C.B. Potts's Blog, page 22

Tractor Trailer, Redefined

Tim took this picture while we were coming back from the store the other day: this was before the snow storm, which has yet to arrive here in earnest. Last night was very cold. Tim stayed up all night, making sure the fire kept going and the propane heater did what it needed to do. Thankfully everything behaved, and the house was nicely warm when the girls and I got up to start our day. The girls have school today, but then are off for the remainder of the week.

Back to the picture. One of the...

Letters for The Daughters

The world is a lot stranger and more complex than you ever imagined it to be. That's rather the whole point. Sometimes this is wonderful, and you will be delighted by what you discover. Sometimes this is not so wonderful, and you will not be delighted.

Believe me when I tell you that the good outnumbers the bad. Not every day, certainly, and you'll get a whole string of days that seem to be made of suck. But as a whole, creation is greater than the sum of its parts, and there's always somethin...

Rise and Shine, Rise and Shine, Rise and Shine

On Saturday, my Mom visited us. We went adventuring: she was looking for a birthday gift for her sweetie, and that meant a journey to Plattburgh's Antique Mall & Variety Emporium - the sort of place where antique dealers rent out a stall within a big shop. The result is a jumble: you'll find books landsliding from the shelves in a booth near the door, with a locked tabletop case full of yesterday's bling. The next stall in has Avon glass, and old oil lamps. After that you'll find some vintage...

Guess What Day It Is?

I just went out and saw what the world had to say this morning, and it turns out that today is officially Be Kind to Yourself Day. Remember that you've had a few hard knocks lately; physically, mentally, spiritually. Today, you get to treat yourself gently, as if you need to take steps to preserve your well being, as if you were a precious thing that deserved high regard. Go forward confident that you are not only good enough, you're great - no one has ever been a better you - and treat yours...

Tuesday Morning, Thus Far

Oh. There is no balm like silence. I like quiet. I really do. I like quiet, and solitude, and stillness. That's a list of things that are actually pretty hard to come by in this world, although I am adept - far more than most, actually - at getting what I want in that regard. Of course, I'm prepared to pay astronomical prices for it. Maybe not in cash, always, but in terms of social currency.

This morning has been not fun, as I spent nearly an hour dealing with customer service while my inner...

Moments of Definition

The wind is blowing ferociously. This suits my mood, which is far from easy. I feel like a flat bottomed boat with too much sail. At any moment, I could tip right over.

You see, yesterday someone I love very much was in a car accident. And they are okay, physically, but it was one of those accidents where mere seconds make all the difference: if she'd been through the intersection a few seconds faster, there would not have been an accident. If she'd been a few seconds later, maybe this whole s...

Here we go, my freaky darlings

Have you ever agreed to review a book, and then really, really regret it? It's kind of spectacular, really, they way your stomach lurches every so violently about when, during your pre-read flip through, you spot no less than four sentences that make you want to punch the author directly in the face.

That happened to me yesterday. And since the world's in complete higgle-piggle and I remain no more emotionally functional than usual, that's what I decided to think about at two o'clock in the m...

Tuesday Morning, Thus Far

It's cold for real this morning. When the Amish go by, there's frost clinging to the black canvas (perhaps it's leather) they use to cover their legs. The one holly hock I'd left standing in the garden because I couldn't bear to cut it is totally defeated now, the leaves are drooping and curled up like so many cocoons; the bloom's gone black. It would be a lovely light fixture, if your aesthetic was one part Morticia Addams and another part Mucha.

I have written 681 words of an absolutely filt...

A list of things to read later

I have all the tabs open

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9655.12000/full - on spirit writing

http://thefeministwire.com/2013/10/17973/ - bell hooks on lean in

Monday Morning, Here We Go

Francis Bacon once smiled at Kenneth Tynan's daughter, and said she was as pretty as a picture. As history records the event, it is one of the few times that Tynan was ever shocked into silence.

Having spent some delicious hours this weekend reading Tynan (and some not delicious hours working on my taxes) that story delights me utterly. Tynan was a character, in every sense of the word, but his writing is inspiring. You can't curl up with prose like that and emerged untouched: it becomes essen...