Peg Duthie's Blog, page 46
December 10, 2013
circuits and circularity
Sometimes I just have to laugh at my mama's voices in my head. (Okay, more often than just "sometimes.") Today it was when Voice 1 was nagging at me to watch my weight (so, yes, it would not only be okay to throw out the charred chocolate from Sunday's candy-coating debacle, but I actually should) and Voice 2 was simultaneously ordering me to put the whole mess into a freezer bag because it's still edible and the $1.09 I spent on it (i.e., a half-bag of milk chocolate morsels on sale) would become $5.09 in twenty years (assuming an average annual compound interest rate of 8%) and that $4 earned would likely pay for three tins of tunafish and a bag of rice and a carton of frozen spinach if that's all I can afford by the time I'm too decrepit to bus tables or otherwise scrounge for my daily bread.
Not to mention my own derivative spin of Voice 2, which was urging me to keep the chocolate on hand because what if I need a hit of chocolate three months from now when I'm burning the midnight oil, and there's none in the house because I was listening too much to Voice 1?
I tell you, some days the noise in my head is worse than a hair salon before an awards show. I'm glad to report that my sensible self prevailed over all these voices (i.e., I need the fridge space for better food, so I dumped the mess into the sink) -- and in less time than it took to type all this -- but holy hell. I'm getting better at recognizing the voices before they tie me into knots, but as my co-worker Gail told me a long time ago, "Your parents know which buttons to push -- after all, they installed them," and rewiring those circuits takes time.
A plus side to having a spaghetti-wired brain is being able to amuse myself even with rags. When I built a t-shirt fort for the hydrangea last month, I raided my husband's scrap box, which included this tee:
At the time, the hackberry and walnut trees nearby were shedding leaves like crazy. So I was giggling to myself as I planted that little bit of meta.
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Not to mention my own derivative spin of Voice 2, which was urging me to keep the chocolate on hand because what if I need a hit of chocolate three months from now when I'm burning the midnight oil, and there's none in the house because I was listening too much to Voice 1?
I tell you, some days the noise in my head is worse than a hair salon before an awards show. I'm glad to report that my sensible self prevailed over all these voices (i.e., I need the fridge space for better food, so I dumped the mess into the sink) -- and in less time than it took to type all this -- but holy hell. I'm getting better at recognizing the voices before they tie me into knots, but as my co-worker Gail told me a long time ago, "Your parents know which buttons to push -- after all, they installed them," and rewiring those circuits takes time.
A plus side to having a spaghetti-wired brain is being able to amuse myself even with rags. When I built a t-shirt fort for the hydrangea last month, I raided my husband's scrap box, which included this tee:
At the time, the hackberry and walnut trees nearby were shedding leaves like crazy. So I was giggling to myself as I planted that little bit of meta.
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December 9, 2013
"Look how the fish mistake my hair for home."
[Subject line from Toni Morrison's "I Am Not Seaworthy," song 5 in Honey and Rue]
A year and a couple of days ago, I was in Charleston. ( Photos under the cut )
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A year and a couple of days ago, I was in Charleston. ( Photos under the cut )
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December 7, 2013
"Did someone say that there would be an end..."
[Subject line from May Sarton's All Souls (1957)]
My mother would have been seventy years old today. When I was a very small girl, she used to wear this cloak:
At some point, it was banished to the back or the bottom of my bedroom closet, perhaps for being too impractical or unfashionable. There may have been a matching skirt that I gave away when she died.
Memory plays tricks on us -- all these years, I'd misremembered the cloak as something she'd made (probably because she made a skirt and shawl set for me with similar fabric); I don't recognize the manufacturer, but it was probably something she purchased either in Taiwan or Minnesota.
Anyhow, I wore it the day before Thanksgiving, to a brunch with my in-laws, and finally admitted to myself that the cloak was too tight around my neck and the material too scratchy.
But it's just as well that I didn't have time to shlep it to Goodwill until three days ago, because I'd completely forgotten about it having a hood, which I unearthed early last week from a bin with other things I haven't yet revisited. Reuniting the hood with the cloak one last time -- slipping the little buttons through the thin little loops -- felt both right and awkward.
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My mother would have been seventy years old today. When I was a very small girl, she used to wear this cloak:
At some point, it was banished to the back or the bottom of my bedroom closet, perhaps for being too impractical or unfashionable. There may have been a matching skirt that I gave away when she died.
Memory plays tricks on us -- all these years, I'd misremembered the cloak as something she'd made (probably because she made a skirt and shawl set for me with similar fabric); I don't recognize the manufacturer, but it was probably something she purchased either in Taiwan or Minnesota.
Anyhow, I wore it the day before Thanksgiving, to a brunch with my in-laws, and finally admitted to myself that the cloak was too tight around my neck and the material too scratchy.
But it's just as well that I didn't have time to shlep it to Goodwill until three days ago, because I'd completely forgotten about it having a hood, which I unearthed early last week from a bin with other things I haven't yet revisited. Reuniting the hood with the cloak one last time -- slipping the little buttons through the thin little loops -- felt both right and awkward.
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December 5, 2013
it's not easy being green
This handsome little guy popped out of the leaves I was shoving about while taking an axe to some of the weed-trees that had sprung up near our garage. I lured the dog back inside before getting back to work, as I wasn't keen on the idea of cleaning up frog-bits if she got around to noticing him. (She was out there long enough to snuffle in a fair amount of dirt, which resulted in the usual dog-sounding-like-she's-on-the-verge-of-an-asthma-attack distress later in the evening. Daft beast.)
It's spitting down cold rain, and the The Sound of Music live thingie should be on the tube in a few (aka acres of work be damned, AUDRA MCDONALD Y'ALL), so I wasn't planning to go out anyway. Having to clean up the bathtub with a Dustbuster merely verily'd the yay of this plan. I did rush around earlier to deal with deposits, recycling, restocking, and other mayhem, and the stops at the Nashville Farmer's Market. Wild & Local was out of oysters, but I also stopped at Shreeji's, where I was amused at the packets of "Chilly Powder" and picked up a tub of labneh (which was so, so good with the leftover chicken molé and kale...).
Those are some beautifully lit nuns on the screen. (Hmm, that needs to be rephrased. But time to watch and listen...)
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December 4, 2013
texture and spice
Today's lunch-prep discovery was that defrosted overly garlicky hummus has the texture of couscous prepared with barely enough broth. Fortunately, the sour cream in the fridge was a viable addition.
I am trying a pinch of mace with the combination, which I'm eating with kale and a sweet potato. It's not a great combination, but neither is it unpleasant.
It is 73 F here in Nashville right now. Work and holiday schtuffs are calling, calling, calling, but I am first going to transplant some hollyhocks and a Christmas pepper plant into larger pots, and patch some bits of the front walk while the going's good. (I'd flirted with the idea of giving pepper plants as gifts this year, but only one of the fifteen seeds made it past the seedling stage. Which reminds me that I need to make garlic-pepper-soap spray before I get deep into the next round of experiments.)
The Kentucky Colonel mint keeps poking out of the mulch I'd put down to protect it. The Bowie apple mint is mostly gray and brown in its pot, but there are tiny clusters of new green leaves on the surface of the soil.
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I am trying a pinch of mace with the combination, which I'm eating with kale and a sweet potato. It's not a great combination, but neither is it unpleasant.
It is 73 F here in Nashville right now. Work and holiday schtuffs are calling, calling, calling, but I am first going to transplant some hollyhocks and a Christmas pepper plant into larger pots, and patch some bits of the front walk while the going's good. (I'd flirted with the idea of giving pepper plants as gifts this year, but only one of the fifteen seeds made it past the seedling stage. Which reminds me that I need to make garlic-pepper-soap spray before I get deep into the next round of experiments.)
The Kentucky Colonel mint keeps poking out of the mulch I'd put down to protect it. The Bowie apple mint is mostly gray and brown in its pot, but there are tiny clusters of new green leaves on the surface of the soil.
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December 2, 2013
three happy things
(1) Lunch (at Rice Paper) and ice cream (at Sebastian Joe's) with M'ris and Timprov. There were a number of "Yep, I'm in Scandosota" moments during this trip: among them was listening to the others discussing reindeer castration while I dug into my Nicollet Avenue Pothole sundae. :-)
(2) There's an interview of me at the Moving Poems Forum.
(3) A few weeks ago, LiAnn Yim posted praise for inkscrawl at her blog.
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(2) There's an interview of me at the Moving Poems Forum.
(3) A few weeks ago, LiAnn Yim posted praise for inkscrawl at her blog.
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December 1, 2013
the letters of a city's streets
I first encountered Yto Barrada's work at the Tate Modern, in a group exhibition titled I Decided Not to Save the World, which was part of a series titled "Project Space." I was drawn especially to the poster-page that declared I AM NOT EXOTIC I AM EXHAUSTED.
Earlier today, I was at the Walker Art Center. Around the corner from the Oldenburg exhibit, some of the pages I saw at the Tate and some other Barrada pieces are on display. The theatre maquettes are brightly colored, but what really caught my attention (text fiend that I am) was the ceiling-to-floor wallpaper of Tangier street names (before and after Morocco's reclamation of independence):
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Earlier today, I was at the Walker Art Center. Around the corner from the Oldenburg exhibit, some of the pages I saw at the Tate and some other Barrada pieces are on display. The theatre maquettes are brightly colored, but what really caught my attention (text fiend that I am) was the ceiling-to-floor wallpaper of Tangier street names (before and after Morocco's reclamation of independence):
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November 26, 2013
icing on the mudcake
Yesterday, it seemed like most of Nashville was captivated by the snow coming down. Two of the major winter sports here are (1) freaking out about the least little hint of snow and (2) making fun of (1). From the meteorology maven on my Twitter timeline:
Anyway, there was enough accumulation for the dog to leave multiple sets of tracks on the deck from her comings and goings. This morning, though, this was the view from my kitchen door:
In short, all that was left was icing on the mudcake:
(A slightly longer version: I was trying to figure out where to plant a hydrangea the BYM had received while he was in the hospital. Apparently gift hydrangeas are best regarded as a potted variety of cut flower, but I'm kind of stubborn [pauses to allow the peanut gallery its collective guffaw], so I was casting about our yard for somewhere with the part-shade, part-sun conditions hydrangeas reportedly thrive in. The middle of our yard is a mess [a legacy of -- well, that's an even longer story for some other time], and for some reason there has been a shallow, wide pot the size of a spare tire among the rocks and weeds. Last week I flipped it upside down to see if the ground underneath it might be planting-ready [though then the BYM vetoed putting the bush in the center of the yard]. Hence the big mud-cake.)
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I have just been fired -- for cause -- by my bosses at the Milk & Wheat Overlord Conglomerate. For failure to incite a snowpanic.
— NashSevereWx (@NashSevereWx) 25 Novembre 2013
Anyway, there was enough accumulation for the dog to leave multiple sets of tracks on the deck from her comings and goings. This morning, though, this was the view from my kitchen door:
In short, all that was left was icing on the mudcake:
(A slightly longer version: I was trying to figure out where to plant a hydrangea the BYM had received while he was in the hospital. Apparently gift hydrangeas are best regarded as a potted variety of cut flower, but I'm kind of stubborn [pauses to allow the peanut gallery its collective guffaw], so I was casting about our yard for somewhere with the part-shade, part-sun conditions hydrangeas reportedly thrive in. The middle of our yard is a mess [a legacy of -- well, that's an even longer story for some other time], and for some reason there has been a shallow, wide pot the size of a spare tire among the rocks and weeds. Last week I flipped it upside down to see if the ground underneath it might be planting-ready [though then the BYM vetoed putting the bush in the center of the yard]. Hence the big mud-cake.)
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November 20, 2013
I am reminded of Eudora Welty...
as I read this paragraph from an inventory of Mary Roberts Rinehart's papers:
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Notable items in the series include a long pair of scissors and a small jar of straight pins. A note with the scissors indicates that Mary Roberts Rinehart often edited her manuscripts by cutting up pages and pinning sections of text together in a different order. Evidence of this practice can be seen in some manuscripts in the Manuscripts and Notes series.
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November 17, 2013
collaborating into being
It's a wonderful world, y'all. A bloke in Cardiff, Othniel Smith, found Nic Sebastian's reading of "Playing Duets with Heisenberg's Ghost" at the Poetry Storehouse and was moved to make a videopoem of it:
(Amplifying the pleasure: hearing about the video not only from Nic but from Rachel, whose d'var Torah on wrestling with angels has me thinking about how "face" and "facet" are only one letter apart; Sarah Sloat's poems at the Storehouse, which I will want to spend more time with later; and the cheap but nonetheless distinct thrill of seeing that if one Googles "Heisenberg's ghost" or "Heisenberg duets," the above video shows up first. [insert joke about Schrodingerian search results...])
In other news, the BYM's biking bestie brought breakfast to our house yesterday and (in celebration) I showed her all the spent enoxaparin syringes I'd collected in the box another friend had sent chocolates in. (Long story short: the BYM underwent surgery twice last month, which [among other things] necessitated thirty-nine anticoagulant shots, which neither he nor I ever got used to administering; the process was just as awful on day 39 as it was on day 1, especially since he had no padding on him to begin with and has since lost 10-15 pounds.) I mentioned that I had a couple of art projects in mind; the BYM furrowed his brow and made a squinchy face at me, but the bestie's face lit up, and she said, "If you don't end up doing something with them, I will." Have I said lately how much my friends delight me? :-)
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"Playing Duets with Heisenberg’s Ghost" by Peg Duthie from OTHNIEL SMITH on Vimeo.
(Amplifying the pleasure: hearing about the video not only from Nic but from Rachel, whose d'var Torah on wrestling with angels has me thinking about how "face" and "facet" are only one letter apart; Sarah Sloat's poems at the Storehouse, which I will want to spend more time with later; and the cheap but nonetheless distinct thrill of seeing that if one Googles "Heisenberg's ghost" or "Heisenberg duets," the above video shows up first. [insert joke about Schrodingerian search results...])
In other news, the BYM's biking bestie brought breakfast to our house yesterday and (in celebration) I showed her all the spent enoxaparin syringes I'd collected in the box another friend had sent chocolates in. (Long story short: the BYM underwent surgery twice last month, which [among other things] necessitated thirty-nine anticoagulant shots, which neither he nor I ever got used to administering; the process was just as awful on day 39 as it was on day 1, especially since he had no padding on him to begin with and has since lost 10-15 pounds.) I mentioned that I had a couple of art projects in mind; the BYM furrowed his brow and made a squinchy face at me, but the bestie's face lit up, and she said, "If you don't end up doing something with them, I will." Have I said lately how much my friends delight me? :-)
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