is Gala Bent’s art on the cover of this week’s Stranger. I haven’t read the thing for months, sworn it off really. I finally have a reason to pick up a copy:
Archive for the ‘chilly’ Category
Friday 20 November 2009: Cabinet of Natural Curiosities
In chilly, still bright foilage on November 21, 2009 at 12:15 amLast night I dreamt about a sort-of cabinet of natural curiosities. I was working in a store that had this large wooden case with lots of tiny drawers and shelves, and inside each one was something different. Snail shells, dollar store junk, bitter scrolls that taste like honey. Then I woke up and imagined a grand life’s work of building a cabinet like an ark around your whole living room and filling each drawer with something small and loving.
Thursday 18 November 2009: Bush Can’t Duck This!
In chilly, showers on November 19, 2009 at 6:15 pm
I found this letter to the editor about five years ago in the Muncie, Indiana Star Press. Now I never liked Bush at all, but this guy? He takes the cake.
Please, please read the last paragraph. I can’t believe it actually made it into print.
Wednesday 18 November 2009: Out of our misery
In chilly, dark by five on November 18, 2009 at 9:28 pm
They comfort you all year long. Comfort them this holiday season.
Friday 13 November 2009: Paper on Fire
In chilly, still bright foilage on November 14, 2009 at 12:57 amI love this MoMA interactive site from their exhibition Paper: Pressed, Stained, Slashed, Folded. So simple it’s genius. Check it out here.
Wednesday 11 November 2009: The Red Book
In chilly, still bright foilage, sunny on November 11, 2009 at 10:53 pmThe very hyped reproduction of Jung’s Red Book, retailing for $300, is both overblown and out of range. But something about the whole process; discovering a hidden masterpiece from a vault in Zurich and the scanning and preservation of the work before publishing really appeal to me:
Monday 9 November 2009: Chilly Willy
In chilly on November 10, 2009 at 1:12 amWhen you’re really pregnant, I mean maybe days away from the big event, your feet still look the same in shoes.
Wednesday 4 November 2009: Transubstantiation
In chilly, still bright foilage on November 5, 2009 at 12:29 amSome Christians say that Christ mysteriously hovers around the bread and wine (if you’re not, say, Catholic or Lutheran or Episcopal or Eastern Orthodox) but doesn’t embody it. But if you are Catholic or the like, you probably believe that Christ actually hops into each loaf and bottle after being blessed, literally embodying the elements.
I went to a Lutheran high school and got in a fight with Mr. LeBow, my history teacher, in the middle of class one day about this. Why shouldn’t any true believer be allowed to take communion with any church body? That confused me to pieces. It’s because, according to Mr. LeBow, if I did I might be damning myself as an unconfirmed member of his church that believes Christ isn’t a symbol in the wine and bread, but the actual bloody wine and fleshy bread. When he said that my cheeks turned red hot. I was an outsider right then, at that school, when the whole reason I took Jesus in my heart is because I believe he wants everyone in his.
And I still believe that if Jesus is real, of course he can swoop over thousands of stale loaves, millions of tiny pale biscuits each Sunday and make them body. And even though I’m sure he prefers turning wine into blood he can do it to tiny plastic grape juice cups, too. It’s like every Sunday a million miles of his veins and skin covers the whole planet, turning us into something else entirely cooler and more hopeful than we realize.
Monday 2 November 2009: MississippiAlbinaAlbertaBurnside
In chilly, cloudy on November 2, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Drove through all kinds of weather to get to Portland Saturday. Once we arrived it was tame and gentle outside, quite right for hot chocolate, then even warm Halloween night.
Thursday 29 October 2009: Trick or Treat
In chilly, cloudy, still bright foilage on October 29, 2009 at 11:50 pmOff to Portland for the weekend with high hopes of stopping at Sweet Pea for banana bread, brunch, something or another:
Wednesday 28 November 2009: H1N1 Fever!
In chilly, cloudy, still bright foilage on October 29, 2009 at 12:28 amBeing pregnant and considered “high risk” for catching swine flu and it, you know, killing me, my parents are so worried that I’ll contract the virus–the “high-knee” as my dad calls it–it’s become completely nutty. At dinner last night my dad changed his shirt after riding the bus, even though he had a coat on, washed his hands three times before the meal, and made everyone put a napkin over a loaf of bread before cutting.
It’s these sorts of antics that convince me I’m a goner. That irony will win, that of course the high-knee will be mine. Which makes me really, really want a blue knee high right now. Five weeks and counting.
Monday 26 October 2009: Greengray
In chilly, cloudy, pre-autumnal equinox, still bright foilage on October 26, 2009 at 11:56 pmSigns of life in Upper Queen Anne:
Friday 23 October 2009: Lemon
In chilly, cloudy on October 23, 2009 at 10:11 pmI dreamt D left last night– don’t know why, probably reacting to recent news that friends are sick or displaced.
I was in my old house, in the little pink bathroom, crouched below the sink. I put my toothbrush in this plastic cup with a circus dog face molded on the front and felt, more clearly than most times in waking life, a thick blanket of abandonment and futurlessness.
When I woke up and felt D’s back next to me it was warm, moving away from me and close again.
Thursday 22 October 2009: Very Pregnant
In chilly on October 23, 2009 at 12:27 amA kid working for Greenpeace tried to stop me on the street today by saying, “You like babies! Do you like baby seals?”
A little while later, a cop mumbled, out of the blue, “congrats, maam” as I walked by.
Signs that, in case I’m in denial some days, it’s clear to everyone that I am muy prego.
Wednesday 21 October 2009: Goodish News
In chilly on October 22, 2009 at 12:15 amI thought Daylight Savings had to be this weekend, but it turns out we have a little bit longer until, presto, it’s dark in Seattle at 4:30. The fun begins Sunday, November 1 at 2 a.m.
Tuesday 20 October 2009: Killer Slayer Art Show!
In chilly, cloudy on October 21, 2009 at 12:08 amWent to the Old, Weird America exhibit at the Frye this past weekend and completely loved it. The show originated at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and is on its final stop, in Seattle through January. Better yet, the museum offers free admission.
(I almost wrote next, “Killer way to spend a rainy Saturday.” Who am I kidding? I’ve never called anything killer before, but it naturally came out of my head. Next I’ll be saying, “That slayed me.” But truthfully, the show kind on was, well, killer. Ouch.)
Thursday 15 October 2009: Saw him at the market, buying tarragon
In chilly, cloudy on October 16, 2009 at 12:10 amI bougt my mom a bottle of tarragon-infused vinegar from Pier 1 in the late 80s. She kept it on the counter as a decorative display for maybe a decade without ever opening it. It’s all shock and awe to me that you can actually make tarragon vinegar that looks this fresh and aromatic:
photo Misty Martinez
and knowing Misty at Lemon Spring tastes even better.
That’s it. I’m headed home to make a batch and next week I’m dousing it over a mound of crispy yukon golds straight from the broiler.
*I’m taking a vacation day Friday, more Weatherspoon Monday!
Wednesday 14 November 2009: Clearwater Revivial
In chilly, showers, sunny on October 15, 2009 at 3:11 amA few years ago, I peeled a star anise into shreds by the same Indiana river
I used to dream as a kid would swallow me up in a bath of chocolate milk.
Sitting down to dinner tonight, I fixed a salad, plucked mint from its stem
while you set the knives together so they touched at the tip.
If family is a bridge from myself to my mother’s mother, let’s be bridge builders in reverse
so all-of-a-sudden the water moves backwards, turns to spiced milk at the bed where we meet for a stiff drink.
Monday 12 October 2009: Places you should go in Europe
In chilly, cloudy on October 13, 2009 at 12:27 amFrom McSweeney’s: The Door to Hell: Paris, France? Shaken, Not Stirred: Monaco? Tell me more.
Wednesday 7 October 2009: Dust Bowl
In chilly, sunny on October 7, 2009 at 9:36 pmD just missed a huge dust storm in Eastern Washington while he was driving from Seattle to Idaho Sunday. Cliff Mass explains conditions for the storm. Reminds me that we live in the Wild West!:
Extraordinary winds struck eastern Washington on Sunday, with 30-40 mph winds being commonplace, with gusts reaching nearly 60 mph around Wenatchee and vicinity. The result a major duststorm that closed down I90 for a while and resulted in numerous multicar accidents, sending 11 people to the hospital. Visibilities had dropped to less than five feet at times and the powerful winds knocked down many of the apples still on the trees near Wenatchee. It was reported that the ground at some orchards had turned red with apples.
Image via NASA MODIS satellites
Monday 5 October 2009: Metal Heart
In chilly on October 5, 2009 at 8:56 pmReading Lorrie Moore’s Birds of America. She used a word in one of the collection’s early stories that melted into my head and keeps repeating: homefulness
Thursday October 1 2009: Jubilee Farm
In chilly, cloudy on October 1, 2009 at 10:10 pmOctober is officially here. That means it’s time for a winding, back road drive from Seattle to Carnation during pumpkin season at Jubilee Farm. There are a ton of U-Pick pumpkin patches, hay mazes, and farm stands selling gourds and squash in a stone’s throw from downtown Seattle, but I’ve been a regular at Jubilee for years. It’s the sort of farm where you want to help clean carrots and pour cider just because. Plus, the hourly pumpkin throw is cooler than cool.
Here’s pumpkin cowboy Miles Ellenwood at Jubilee last year:
Wednesday 30 November 2009: Run Vera Run!
In chilly, sunny on September 30, 2009 at 11:49 pm
My friend Kristen has spent the last many months helping to organize Run Vera Run, a 5 k run/walk on 10/11 to benefit the Vera Project, Seattle’s all-ages music and art venue. You should do this!
Run Vera Run includes:
A lovely loop around Seward Park, starting and ending at the main lawn at the base of the park. The Official Run Vera Run Warmup: Before you run for Vera, warm yourself up with Vera co-founder Shannon Stewart, aka Inga the Ringa. Fresh off the streets of Budapest, Inga will bring you twenty minutes of the latest European aerobics fitness crazes (minus the smoking of course). Live music by local band The Maldives A graffiti wall painted live on-site by local artists Complimentary massage for participants by Dr. Kristi Smith Prizes, food and refreshments, including coffee by Caffe Vita
If I wasn’t so very pregnant I’d be the first one to sign up. Watch out for me next year!
Tuesday 29 September 2009: National Treasures
In chilly, thunderstorm on September 30, 2009 at 12:33 amWho knows how this study can really be accurate, but it’s interesting if nothing else. A group of researchers at Kansas State University released a map of national vices, charting which parts of the country are the most and least steeped in each of the seven deadly sins.
Looks like Seattle is leading the way in greed (thank you Microsoft), envy (thank you gentrification), and pride (thank you moderate climate, excellent coffee and very tall mountains).
Tuesday 1 September 2009: Orange Crush
In chilly, cloudy on September 1, 2009 at 11:36 pmRecently, I was in California:
L to R: Bi-Rite grocery on 18th and Guerrero, Indian Springs, Hotel Rex lobby, Tartine Bakery
Tuesday 11 August 2009: Buzz Clips
In chilly on August 11, 2009 at 8:54 pmI spent too much of every summer in high school watching MTV when I should have been reading. The things I loved more than anything were buzz clips, little promos that showed a few seconds of “alternative” videos. And prime-time MTV really played videos then. Good ones, too, meaty singles like Morrissey’s “The More You Ignore Me,” Radiohead’s “Creep, ” Smashing Pumpkin’s “Today”. But my very favorite was J.Buckley’s “Last Goodbye”:
Thursday 6 August 2009: Re-imagining a Very Sad Thing
In chilly, cloudy on August 6, 2009 at 9:11 pmThe brother of the woman that was drunk and high and drove down the highway for miles outside of New York City on the wrong side of the road said she wasn’t an alcoholic, and I believe him. She crashed and killed herself, and her and her brother’s kids, and the people they hit, all in a second.
Maybe it’s just that it was July, and she had all these kids in the car, and it was rainy, the kind of day that felt like everybody should be cleaning bathrooms, or napping, or making coffee. But not driving in traffic and worrying about a lump in her leg. So let’s just say she started drinking scotch until everything smelled like Mr. Clean, smoked a joint from a little sardine tin rolled in a sock in her dresser drawer, and kept moving. Everybody keeps saying she had a stroke, then drank, or that something spectacularly medical happened. Diabetes, heart attack, stroke, and aneurysm have all been ruled out, says a county coroner.
But me? I think there’s something annually reckless about late July, because we’re on the cusp of everything falling.
Wednesday 8 July 2009: Black Swan Green
In chilly, cloudy, windy on July 8, 2009 at 11:16 pmSeems like I was asleep more than awake for the first few months of my pregnancy, so my regular reading pattern slipped. But a very cool thing happened last week, one that hasn’t for a long while. I started reading Black Swan Green by David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas) and I couldn’t stop turning the page.
I don’t really want to tell you what the book is about, or why it’s worth you reading, because all you need to know is that this is the sort of book that you don’t have to make time to read. You’ll think about it before going to bed at night (especially if you grew up in the 80s, when dads seemed much more grown up than 2009 dads) and you’ll want to hold off on making dinner to read another chapter.
Whenever I finish a paperback I slam it on the ground really hard. Just to say that what’s done is done. But sometimes, and in the case of Black Swan Green this will certainly be true, it’s because I really loved reading it, being in a certain world for a little while, and now the holiday’s over.
Monday 6 July 2009: Baked Alaska
In chilly, sunny, windy on July 6, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Mount Rainier has been out lately, and seeing it so often has got to be the best by-product of spending summer in Seattle. Driving to the airport last night I waited for the one turn on I-5 when the mountain appears out of nowhere and takes up the whole sky.
The first time I ever saw the mountain was around this turn towards driving towards Sea-Tac, and it was more of a monster than a trusted friend. I screamed. Everybody in the car did. It was a huge baked alaska, oozing toasty marshmallow and runny ice cream towards the car.
I flew over Rainier at night once, and the whole thing was like a glitter ball, silver-spooned and firey. That’s when it turned into something supernatural–the real and honest truth that God’s got to exist. I’m pretty sure the mountain started floating with the plane and turned more Everest than Everest, a petrified forest and a candied anti-Hades all at once.
Wednesday 13 May 2009: Wish You Were Here
In chilly, showers on May 13, 2009 at 11:51 pmWe’ve had better days.
Thursday 7 May 2009: The Genius of Water
In chilly, showers on May 7, 2009 at 11:47 pmLast night I drove past a woman smoking, flicking ashes from her apartment window onto an empty Seattle street. They fell like a water gun sparking wintergreens, hitting this street everybody drives around but nobody walks through.
It reminds me of Fountain Square in downtown Indianapolis. It’s like always the early 80s there, and the fountain is never turned on. Everything is black and white, and the diner stays empty during the day.
If I look at it a certain way, quiet neighborhoods in the heart of big cities are comforting, especially when they’re in solitude. Which really could be more about silence than abandonment.
But if I look at in another way, my whole heart splits imaging everybody sleeping the heat of the day off inside brick houses around the square. And the best way I can cope with the weight of that is to imagine impossible ways for places to change. What if one day everybody just started talking, and the neighborhood became powerful, magical.
Pea patches send tender vines over fences, the diner starts passing out free coffee, and fountain water flip flops all over sidewalks every June and July.
Tuesday 5 May 2009: Nerds
In chilly, cloudy, sunny on May 6, 2009 at 4:32 amMy dad gets kidney stones, like, all the time. Once when I was a kid he called me in the kitchen and asked me to hold out my hand, then poured what looked like a jet black nerd candy out of a dixie cup and into my palm. A 4 mm kidney stone that had been in his body the hour before. He was almost proud to show me, and once I realized what I was holding I squealed, threw the thing in the air and ran outside.
I called him this morning to say hello, and he answered the phone sounding stuffed up and half-asleep. “Hello, dad?” “Yeah.” “How are you, how was your night last night?” “Oh, I’d be fine. If Seattle didn’t hate me.”
He went on to tell me about how since he’s moved here a year ago only bad things have happened to his body. His allergies are worse. He pees a lot more than he used to. He has a deviated septum. And now he has another kidney stone.
He moved to Seattle from Indiana, the land of the deep fried fill-in-the-blank, the chili cheese dog, and the Chinese buffet. Everybody eats well here, and the truth is he eats better now than ever. But the city is an easy scapegoat for any ailment–the perfect answer for why we’re lonely, or broke, or allergic.
Wednesday 29 April 2009: 100 Days
In chilly, cloudy on April 29, 2009 at 11:38 pmThings I did during Mr. O’s first 100 days in office:
Washed pillowcases
Roasted potatoes
Went back where I came from
Walked on the greens of a golf course at dusk
Watched Step Brothers
Hoped the light was on our side
Friday 3 April 2009: Bedheaded Birthday
In chilly, cloudy on April 3, 2009 at 7:46 pmGoing on a little holiday for my birthday, and I’m very much hoping to catch up on some sleep. Be back with you next Wednesday, fresh from the land of milk and honey that is Oregon state.
.
Thursday 2 April 2009: Overgrown
In chilly, showers on April 2, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Ship for Fools detail, Gala Bent
Tonight, the frightening talent and truly true beauty of Gala Bent’s art (and Gala Bent proper)
can be found at 4Culture Gallery in Seattle, a part of First Thursday:
Gala Bent
Overgrown
April 2 – May 1, 2009reception April 2, 2009, 6 – 8 p.m.
Gallery4Culture is delighted to present Overgrown, an exhibit of new drawings by Seattle artist Gala Bent. In a dozen or so works on paper, Bent has produced an enchanting primer on the role of imagination in our understanding of reality. With graphite and gouache, she transports the viewer into an imaginary world populated by benevolent creatures amidst swirling air, water and hair. In these works, visible and invisible meet one another and react. Bent’s work strives to address human’s yearning to know the natural world and to understand that which is invisible.
Monday March 23-Sunday March 29: Reading Week
In chilly, cloudy on March 23, 2009 at 11:26 pmHaving historically spent spring break during college in Midwestern bookshops, drinking Mr. Misties and doing doughnuts in church parking lots, I’m officially declaring that this week is spring break for any and all non-students.
So that means staying put in Seattle. Instead of daily writing on Weatherspoon I’m planning to do a whole lot of daily reading. I’ll be back here next Monday, fingers-crossed fully recovered from a wheezy cough, with wild tales of peeling tangerines, painting gourds with cat eyes, making paper mache dinos, and reading until my pinkies freeze.
Tuesday 17 March 2009: Coffee and Pastry
In chilly, cloudy on March 17, 2009 at 11:10 pm
Follow my map to favorite Seattle cafes:
1 Top Pot Doughnuts, Capitol Hill++
2 Victrola on 15th, Capitol Hill**
3 Cupcake Royale, Madrona++
4 Presse, Capitol Hill++
5 Zeitgeist, Pioneer Square >>
6 Umbria, Pioneer Square >>
7 Gelatiamo, Downtown++
8 Macrina, Belltown++
9 Fiore, Crown Hill >>
10 Zoka, Greenlake** ++ >>
KEY:
** = Coffee done right ++ = Go for pastries and treats >> = Go for ambiance/location
Monday 16 March 2009: Moon Corn Whiskey and Wild Turkey Bourbon
In chilly, cloudy on March 16, 2009 at 9:10 pmAfter months of speculation, it’s official. The Seattle P-I will produce its last print edition tomorrow, after 146 years:
After the closure announcement, breaking news editor Candace Heckman pulled bottles of Georgia Moon Corn Whiskey, Wild Turkey bourbon and George Dickel Tennessee Whisky out of a bag and set them out at her desk.
“I’d been saving that for a while,” she said. She’d just sent a “farewell” e-mail to the staff that said, “Come by the city desk for a drink: bring your own glass.”
Make it a double.
Tuesday 10 March 2009: Winter Therapy
In chilly, sunny on March 10, 2009 at 7:28 pmIt won’t be long until I loose any and all desire to eat soup. Even though it snowed in Seattle yesterday (ouch!) we’re quickly moving away from the shortest days of the year. So while it’s still the season, I requested matzo ball soup from my mom at our Monday family dinner last night, which she made beautifully. And a few days back I made a favorite recipe I found last year and modified a bit. It’s the fastest meal I know how to make:
Lemony Soup with Rainbow Orzo and Chard
Rainbow Orzo: one big handful per person
Rainbow Chard: two chopped handfuls per person
Fresh Lemon Juice: from 1/2 lemon per person
White Beans: rinsed, 1/2 cup per person
Veggie Stock: 2 cups per person
Garlic, Salt, Pepper: to taste
Parmesan Reggiano: if you wanna
1. Sautee garlic in a little olive oil
2. Add chopped chard, sautee until tender
3. Boil orzo al dente, drain and set aside
4. In a big pot, heat white beans, chard, sautee, veg stock, lemon juice
5. Serve with a dust of parmesan, salt and pepper, and good bread. Yeah!
Monday 9 March 2009: The Day-to-Day Life of Albert Hastings
In chilly, snow on March 9, 2009 at 11:03 pm
I’m charmed by many of the books Princeton Architectural Press publishes. A recent PAP favorite is The Day-to-Day Life of Albert Hastings.
Photographer Kaylynn Deveney struck up a friendship with the then 85-year-old Albert Hastings after becoming his neighbor in Wales. She began to photograph his simple daily acts, asking Hastings to write captions under each of her pictures.
With so much bad news these days, there’s something surprisingly heartening about the pictures that fill this book. It in essence looks at the often lonely life a widowed man living hand-to-mouth, sure. We see Hastings claiming his pension check and filling in a handmade chart of TV programs for the week ahead.
But it’s also comforting to see someone living well who is also living very simply. In one photo Hastings takes homemade scones out of the oven. In another he discusses a book with a friend
This cheeky shanty by Hastings gives the finger to the nightly news. He penned it before his death in 2007 at 91 years old:
Death of a Cynic
Not an awful world I’m leavin;
Let it be short quick and sharp.
Then I can go up to my Evelyn
an’ learn to play me bloody ‘Arp.
Then I’ll see our Dear Savior
Oh, how happy I will be
I will clap my hands saying
To Hell with Radio BBC
Thursday 26 February 2009: Portland’s Beast Destroys Brooklyn!
In chilly, cloudy, snowy on February 27, 2009 at 12:28 amWent to Portland this weekend, and while my trip ended with a bad case of influenza, I found a very bright spot Sunday over brunch at this little place north of downtown called Beast. Everything is local and lovely, in four courses served to two communal tables.
An article ran in the NYT yesterday called Brooklyn’s New Culinary Movement. I’ve eaten all over Portland and found one place better than the next, and every time I shop for the week I find more homegrown, artisanal goodness in Seattle. I’m proud to live in a part of the world that’s been producing a lot of the specialty foods mentioned in this article, with less fanfare.
They’ve got Prime Meats, we’ve had Salumi. Brooklyn’s Mast Bros. Chocolate roasts from cacao beans, Seattle’s Theo has been doing that for years.
But then again I have to ask myself, why the food fight? Truth is a lot of us are buying locally sourced blah blah, and the more the merrier. Plus, out east there’s a guy who owns a business called Cut Brooklyn. He spends more than an 8-hour work day making one knife, turning out a handful a week. Game point Brooklyn.
Thursday 12 February 2009
In chilly, sunny on February 13, 2009 at 1:19 amIf I decided to get a Master’s degree, I’d happy delve into any of the following:
1. Field Studies, using Audubon’s Birds of America as central text and the Arboretum as my classroom.
2. Fertility, so I could seriously consider mythology, with a dissertation explaining why babies and corn and the sea are sort of the same.
3. Spiritual Writing, so I could mix a. structure, b. solace, and c. Jesus up in my mind and set the thoughts out to dry on thousands of paper towels and napkins, watching tiny stories grow into trees, fiber, oats, and night.
4. Museology, to spend days in lit by light rooms, wide, clean spaces far away from my closet and the trunk of my car. I’d study inri, netsuke, and Outsider art.
5. On that note, Folk Art. I’d get the degree before moving to Athens, GA and meeting the ghost of Howard Finster in a filling station. Then I’d buy a wooden house and deck out a room with robin’s egg blue walls, a very red rug, a thick old desk, and lots of empty gold picture frames.
Tuesday 10 February 2009
In chilly, freezing on February 11, 2009 at 1:11 am
Meet me at the Doug Fir near Canada…
Wednesday 28 January 2009
In chilly on January 29, 2009 at 1:22 am
I’ve drawn a line graph of how average weather feels month-by-month in both Seattle and Chicago. Nothing based on actual averages, but more of a resident index. Me? I’m sticking around the Northwest. Thank you, mild winters.
Tuesday 27 January 2009
In chilly, cloudy on January 27, 2009 at 9:23 pmWhere I grew up as a kid:
Where else I grew up as an adult:
Friday 23 January 2009
In chilly, sunny on January 24, 2009 at 12:57 amHas anyone noticed? The lights stay on until 5:30 now. Almost a whole hour ahead of where we were a month ago. It may as well be lux perpetua.
Tonight I’ll be with friends at a bar. Looking out back, here’s what we’ll see, sitting around while the planet keeps on deciding to move a little closer towards ceaseless light:
Thursday 22 January 2009
In chilly on January 23, 2009 at 3:49 amIn case you’re hungry, a post I wrote on food finds during a recent trip to Prague went up on Asthmatic Kitty’s sidebar today.
Starting in the next week or two I’ll be doing a regular food column for AK. I’m looking for foodies to contribute posts, so if you’re a Weatherspoon reader living in another part of the country and are interested in writing about food issues in your city, review restaurants, compile lists of the best places for coffee or microbrews, etc. for Asthmatic Kitty, be in touch.
*
Also, the company I work for just launched an excellent Etsy site featuring letterpressed and handmade novelties, including the coolest door hangers on the planet.
Wednesday 21 January 2009
In chilly, cloudy on January 21, 2009 at 10:14 pmMy house meets the White House.
Tuesday 6 January 2009
In chilly, cloudy on January 7, 2009 at 1:58 amWhen did the weather get so precious?
Monday 5 January 2009
In chilly, cloudy on January 6, 2009 at 12:47 amWow. Kansas really is flatter than a pancake.
Friday 1 January 2009
In chilly, cloudy, dark by five on January 2, 2009 at 1:04 amGrowing up, my dad used to floss in our car while driving home from dinner. Over time, our windshield would become peppered with bits of steak and broccoli that looked like tiny neon bugs splattered across the glass.
I would watch him floss in the rear view mirror. He’d be at the wheel and I’d be in the backseat. Once, I remember his fingers being wrapped so tightly around the floss that they turned bright pink, plumping out around the string. I stared at his hands, then eyes in the mirror, and for a second our faces looked the very same.
That’s how I feel about the new year. There’s this strange mix of familiarity and tension, especially now–with the whole world flipping, flopping, and boiling down.
But more than that, I feel resolved about the tough and sweet year that’s passed. Went for coffee today with D and month by month we wrote out everything notable that happened in 2008. Things like friends losing parents and gaining children, where we were on election night, travels to Prague and Vashon, playing pool on my birthday.
Thinking about all the weather that will travel from west to east this year, starting close to Capitol Hill and hitting the places I’ve lived and the people I love across the plains, over the Smokies and to the Atlantic makes everything that’s to come, scary and tenuous as it may be, seem beautiful, messy, and really really close.
Wednesday 30 December 2008
In chilly, cloudy on December 31, 2008 at 4:19 amI’m heartened. We’ve hit rock bottom.
Vernal Equinox + Mar 20 2008
Summer Solstice + Jun 20 2008
Autumnal Equinox + Sep 22 2008
Winter Solstice + Dec 21 2008
Vernal Equinox + Mar 20 2009
Sumer Solstices + Jun 21 2009
Autumnal Equinox + Sep 22 2009
Winter Solstice + Dec 21 2009
Vernal Equinox + Mar 20 2010
Summer Solstice + Jun 21 2010
Autumnal Equinox + Sep 22 2010
Winter Solstice + Dec 21 2010
We’ve gaining one more minute of light from now until March 20, when we gain two minutes of light until summer solstice. Honest-to-goodness, I can already tell a difference.
Friday 26 December 2008
In chilly, snow on December 27, 2008 at 2:24 amThere was a huge blizzard in Indiana the winter before I was born. My mom talks about the storm in this mythic way–she remembers being very pregnant, gearing up in a snowmobile suit and trekking to the grocery for bread and liters of water. The pipes were in danger of bursting and everyone was stuck in our subdivision for days.
After hearing that story as a kid and thrilled at the notion of a real adventure , I was always prepared for some week-long whiteout that would trap us inside. In anticipation, I used to pull every blanket we owned in the tub of our extra bathroom along with water, Cheerios, a flashlight, battery-powered radio, stuffed bear, and the Bible.
Seattle has had more snow and ice and slush this last week than any time in recent memory and I found myself wanting to bring an updated emergency kit into the bathroom in case–the Bible could stay, but we’d add bourbon, marzipan fruits, and cards for gin rummy to the mix.
Thursday 25 December 2008: Merry Christmas!
In chilly, showers, snow on December 25, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Mustard greens and gloves.
Thursday 18 December 2008
In chilly, dark by five, foggy, freezing, post-autumnal equinox, showers, snowy on December 19, 2008 at 12:57 amThundersnow hit the city around 5:30 this morning, which was about the same time I realized this thing about being family.
D has a chest cold. He’s all coughs and sighs, and I was up and down with him all night. At one point in the early morning, I thought about how as a kid my mom would sit with me all night when I was sick. I’d always felt a mix of love and chagrin back then, when I was the taker.
And now I’m understanding, being in that role of caregiver to D, that sitting up through the night is such a simple, even good, practice. I know someone well enough to tell you when he’s asleep and breathing clouds or kicking through water. It’s a pleasure.
While I was thinking about this, I jumped. A huge clash of thunder shook the bed. I went to the window to look out and all at once I was a wounder, a wanderer, and a healer.
Wednesday 17 December 2008
In chilly, dark by five, freezing on December 18, 2008 at 4:52 amWe live on the tip of Denny, one of the biggest hills in one of the hilliest cities on the planet. In my worrying head, a forecast of flurries overnight means that, while on his way to work, my husband will surely loose control of the wheel and chute-and-ladder from the top of Capitol Hill into Elliott Bay a mile down the road.
D drives to work very early, so before bed last night, I pulled out my pink stationary pad shaped like a hot dog and left him a note on our car: “DRIVE SAFELY & SLOWLY! I love you. See you tonight for grilled cheese.”
I fell asleep quickly and dreamt that D was losing control driving down an icy Denny like I feared. But right before the turn where the road ends and water begins, my hot dog note morphed into a giant safety net at the bottom of the hill. A hot dog-shaped barrier popped up from the road and became a meaty pillow, maneuvering our car safely away from the water.
Thursday 11 December 2008
In chilly, dark by five on December 12, 2008 at 12:40 amDarkest Night of the Year Mix
for December 21, Winter Solstice
Devendra Banhart: Hey Momma Wolf
Leonard Cohen: Famous Blue Raincoat
Fire on Fire: Three or More
Vince Guaraldi: Christmastime is Here (Instrumental)
PJ Harvey: Missed
Innocence Mission: Lakes of Canada
Low vs. Diamond: Stay Awake
My Brightest Diamond: Ice and Storm
Red House Painters: Katy Song
R.E.M.: Hairshirt
Elliott Smith: Condor Ave.
Under Byen: Palads
Tom Waits: Alice
Yeasayer: 2080
Tuesday 9 December 2008
In chilly, cloudy, dark by five on December 10, 2008 at 3:09 amNorthwest weather is a real shape-shifter. Sometimes she’s green-tumbed and vital. Other times, she’s like a rubber band around a water balloon. A prickly pear.
I heard weather writer Cliff Mass interviewed by Steve Scher on KUOW recently and now I can’t stop reading his blog. I keep scribbling down notes about particular causes and effects of weather in Washington State. He talks about storm watching, predicting the waves and swell. And also about a rare but true green flash that is sometimes visible for a few seconds when cooler air travels over warmer water.
With everything being so unstable across the planet, it’s easy to see why it’s hard to stop reading Mr. Mass. Just last week he said we’re in store for a wetter, cooler pattern in the weeks ahead. And he was spot on.
Monday 8 December 2008
In bare branches, chilly, cloudy, dark by five on December 9, 2008 at 3:59 amI listen to local radio when I can’t sleep because I know somebody is in the booth at any hour. It’s a good sad, that the “on air” light blinks in a dark hall for nobody’s benefit. There’s a comfort in the very idea third shift, the sound of cars on the state highway I can hear from bed, and all of the trains huffing past the bay.
One summer in New York, D and I were on our roof in the Village at 4 a.m., arms flopped off the side, just watching people walk around. A skateboarder, a firefighter, and a woman in heels walking her dog eating an ice cream cone passed by. Watching people so awake when everyone in the building under us must have been asleep made the city a good enough place to stay put.
At night, to communicate without communicating may be a half-comfort but it’s a comfort all the same. Watching and listening can get you through a heavy winter, re-placing a need to be accounted for with a need to co-exist. It’s an insomniac’s bread and butter.
Friday 5 December 2008
In bare branches, chilly, dark by five on December 5, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Madrona and the empty trees
Thursday 4 December 2008
In chilly, dark by five, sunny on December 5, 2008 at 12:47 amI keep telling myself that by December 17th, the sunset will begin a minute later than on the 16th. We’ve almost rock bottomed, and everyone’s still putting on pants, eating soup, and riding the bus. Even if it’s mostly in the dark.
Wednesday 3 December 2008
In chilly, cloudy, dark by five on December 4, 2008 at 3:58 amOn the radio today, I heard someone explain how the atmosphere is a chaotic system meant to produce abnormalities. Which seemed heartbreakingly perfect somehow, because the atmosphere is so basic, necessary for existence, and it gets forever permission to do its thing.
There’s this tendency towards disorder when you share a space. One person leaves a sock on the floor, another hangs a bra between two chairs to dry, and each spare object becomes a whole galaxy. All 550 square feet of your place turns towards some strange, corkscrewed constellation. And it’s almost too beautiful to straighten up, because all of a sudden you figure out it was supposed to be that way in the first place.
Monday 1 December 2008
In chilly, dark by five on December 2, 2008 at 12:13 amIf you live in Seattle, I best be seeing you at the Triple Door tonight for what’s sure to be an excellent evening of music from Trace Bundy and dear friend Josh Garrels. It’s chilly and almost dark at 4 p.m., but in a few hours the lower lights will be burning.
Friday 28 November 2008
In chilly, cloudy, dark by five, showers on November 28, 2008 at 6:14 pmIt’s Buy Nothing Day, which this year feels farther away and just plain sadder than ever. The day after Thanksgiving—when all we want to hear is save your health, save your house, save your leftovers—and all we get is a gaggle of Kohls employees, sleepy from opening for a line of three people at 4 a.m., half-assed mouthing spend spend spend.
Oh Christ, pop in and I’ll fix us all a giant fruit salad with berries we picked and apples we plucked.
And you can turn us around, from the mall towards the water in a fleet of white hot air balloons.
Thursday 27 November 2008
In chilly, sunny on November 27, 2008 at 2:47 amIt takes a little more than an hour to drive from downtown Seattle to Vaughn, Washington, a thumbtack of a town near the Hood Canal. All that quiet must make Vaughn the perfect place for Al Prante, president of the Narrows Strut Busters chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation, to perfect turkey calling, which may very well be as much an art as it is a science.
Supposedly, Prante has learned that the best way to charm a turkey is to sound like a sexy woman. According to the Kitsap Sun, Prante can imitate a turkey dance, too, complete with arms moving like quivering wings.
I’m imagining Stars, the Thanksgiving turkey President Bush pardoned a few years ago, nestled snugly somewhere near Bethesda. He startles awake after hearing the distant call of some pretty young thing. The bird, half-dreaming of a distant lover, glides across the greater 48 states and lands smack dab in the middle of Vaughn, Washington and onto the turkey caller’s flailing arm.
It’s a new American legion of honor—the turkey is really a knight, and the turkey caller a grandiose commander. Man and beast are perched for so long that they become a cedar pillar, some grand totem pole of indigenous kin.
Tuesday 25 November 2008
In chilly, cloudy, dark by five, showers on November 26, 2008 at 1:50 amLast night, I had a nightmare about this grizzly old duplex that sits on our street in Capitol Hill that the city finally knocked down yesterday. I dreamt that its remains stretched into a track of wood and stone, thickening towards my building and rising into an arc to just under my open window. Suddenly an old landlord crawled up the pile and through the screen, looking venomous.
I was so used to walking past the duplex when it was still in tact, held together with a million band-aids, that it got to the point where I stopped noticing that it existed.
I’m realizing that this is the exact opposite of the kind of people we should like to become—ones who get so used to what’s wrong that we forget how to start over. Like a slap on the wrist or a tiny pinch, we need something to tell us that being healthy is better than being sleepy.
Rooting out old fear kept inside of even older parts of our heads, in spite of the fact that nobody’s buying Baby ballet shoes this year.
Monday 24 Novmber 2008
In chilly, dark by five, sunny on November 25, 2008 at 5:46 amOn my best behavior, I read from the Book of Hours. I’ve marked the page where a Benedictine writes:
“Pour into us now, O most loving one, the gift of eternal grace, so that, by the misfortunes of new deception, old error may not destroy us.”
Wednesday 19 November 2008
In chilly, still bright foilage, sunny on November 20, 2008 at 1:05 amI first posted my list of slept-in-beds last spring on Thirtymoon. But there’s something about autumn, when there’s so much dark that you could sleep on sleep, that’s again got me thinking about beds where I’ve slept.
Friends have started to contribute their own lists. Want to compile one to be included here on Weatherspoon?
Slept-in-Beds (two weeks or more)
Childhood bedroom Indiana
Basement guestroom (with termites!) in aunt’s rowhouse Bridgeport, Chicago
Mint in the backyard, oatmeal in the mornings grandparent’s house Indiana
Sun tea on the porch, watermelon in the creek lakehouse Sturgis, Michigan
Dorm rooms, various Indiana
Haight-Ashbury Victorian, summer internship San Francisco
10th and Waverly walk-up, across from Nine Lives Bookshop Greenwich Village
NYU dorm, by the farmer’s market Union Square
Loft above the Civic Theater with a huge vintage vault, green house with slugs in the garden, blue house by the river Indiana
House by the Arboretum, Craftsman with rats in the basement, co-op by the doughnut shop, Seattle
Tuesday 18 November 2008
In chilly, cloudy, dark by five, still bright foilage on November 19, 2008 at 2:30 amIt was this time of year when a house I rented with friends really came alive. With rats. It was a big 1920’s Craftsman near Greenlake with a drafty crawl space in the basement. Having always lived in old houses I should have known that there was a real risk of the place having rodents. It sat close to a string of restaurants and a grocery store and was blocks from the water. But before this house I hadn’t dealt with anything larger than mice–cute as they are creepy–and never dreamed of living with their big brothers.
I should have been pleading with Saint Gertrude for help the whole time. She’s the patron saint of suriphobia—the fear of rodents.
By the time I was packing up the kitchen and moving out the next summer, a long list of rat stories had unfolded. The rats had been quiet for some time, likely traipsing across the yard in the warm summer weather. Exterminators and dozens of traps later, it had gotten to the point where I knew I was cohabitating with the rodents instead of getting close to actually beating them. And as a result, the rats were gracious, for the most part keeping out of food and sight. But when I left I knew that really, the rats had won.
I opened a cupboard and grabbed a stack of plates to wrap in newspaper. And there it was, this perfect pellet dropped on the center of the top plate. Sort of like the rat was giving me the finger as a farewell.
