haandi. now, it's no maharaja's ravi's in colton but it was pretty freakin' good. and we split an india special reserve beer which was quite tasty. the hoppiness of beers is growing on me... i'm no longer all about the malt, baby.

i have officially become a blogger who sucks.

and hi pants' best friend! mock him all you like - this post was for you.

call for geekdom

if anyone has a good hex color code for my tagline and my postings (because i'm just not geeky enough to figure out how to change one without the other), leave it in the comments and i'll give it a shot.

please?

i'll even apologize for using the term geeky instead of savvy the first time.

About this blog

erratically updated for food, yarn, or other nonspecified reasons