"having brain surgery is the fast track to gratitude"

Tonight, I made my way to Noe Valley for the renewal of my writing course. The focus this time around is looking inward, writing experiences in the form of memoirs and personal essays and so on. I'm just excited to write more, to work that part of my brain, and feel that part of alive. Folk seem eclectic and vibrant and already I learned a new made-up word: glitchy.

"Memoir"

Orwell says somewhere that no one ever writes the real story of their life.
The real story of a life is the story of its humiliations.
If I wrote that story now---
radioactive to the end of time---
people, I swear, your eyes would fall out, you couldn't peel
the gloves fast enough
from your hands scorched by the firestorms of that shame.
Your poor hands. Your poor eyes
to see me weeping in my room
or boring the tall blonde to death.
Once I accused the innocent.
Once I bowed and prayed to the guilty.
I still wince at what I once said to the devastated widow.
And one October afternoon, under a locust tree
whose blackened pods were falling and making
illuminating patterns on the pathway,
I was seized by joy,
and someone saw me there, and that was the
worst of all, lacerating and unforgettable.

-Vijay Seshadri

mountain goats

I fought the barbed wire and the barbed wire won.

follow the queen

Earlier, Dorothy and I looked out the window. A swarm of bees moved through Mill Valley. The hum, the buzz, was quite audible. They zig zagged outside the window, reverberating.
I said, "It's a good thing they aren't locusts."

brimstone

A church once stood in the place I looked for flowers this morning. A fire had destroyed the building; you could see the footprint and some charred remains. The land around was covered in Eucalyptus, poison oak, and pretty pink flowers. Houses were nearby.

I stood in the char and the pastor pulled up in his car. Came out. We talked for an hour where the steps to his house of worship once were. Drizzled. He said things change all the time.

birthdays and baptisms and bunnies,

oh my. This weekend was family extravaganza 2007. Shaely turned 2, Brian turned 36, Shaely was baptized, I was godmothered, and Easter was celebrated with eggs and singing and faux fur stoles. Quite the whirlwind it was, and I can't seem to escape the allure of the bouncy house...although this time, I emerged unscathed. And so:

Miss Shae-bae in a birthday tee.

Miss Brinly and Tay-Tay catching some air.

I'm 2!

Every girl should have two godmothers. Embrace the new.

A family tradition. The bunny cake. Brinly helped mom this year, erego the large number of candy drops.

Sarah and Jeni. Trouble team 20 years ago. Trouble now.And it was Brian's birthday too. Bouncy house and baptism were a bit overshadowing, but he did get to blow out a candle on the bunny cake. A first in this family.And yeah. She's a ham. A tiny ham, but a ham nonetheless.The end.

The earth is definitely doomed...

Season 8. Yeah. Just got mine today in the mail from lovely KeithK.

Consider me M.I.A.

dive bombed

There are birds making nests in the rafters of our building at work. They have chosen the route to the bathroom as their primary stomping ground, and have taken to swooping down on the unwary (or wary) traveler. I'm not sure what they are; I'm too busy ducking and cringing and flinching. My love of small birds is well known, and certainly my own little circle of hell would be full of the flitting creatures. Actually, I feel a little sad for them. For all my bobbing and weaving, someone else will be the one to complain, and the nests will be dismantled by building management. Alas.

My ipod recently decided to stop playing the lyrics of the music I have stored there. This is vexing. I walk a lot throughout the city, and my headphones play constant companion on these excursions. So, recently, given the weird underwater sounds my ipod has been playing, I have been leaving it on my desk, going out and listening to outside sounds when walking. What have I heard? A man walking on the street in tap shoes (tap shoes!). A woman saying farewell effusively to another in Polish. In the Music Concourse, a man gestured wildly while talking on the phone in an Italian accent about he wife. She, apparently, is beautiful. A (fragile) elderly couple, in the corner store I frequent, contemplating the carrying of their groceries to their car. They said:

Elderly Man: Would you like me to to carry this to the car and come back for the rest and you?
Elderly woman: No. No. We will go slowly together.

Yesterday, I walked 16 miles (more or less) in circles, looking for rare plants.

A common thread? Dive bombed.

Oh Tot-Oh-Row

Celebration. Juni and Avery turned 4 and 2. So many new stoplights on the way out to the ranch. Kids running around, friends, kites, bouncy houses, foaming spas, homemade salsa, wine, a mini-keg, fuzzy totoro costumes, my straps on my dress broke (twice).......See also, 2+4=6 over at hammerhead shark attack.

Kleercut: let it out

Greenpeace infiltrates Kleenex's new ad campaign to protest thier exclusive use of virgin forests.
pretty creative. definitely interesting. pass it on.

queen of the mountain

giddyup.