rust

Things I haven't blogged about:

• One nephew's birthday (the one that closed the door on teenagehood for him)
• One niece's trip to the other side of the world (well, I am still waiting for all the details and pictures from her because she's actually still there)
• Spring on the Seacoast, the opening of the windows, and the omnipresent scent of blooming
• My search for a new job, and the dragged out investment pertaining to it
• How the ball of the pull chain on my banker's lamp sits everso lightly on one cat's head while she sleeps on my desk
• Some cool new software I got after a visit to the Children's Museum
• My recent fascination with making stewed tomatoes from scratch (and, of course, the recipe)
• My father's inquisitioning (an ongoing process, and enjoyable for me)
• My shrinking mother (not what you might think)
• The beautiful moon the last couple nights
• The music I'm listening to these days (now that I've weaned myself off Michael Buble -- at least temporarily)
• The Manchester Wolves
• Another nephew's trifecta of accomplishments
• Another niece's ivy league frustration
• The travails of being a small business owner
• How much I love my family (actually, I have blogged about that; just not lately)
• American Idol (not once this season, and neither have I voted at all)
• A new size acceptance rant (tentatively titled "BMI is a Crock," sprinkled with screen captures of click ads from everywhere, and started before BFB posted this one yesterday)
• Top Gear (my new favorite TV show), and a bit of a crush on Richard Hammond especially now that I know about the crash
• Playing Scrabulous, Scramble, and Who Has the Biggest Brain on Facebook
• The sucky suckingness of having rheumatoid arthritis at the tender young age of 42
• Our new across-the-hall neighbors and renovation in the now-vacant apartment above us, and the consequent activity, noise, aromas, and dust that accompany them
• My plan to make billions of dollars from an old family recipe (maybe I don't need a new job after all)
• Another cat's insane obsession with SmartFood
• The fourth cat's obsession with the third cat (he just thinks she's so pretty and he always wants to play, but I sense she finds him a bit cloying)
• A love of This American Life, which I used to listen to on the radio and now I listen to on my iPod, and the near-desire to spend money on additional cable channels that would allow me to watch the show version
• Other stuff

Someday, I'll blog again.

old journal entry

June 21, 1992

The weather is very summerlike today, which really shouldn't be a surprise considering that yesterday was the summer solstice. It's 93° F, but the wind makes it quite comfortable.

I went down to Carkeek Park, and for the first time since I started going down there, I parked my truck and wandered around on foot. I went over the "skywalk" and down to the beach (if you can call it that, there is very little sand to speak of).

It was amazing.

I took pictures of the Olympic mountains, which were clear as day, and walked up to the low tide. My sneakers are soaked and smell strongly of sun-rotted seaweed. Every step I took, it felt as if the soft soles of my sneakers were destroying hundreds of species in a single step. The stones were thick with barnacles, and strips of the tiniest snails I've ever seen peeled back like loose threads on an improperly sewn hem.

There was a group of children, all around 5 or 6 years old, playing in a tidal pool at the mouth of the pipes which ran under the railroad tracks. After having wandered the beach, I went up onto the tracks and walked down to that tidal pool. As I tiptoed from tie to tie, I found a half flattened nickel in the rocks of the bed. It made me remember the happy frustration of having put a penny on the tracks behind Grandma's house and not finding it after the train ruthlessly knocked it away. I picked it up, and put it in my pocket.

"I found your nickel. Thanks," I said to the non-existent person who'd left it behind.

I reached the spot where the pipes ran beneath the tracks and took a picture of the children playing below from that perch. Not five seconds after I snapped the picture, a train rushed up behind me. I walked, half sliding, down the pathway to the tidal pool, reaching the bottom as the train raced by. It was long and loud, and the kids screeched with delight as they bounced on a makeshift, driftwood see-saw in the middle of the water.

I walked back up the skywalk and headed for my truck. It's quite an amazing park, in some spots quite like what I imagine a rainforest to be like. I left content and looking forward to the time I have visitors here to share this marvelous place.

* This photo is of me with Katie, my "Little Sister" on a cold day in Carkeek Park a couple years after I wrote this entry. Katie is now 22 years old.

politics + satire = scary/funny

it must be spring

This has been out and about lately.


On most days, it parks in a municipal lot for a couple hours. I saw it heading out of town this afternoon. Once, it was sitting in the lane next to my little xB at a stop light. It's way smaller than my small car. Incredibly small, really. And really orange.

Happy May Day. It may still get chilly, but here's to hoping we've escaped the possibility of any more snow for the season.

a first attempt

My first stab at a six-word memoir:

Yes, I can. And I do.

Given that this is a memoir, i.e. written description of what has happened in the past, it should probably be, "Yes, I could. And I did." Hmmm. I'm probably going to try again.

napomo treasure

Every day, I receive an email with a poem. As mentioned before, despite my apparent love for poetry, often when a hundred are thrown at me, only one or two will stick. I guess it's simply a matter of which topics and feelings I best relate to. Sometimes, though, the wordplay alone is enough to capture me, even if I don't wholly jive with the rest.

Today's email poem was "Balance" by Adam Zagajewski. It includes phrases such as "...a certain sort of snowy wasteland bursts from a surfeit of happiness" and "pale grass plagued by winter and the wind." I liked the idea of the alternate existence of being on a plane versus the harshness of reality once landed.

"The darkness of daily wanderings resumed, the day's sweet darkness, the darkness of the voice that counts and measures, remembers and forgets."

So I went a little further. Followed links to other poems written by Mr. Zagajewski (and translated by Clare Cavanagh). "My Aunts" is quite intriguing, but it is his "Self-Portrait" that most caught my ear.

Self-Portrait

by Adam Zagajewski
Translated by Clare Cavanagh

Between the computer, a pencil, and a typewriter
half my day passes. One day it will be half a century.
I live in strange cities and sometimes talk
with strangers about matters strange to me.
I listen to music a lot: Bach, Mahler, Chopin, Shostakovich.
I see three elements in music: weakness, power, and pain.
The fourth has no name.
I read poets, living and dead, who teach me
tenacity, faith, and pride. I try to understand
the great philosophers--but usually catch just
scraps of their precious thoughts.
I like to take long walks on Paris streets
and watch my fellow creatures, quickened by envy,
anger, desire; to trace a silver coin
passing from hand to hand as it slowly
loses its round shape (the emperor's profile is erased).
Beside me trees expressing nothing
but a green, indifferent perfection.
Black birds pace the fields,
waiting patiently like Spanish widows.
I'm no longer young, but someone else is always older.
I like deep sleep, when I cease to exist,
and fast bike rides on country roads when poplars and houses
dissolve like cumuli on sunny days.
Sometimes in museums the paintings speak to me
and irony suddenly vanishes.
I love gazing at my wife's face.
Every Sunday I call my father.
Every other week I meet with friends,
thus proving my fidelity.
My country freed itself from one evil. I wish
another liberation would follow.
Could I help in this? I don't know.
I'm truly not a child of the ocean,
as Antonio Machado wrote about himself,
but a child of air, mint and cello
and not all the ways of the high world
cross paths with the life that--so far--
belongs to me.

Oh, how lovely. I truly feel as though I know him better now. And what's not to love about phrases like "... a child of air, mint and cello...?" Wonderful.

Mr. Zagajewski's work evoked the idea of a six word memoir. You're familiar with this phenomenon? Here is a slide show from NPR that showcases a number of the memoirs. I've included one here, though the caption is very small. It is, "Naively expected logical world. Acted foolishly." It was written by Emily Thieler.

Sometimes, I think about trying to encapsulate my life in six words. Sometimes, it seems insurmountably difficult to squeeze it all into just six words. Sometimes, six seems all together too many words. Perhaps someday I'll actually give it a try.

Until then, the only attempts at creative writing I make are Tweets in the Westernized form of haiku. Hardly noteworthy. There is a Haiku Writing Center near my house. Ted keeps encouraging me to go knock on the door. I nearly did, the other day on my walk. But I haven't done it yet.

Just around the corner, tomorrow, is Jazzmouth: The Seacoast Poetry and Jazz Festival. Did I mention that jazz is one of my favorite genres of music? And you know about my love of poetry. Why is it I didn't read about this festival until yesterday? And Billy Collins is going to be there! Can I make it to any of the events? Tomorrow's show isn't sold out: I must simply decide whether or not to spend money on my ethereal longing at a time when employment eludes me. Might I go to one of the free sessions? Alas, I have already scheduled my weekend to the teeth. Could I rearrange the calendar to allow? Alas, it is previous rearrangement that has me in my current pickle -- the one which requires me to work all weekend.

Perhaps it is fitting that the poetry and jazz which I seek and which seems so close is so elusive, feeding my longing. Hmm. Perhaps.

I leave you with Mr. Collins. Not only is the animation a unique way to experience this poem, the subject matter hits particularly close to home for me these days. Frighteningly so. And it is that connection that gives poetry its potency. For me.

roller skate tuesday

Falling back on the old reliable, YouTube, for blogging purposes.

First, Fred and Ginger.



Then my one true love (sorry honey!), Gene Kelly.

sunday funnies

fruit on my head and a song in my heart

In a previous post, I mentioned having made two South Park avatars and that I was saving one for a particularly kooky mood. No time like the present. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to Kelly Miranda!


Please note the Hawaiian shirt (which makes me long to go back to that marvelous place), the omnipresent iPod (did I mention I have one just for my kitchen now.. like the old days of a kitchen radio, except mine is a kitchen iPod?), and the seriously wacky eyebrows (I refuse to pluck!). Also, although my hair is about this length now, the red has generally disappeared, leaving me with my natural darkish brown with random wiry greys (that often stand on end) and a spectacular star burst of silver over the right side of my forehead. And of course, my mouth is wide open. I'd say given the music machine and millinery, I'm singing Ethel Merman... loudly (the only way to sing her).

out with the old...

Previous words of wisdom are below. New are at the top of the column on the right. No rhyme or reason for the picture at left. I just thought the marble tile medallions were pretty. Peace.

"Activity suggests a life filled with purpose."
- Christopher Plummer as Captain Georg von Trapp, in The Sound of Music

whoa. deep.

naturally 7

I saw these guys in concert last night, and they are incredible. Seriously. I mean, whoa. Bobby McFerrin and Take 6 rolled into a fresh, new 21st century vibe. Way, way cool. You must watch!