Peg Duthie's Blog, page 14
April 15, 2019
one skeleton and countless golf balls
The subject line contains some of the items I encountered while volunteering with Cumberland River Compact Saturday morning (Station Camp Creek cleanup). The bones may have been those of a large dog or a small deer.
Thursday night, the Compact hosted the Nashville premiere of Hidden Rivers. I got kinda emotional watching the end, and some other people there openly admitted that they'd cried. Listening to Casper Cox is going to get a whole bunch of people into snorkeling around the Smokies, myself included. (I already had face time with the French Broad on my list...)
I hauled the paddleboard to Percy Priest on Saturday and Sunday. It started raining Saturday afternoon while I was about two miles out, but not too hard, and I enjoyed watching the drops pushing into the water. It reminded me of cushions(looks-wise) and of candlewicking (punching-wise).
Sunday -- much of it was glorious, with the sun high in the sky and bouncy-fun waves. (I didn't try standing up on most of those, though. It needs to be 30 degrees warmer for me to enjoy getting tossed into the water.) Some of it -- well. Note to self: the next time the wind blows you and your board sideways before you even launch, you need to stay in the cove so that you don't have to call Lyft to get back to your car.
Misadventure notwithstanding, I still made it to 3/4 of this afternoon's dance, which included the first-ever dance-through of "The Baker's Gift" (choreographed by Susan Kevra, the caller), and also Jenna Simpson's "Revelations," which was gorgeous with our live band (Southwind -- Emma Rushton, Jeff Rohrbough, and Anne Hoos) and had me humming snatches of Vaughan Williams all the way home, because windy days and heart-achingly beautiful old melodies are intertwined in my psyche.
Speaking of English country dancing, there are a number of videos from last month's Playford Ball, including these three:
Wa' is me, what mun I do?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRfJ1t4a_EU
My moment is around 5:34 :)
This is one of my favorite of favorites -- I became obsessed with the melody when I first heard it, and I've since taught the dance twice in cavalcades and two or three times during lesson nights.
.
Hambleton's Round O
https://youtu.be/1aZxmAHCSrE
A good hair day! Though, watching it there are also quite a few points where I'm "OK, I need to work on that..."
Fandango
https://youtu.be/7EW4YTcSMYo
comments
Thursday night, the Compact hosted the Nashville premiere of Hidden Rivers. I got kinda emotional watching the end, and some other people there openly admitted that they'd cried. Listening to Casper Cox is going to get a whole bunch of people into snorkeling around the Smokies, myself included. (I already had face time with the French Broad on my list...)
I hauled the paddleboard to Percy Priest on Saturday and Sunday. It started raining Saturday afternoon while I was about two miles out, but not too hard, and I enjoyed watching the drops pushing into the water. It reminded me of cushions(looks-wise) and of candlewicking (punching-wise).
Sunday -- much of it was glorious, with the sun high in the sky and bouncy-fun waves. (I didn't try standing up on most of those, though. It needs to be 30 degrees warmer for me to enjoy getting tossed into the water.) Some of it -- well. Note to self: the next time the wind blows you and your board sideways before you even launch, you need to stay in the cove so that you don't have to call Lyft to get back to your car.
Misadventure notwithstanding, I still made it to 3/4 of this afternoon's dance, which included the first-ever dance-through of "The Baker's Gift" (choreographed by Susan Kevra, the caller), and also Jenna Simpson's "Revelations," which was gorgeous with our live band (Southwind -- Emma Rushton, Jeff Rohrbough, and Anne Hoos) and had me humming snatches of Vaughan Williams all the way home, because windy days and heart-achingly beautiful old melodies are intertwined in my psyche.
Speaking of English country dancing, there are a number of videos from last month's Playford Ball, including these three:
Wa' is me, what mun I do?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRfJ1t4a_EU
My moment is around 5:34 :)
This is one of my favorite of favorites -- I became obsessed with the melody when I first heard it, and I've since taught the dance twice in cavalcades and two or three times during lesson nights.
.
Hambleton's Round O
https://youtu.be/1aZxmAHCSrE
A good hair day! Though, watching it there are also quite a few points where I'm "OK, I need to work on that..."
Fandango
https://youtu.be/7EW4YTcSMYo
comments
January 22, 2019
spread out the jam!
Today's subject line comes from An Extraordinary Adventure Which Befell Vladimir Mayakovksy In A Summer Cottage, which I recently learned was the source poem for Frank O'Hara's A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island. Here's a choice morsel from the Mayakovsky:
I baked bread tonight, which surprised me by rising higher than I'd expected...
... and provided both satisfaction and entertainment. It smelled good, made the BYM smile, and then there was this:
The BYM: *comes out of the shower, bows to the kitchen counter*
Me: *raises eyebrows to ask, You are genuflecting to the tortillas?*
The BYM: It looks like an altar.
OK. There is something of the sun about it. ;)
comments
Give me tea, poet,
spread out, spread out the jam!
I baked bread tonight, which surprised me by rising higher than I'd expected...
... and provided both satisfaction and entertainment. It smelled good, made the BYM smile, and then there was this:
The BYM: *comes out of the shower, bows to the kitchen counter*
Me: *raises eyebrows to ask, You are genuflecting to the tortillas?*
The BYM: It looks like an altar.
OK. There is something of the sun about it. ;)
comments
January 20, 2019
i got a sarcophagus for a throat
Today's subject line is from Destiny Hemphill's "dna is just anotha theory for reincarnation: me, sitting in a burning tree (c. 4063)," which is the featured poem at Poetry Daily at the moment.
Bloody cough. Bloody heel and shoulder. Bloody paperwork. The BYM is fighting another cold, too. The list goes on. But I happened to catch Tank Ball reciting a poem about an ex as broken Walmart merch. I found a geocache and treated myself to a latte, which felt very soothing. I bought more avocados and am eating one (wrapped in a flour tortilla, with leftover shallots and soy sauce) as I wind down with turmeric-galangal-honey "tea." I have two big bowls of dough rising, one for bao and one for bread. I received a poetry acceptance. I made inroads on the housework. I took a looooong nap. I heard from people I love. The roads to and from church weren't dangerous. My leggings fit over my laddered tights. And that list goes on as well.
comments
Bloody cough. Bloody heel and shoulder. Bloody paperwork. The BYM is fighting another cold, too. The list goes on. But I happened to catch Tank Ball reciting a poem about an ex as broken Walmart merch. I found a geocache and treated myself to a latte, which felt very soothing. I bought more avocados and am eating one (wrapped in a flour tortilla, with leftover shallots and soy sauce) as I wind down with turmeric-galangal-honey "tea." I have two big bowls of dough rising, one for bao and one for bread. I received a poetry acceptance. I made inroads on the housework. I took a looooong nap. I heard from people I love. The roads to and from church weren't dangerous. My leggings fit over my laddered tights. And that list goes on as well.
comments
January 19, 2019
here I am, the center of all beauty!
[Today's subject line is from Frank O'Hara's "Autobiographia Literaria." His Selected Poems accompanied me to New Orleans.]
There is an avocado lost somewhere in my car, unless it never made it into the shopping bag to begin with. My lungs are still trying to turn themselves inside out, which has precluded attending birthday parties, dances, and the like. There are all sorts of goings-on going on, some which I've managed to tweet about.
I had an inkling that January was going to be un-fun health-wise on New Year's Day, when I needed a four-hour nap before I got myself and Louise to the lake. But we did get there:
Last month's audition was successful, so I'll get to sing Monteverdi this July. Tomorrow's anthems include Rollo Dilworth's setting of some lines from Langston Hughes's "Freedom's Plow," and the discussion at Wednesday's rehearsal about the lyrics was intense. (And, you need chops to nail the harmonies, which makes me happy, even though I'll be sucking down honey before, after, and likely during the service to suppress the infernal coughing.) We also sight-read a new arrangement of "Drive the Cold Winter Away" commissioned for us. (If you had told ten-year-old me that she would get to sing in the very first performances of so many songs, she would have been beside herself with joy. Twenty-year-old me was frustrated about repeatedly failing to make the cut for elite ensembles. Middle-aged me recognizes that I hadn't and haven't put in the time to become the singer twenty-year-old me thought she was, and I'm largely OK with that: I do what I can with the time I feel I can spare. Which applies to nearly every other category of my life, for that matter.
Speaking of music, this video of Live from Here's Kansas City show includes Gaby Moreno singing/rapping lead on "Dance or Die" and Chris Thile breaking down "I Say a Little Prayer." Good stuff.
I burned my left thumb cooking some sad carrots tonight, but ice has minimized the damage, and the carrots (and crispy tofu, and brown rice, and reheated stew) turned out OK. I attempted vegan benne wafers earlier this week; waferness was not achieved, so I will try another recipe and/or a hotter oven next time. Tomorrow, I will experiment with pork and cabbage bao. (My donations to the church auction included a Year of the Earth Pig dinner for four. It raised $180.)
Speaking of party prep, it's time for me to tackle the ironing and mending piles. In the meantime, here's a glimpse of an Edward Gorey panel someone affixed to the inside of a Little Free Library on Eastland:
comments
There is an avocado lost somewhere in my car, unless it never made it into the shopping bag to begin with. My lungs are still trying to turn themselves inside out, which has precluded attending birthday parties, dances, and the like. There are all sorts of goings-on going on, some which I've managed to tweet about.
I had an inkling that January was going to be un-fun health-wise on New Year's Day, when I needed a four-hour nap before I got myself and Louise to the lake. But we did get there:
Last month's audition was successful, so I'll get to sing Monteverdi this July. Tomorrow's anthems include Rollo Dilworth's setting of some lines from Langston Hughes's "Freedom's Plow," and the discussion at Wednesday's rehearsal about the lyrics was intense. (And, you need chops to nail the harmonies, which makes me happy, even though I'll be sucking down honey before, after, and likely during the service to suppress the infernal coughing.) We also sight-read a new arrangement of "Drive the Cold Winter Away" commissioned for us. (If you had told ten-year-old me that she would get to sing in the very first performances of so many songs, she would have been beside herself with joy. Twenty-year-old me was frustrated about repeatedly failing to make the cut for elite ensembles. Middle-aged me recognizes that I hadn't and haven't put in the time to become the singer twenty-year-old me thought she was, and I'm largely OK with that: I do what I can with the time I feel I can spare. Which applies to nearly every other category of my life, for that matter.
Speaking of music, this video of Live from Here's Kansas City show includes Gaby Moreno singing/rapping lead on "Dance or Die" and Chris Thile breaking down "I Say a Little Prayer." Good stuff.
I burned my left thumb cooking some sad carrots tonight, but ice has minimized the damage, and the carrots (and crispy tofu, and brown rice, and reheated stew) turned out OK. I attempted vegan benne wafers earlier this week; waferness was not achieved, so I will try another recipe and/or a hotter oven next time. Tomorrow, I will experiment with pork and cabbage bao. (My donations to the church auction included a Year of the Earth Pig dinner for four. It raised $180.)
Speaking of party prep, it's time for me to tackle the ironing and mending piles. In the meantime, here's a glimpse of an Edward Gorey panel someone affixed to the inside of a Little Free Library on Eastland:
comments
December 1, 2018
Or ch'è tempo di dormire...
Today's subject line comes from Ninna nanna, a Neapolitan Christmas lullaby. It's from a verse where Mary essentially sings, "It's time to sleep now, and the time for pain will come." Philippe Jaroussky, Christina Pluhar, and the other members of L'Arpeggiata are a joy to watch as they perform it (videos on YouTube), and I have been spending more time with it as I prepare for an audition.
A year old, I was in Philadelphia, primarily for the Predominantly Playford Ball, staying mainly at a hostel, and wandering around the city early (for a ballet class in a super-sketchy part of town) and late, talking poetry with a bus driver, writing postcards to voters in spare moments, and gazing at variations of glass and light everywhere:
This year I'm prepping for tonight's dance in my own town (I'm calling "Land of Mist and Wonder," which was composed by Rachel Bell, tonight's accordionist, and subbing for another caller on "Wa' Is Me, What Mun I Do?).
As I work on the dances and songs, I have to remind myself that it's OK that I'm not more proficient, fluid, etc. I work more than 40 hours most weeks, I have other obligations/interests and, like most other people, I need mornings where I stay in my sheep-patterned flannel pajama pants past lunchtime, sipping porcupine tea and not going anywhere -- even to the piano two rooms away -- until my shoulders are a bit looser and my my breathing more measured, my body more prepared to welcome and produce both precision and extravagance. You need both for the genres I'm drawn to -- historical dances and chamber music favor fine timing and placement over sloppiness, but it isn't dancing or music, no matter how slavishly one focuses on the rules and steps/notes, if communication and connection aren't also in the mix. People tend to respond to a partner or performer who is looking at them and inviting them into the magical world delineated by the composer/choreographer and brought to life by those moving into and within it.
...
I wasn't planning to write all that this morning. (I have steps and scales to practice today, after all.) But it is December 1, and I have been thinking of Thomas Peck quite a bit anyhow, which is par for the course when I prepare for a tryout. I sang for him in 1991, as a member of Chicago's Grant Park Symphony Chorus. Here's what I wrote about him in 2000:
And in 2002, I wrote "Living Bread." And, sixteen years later, it is still how I feel and what I know.
comments
A year old, I was in Philadelphia, primarily for the Predominantly Playford Ball, staying mainly at a hostel, and wandering around the city early (for a ballet class in a super-sketchy part of town) and late, talking poetry with a bus driver, writing postcards to voters in spare moments, and gazing at variations of glass and light everywhere:
This year I'm prepping for tonight's dance in my own town (I'm calling "Land of Mist and Wonder," which was composed by Rachel Bell, tonight's accordionist, and subbing for another caller on "Wa' Is Me, What Mun I Do?).
As I work on the dances and songs, I have to remind myself that it's OK that I'm not more proficient, fluid, etc. I work more than 40 hours most weeks, I have other obligations/interests and, like most other people, I need mornings where I stay in my sheep-patterned flannel pajama pants past lunchtime, sipping porcupine tea and not going anywhere -- even to the piano two rooms away -- until my shoulders are a bit looser and my my breathing more measured, my body more prepared to welcome and produce both precision and extravagance. You need both for the genres I'm drawn to -- historical dances and chamber music favor fine timing and placement over sloppiness, but it isn't dancing or music, no matter how slavishly one focuses on the rules and steps/notes, if communication and connection aren't also in the mix. People tend to respond to a partner or performer who is looking at them and inviting them into the magical world delineated by the composer/choreographer and brought to life by those moving into and within it.
...
I wasn't planning to write all that this morning. (I have steps and scales to practice today, after all.) But it is December 1, and I have been thinking of Thomas Peck quite a bit anyhow, which is par for the course when I prepare for a tryout. I sang for him in 1991, as a member of Chicago's Grant Park Symphony Chorus. Here's what I wrote about him in 2000:
He was the choir director who'd asked me where was "Bruton Town" (the title of one of my audition pieces), and I'd told him, "I'm not really sure, I just assumed it was one of those towns where people died for love." He had repeated my answer back to me -- "one of those towns where people died for love" -- with a sort of appreciative astonishment. At that time I hadn't the faintest idea he was HIV+.
And in 2002, I wrote "Living Bread." And, sixteen years later, it is still how I feel and what I know.
comments
October 20, 2018
one-minute sleep-short show's-gotta-get-on-the-road vent
Some weeks - months - YEARS ... life comprises wild pendulum swingy-swoops-de-swoops between "Boo-yah, I got this" and "!@#%!@$@!!@#@!#@!#!$%%%!!! learning/practice curve de tabernak!"
On a more festive note: holy cucurbita, giant pumpkin regattas are A THING! On multiple bodies of water! Including in...
Quebec: https://superstitionhockey.tumblr.com/post/179162884242/singelisilverslippers-swingsetindecember
Oregon: https://www.tualatinoregon.gov/pumpkinregatta
Nova Scotia: http://worldsbiggestpumpkins.com/2018 Overall Regatta standings.pdf
Utah: http://livedaybreak.com/events/ginormous-pumpkin-regatta
... and elsewhere.
You know this is going on my list. After the whitewater paddleboarding.
comments
On a more festive note: holy cucurbita, giant pumpkin regattas are A THING! On multiple bodies of water! Including in...
Quebec: https://superstitionhockey.tumblr.com/post/179162884242/singelisilverslippers-swingsetindecember
Oregon: https://www.tualatinoregon.gov/pumpkinregatta
Nova Scotia: http://worldsbiggestpumpkins.com/2018 Overall Regatta standings.pdf
Utah: http://livedaybreak.com/events/ginormous-pumpkin-regatta
... and elsewhere.
You know this is going on my list. After the whitewater paddleboarding.
comments
October 11, 2018
flying organ meat blood
So, the show that hoovered up many of my waking hours (as well as hefty chunks of my sleep cycle) this past summer is up, and it's splendid. And me and my frock received many compliments throughout the day, and I dealt capably, competently, and/or creatively with assorted wrinkles and monkey wrenches prairie-dogging me through this and that ...
.. and then came home, and caused dealt with more mayhem, including the cooking of chicken livers, and then the BYM came home.
BYM [peering suspiciously at the stove]: Is that organ meat?
Me: Yep.
Me [after wincing during a hug, points to blister on collarbone]: Burned myself.
BYM: How did you manage that?
Me: Flying organ meat blood.
On a slightly less ridiculous note, here are two glimpses of the dancing at last month's Fandango. I'm wearing a short white lace dress and long white leather gloves.
A New Leaf
Marjorie's Sou'wester
comments
.. and then came home, and caused dealt with more mayhem, including the cooking of chicken livers, and then the BYM came home.
BYM [peering suspiciously at the stove]: Is that organ meat?
Me: Yep.
Me [after wincing during a hug, points to blister on collarbone]: Burned myself.
BYM: How did you manage that?
Me: Flying organ meat blood.
On a slightly less ridiculous note, here are two glimpses of the dancing at last month's Fandango. I'm wearing a short white lace dress and long white leather gloves.
A New Leaf
Marjorie's Sou'wester
comments
September 22, 2018
dancing around DeKalb, Fandango night 1
Between the host's TV (on until 4 a.m. or thereabouts) and the neighbor's lawnmower (running at 8 a.m.), I didn't get as much sleep as I'd hoped, but there is coffee and almond cake right now (sparklepoints to Past Me for packing the latter), and there will be craic and napping later. Plus my 5 a.m. rummaging through my luggage revealed that neither the jewelry case nor croakie I had planned to pack were actually with me, which is vexing but far from insurmountable, and now that I know they are not here, I am not frantically hunting through my things right now for the earrings I'd planned to wear this morning, and the 5 a.m. start I will have to make to get to Columbus (for whitewater rafting) will be a tad less fraught as well.
Last night's program included "Hambleton's Round-O," which is the absolute favorite dance of an otherwise stately gentleman I met two Playfords ago (he gushed at length about it during the after-party); I didn't see him in the hall last night, but I was thinking of him fondly as I twirled with Louanne and gently tried to help newer dancers through it. The dance that's in my head is Rosamond's Pond (*), which took me more than few minutes to get the hang of, but oh my heart, the tune. And oh, the connection to be enjoyed with people who know how to take their time and "use the music to its fullest," as callers are wont to say.
(* Apparently named after a spot with quite a bit of history...)
comments
Last night's program included "Hambleton's Round-O," which is the absolute favorite dance of an otherwise stately gentleman I met two Playfords ago (he gushed at length about it during the after-party); I didn't see him in the hall last night, but I was thinking of him fondly as I twirled with Louanne and gently tried to help newer dancers through it. The dance that's in my head is Rosamond's Pond (*), which took me more than few minutes to get the hang of, but oh my heart, the tune. And oh, the connection to be enjoyed with people who know how to take their time and "use the music to its fullest," as callers are wont to say.
(* Apparently named after a spot with quite a bit of history...)
comments
September 21, 2018
dancing around DeKalb: prelude
Back in February, I succumbed to a Southwest special offer and decided to fly to Atlanta for this year's Fandango, and to take the extra days dictated by the sale rate to poke around and see some friends, which rarely happens if I'm carpooling or zipping in just for the dancing. There was some second-guessing in the months since, but I left the arrangements alone, and last night I knew I'd made the right call: I'd needed the whole day to get various things closer to a not-fretting-about stage, from moving a dozen pepper plants from vases into pots to shredding chicken into freezer bags.
The Lyft driver and I chatted about her toddler's love of drawing, which led to me urging her to visit Martin ArtQuest, the terrific, materials- and activity-stocked kids' space at the museum where I work. We also chatted about theater -- she was a stage manager, I was a techie. At the airport, I treated myself to a 15-minute chair massage, after which the therapist couldn't help asking, "What are you doing to yourself!?" (Knots galore.) On the plane, I scored an exit row seat and dove into Laura Jacobs's CELESTIAL BODIES: LOOKING AT BALLET. My bookmarks so far include these sentences:
What I was not expecting, in this shift to vacation mode, was getting hit with childhood memories. As the plane left Nashville, the lights below reminded me of how excited I was during my first trip to Atlanta, on a business trip with my father. I was six or seven years old. We were on an upper floor of a tall hotel, and when I wasn't sneak-zooming ahead in my English textbook (*), I couldn't stop staring at all the beautiful lights of the city, and desperately wanting to keep that view with me.
Like then, like now, ordinary cameras don't capture the magic of so many lights. It was an unexpected melange of emotions to deal with -- really enjoying being an adult (no one stopping me from reading as much as I want, with drink coupons paying for grapefruit vodka [meh] and sparkling wine) while at the same time having flashbacks back to when I was in pigtails -- and also to about 2002, which is when I made several trips to Atlanta to attend workshops and visit Rancho Lesbiano. Rereading old entries about those trips (especially The Dinner Party) has reminded me not only that I used to blog way more regularly and in way more detail, but that I enjoy revisiting such details, and it's on me to make that possible. (Badsnake and I are meeting for dinner next week. The internet is a cesspool, and the internet is also freaking fabulous magic.)
Decatur also contains memories of the year the BYM lived here (attending motorcycle mechanic school) -- and also of walking along this same stretch of Ponce de Leon (where I've spent most of today) with Honorary Mama a few years ago, when I drove her here to visit her children. The cafe where I've taken refuge (less crowded and more air than the library) this past hour is an outpost of Nashville's Pinewood Social (which I didn't know had expanded), including the Crema counter. The illustrations on the wall facing me are of tree branches and of cross-sections of a trunk. They look a bit like prints of a scarred fingertip.
Speaking of the pleasures of adulthood, it is now happy hour. Time for me to head to the Iberian Pig. :)
* Strictly forbidden by the grade-school teacher in question, but I was SO BORED and there was so little to read, both at school and at home, so I gobbled up all the stories while on the trip, and then pretended they were new to me the rest of the year. I might be more than a little bitter about how me being "gifted" was a something for those teachers to tame rather than feed -- especially now that I realize that other girls had to accept and conform to that crap.
comments
The Lyft driver and I chatted about her toddler's love of drawing, which led to me urging her to visit Martin ArtQuest, the terrific, materials- and activity-stocked kids' space at the museum where I work. We also chatted about theater -- she was a stage manager, I was a techie. At the airport, I treated myself to a 15-minute chair massage, after which the therapist couldn't help asking, "What are you doing to yourself!?" (Knots galore.) On the plane, I scored an exit row seat and dove into Laura Jacobs's CELESTIAL BODIES: LOOKING AT BALLET. My bookmarks so far include these sentences:
Once the shoe is put on, it awakens. The moist heat of the dancer's foot warms the layers of glue that stiffen the box and the shoe becomes one with the foot.
What I was not expecting, in this shift to vacation mode, was getting hit with childhood memories. As the plane left Nashville, the lights below reminded me of how excited I was during my first trip to Atlanta, on a business trip with my father. I was six or seven years old. We were on an upper floor of a tall hotel, and when I wasn't sneak-zooming ahead in my English textbook (*), I couldn't stop staring at all the beautiful lights of the city, and desperately wanting to keep that view with me.
Like then, like now, ordinary cameras don't capture the magic of so many lights. It was an unexpected melange of emotions to deal with -- really enjoying being an adult (no one stopping me from reading as much as I want, with drink coupons paying for grapefruit vodka [meh] and sparkling wine) while at the same time having flashbacks back to when I was in pigtails -- and also to about 2002, which is when I made several trips to Atlanta to attend workshops and visit Rancho Lesbiano. Rereading old entries about those trips (especially The Dinner Party) has reminded me not only that I used to blog way more regularly and in way more detail, but that I enjoy revisiting such details, and it's on me to make that possible. (Badsnake and I are meeting for dinner next week. The internet is a cesspool, and the internet is also freaking fabulous magic.)
Decatur also contains memories of the year the BYM lived here (attending motorcycle mechanic school) -- and also of walking along this same stretch of Ponce de Leon (where I've spent most of today) with Honorary Mama a few years ago, when I drove her here to visit her children. The cafe where I've taken refuge (less crowded and more air than the library) this past hour is an outpost of Nashville's Pinewood Social (which I didn't know had expanded), including the Crema counter. The illustrations on the wall facing me are of tree branches and of cross-sections of a trunk. They look a bit like prints of a scarred fingertip.
Speaking of the pleasures of adulthood, it is now happy hour. Time for me to head to the Iberian Pig. :)
* Strictly forbidden by the grade-school teacher in question, but I was SO BORED and there was so little to read, both at school and at home, so I gobbled up all the stories while on the trip, and then pretended they were new to me the rest of the year. I might be more than a little bitter about how me being "gifted" was a something for those teachers to tame rather than feed -- especially now that I realize that other girls had to accept and conform to that crap.
comments
September 20, 2018
no one spoke a word, and the morning shone
Today's subject line comes from Muriel Rukeyser's Effort at Speech Between Two People, which I loved when I first read it at age 16 in John Frederick Nims's Western Wind, and had a sudden urge to reread just before I went to bed.
This week, I am giving thanks for nipple covers. Sports bra --> zit --> yeowch. Also, they're handy on "where the hell are all my bras and socks" mornings, which have a way of corresponding with clusters of 13-hour days.
I am also giving thanks for the shower rod that indeed required no tools to install, for fun stamps, for Dorothy Parton singing with Sia, for Garden & Gun (that "Good Dog" column gets me every time), for seedless mandarins,
I am mystified by gas jugs showing up out of nowhere, how to fold Louise-du-Ha! Ha! properly, why my heel still hurts, where I last put my dance shorts, how I became someone hunting for shorts four hours before a flight -- and quick-pickling peppers three hours before same.
OK, that last one isn't a mystery: I come from peasant stock, and salvaging/preserving anything remotely harvestable is what we do.
comments
This week, I am giving thanks for nipple covers. Sports bra --> zit --> yeowch. Also, they're handy on "where the hell are all my bras and socks" mornings, which have a way of corresponding with clusters of 13-hour days.
I am also giving thanks for the shower rod that indeed required no tools to install, for fun stamps, for Dorothy Parton singing with Sia, for Garden & Gun (that "Good Dog" column gets me every time), for seedless mandarins,
I am mystified by gas jugs showing up out of nowhere, how to fold Louise-du-Ha! Ha! properly, why my heel still hurts, where I last put my dance shorts, how I became someone hunting for shorts four hours before a flight -- and quick-pickling peppers three hours before same.
OK, that last one isn't a mystery: I come from peasant stock, and salvaging/preserving anything remotely harvestable is what we do.
comments
