May 2012
3 posts
living with one brother
Living with one brother is fine. Then, weekends come and brother #2 comes home and literally…
LITERALLY
the house shakes.
It is shaking.
Boys are loud. And rough. When you get more than one in a room together.
joys of living at home. still.
I just heard my mom shout down the hall to my brothers:
“Your momma didn’t raise no fool?!… Your momma didn’t raise no fool.”
I have no idea of the context, but I’m glad I get to imagine.
Happy Saturday.
just to make a marker
7:59AM- dressed for work
-coffee
8:00 - out of the corner of my eye I see Cooper prancing across the yard with a baby bunny in his little jaws. I’d love to say I’m proud of my little hunter, but…. I FEED YOU CAT!! I FEED YOU!
8:01 -contemplating one step closer to homeownership. That is not one word. But it is a big one in lots of ways.
April 2012
2 posts
catch 22
The last two days I kept thinking to myself:
“I get so much done when Jay’s not around for the weekend…….
…. but Jay’s not around.”
March 2012
2 posts
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
– a good chat with sister tonight… and I thought a reminder of this was in order.
February 2012
1 post
January 2012
2 posts
December 2011
2 posts
"No one else in the world is getting this for...
That was Jay’s introduction to my Christmas gift from him. He made me a cat box. Translation: an outdoor abode for cats, much like a dog house, but smaller. As strange as it seems, I was elated. This cat box is the bridge between our happiness- he likes cats outside and I like cats everywhere. Luckily, my Cooper is a bobcat at heart and, since moving from the city to the country, has...
Yesterday, today, and tomorrow
Yesterday, I was driving home from the grocery store feeling pretty pleased with myself for all that I’d accomplished from 8AM until 1:30. I got this self-congratulating smile, I’m sure, even though I was alone in my car. Things were feeling put together and perfect when I realized I was about to drive right on past the house that Jay and I were (and still hope) to buy. To continue...
September 2011
2 posts
a miniature moment of spectacularity
i’m actually being productive, have candles burning at my desk, listening to this american life, when i realize i really need a bobby pin to keep the hair out of my freakin’ eyes so i can continue being productive sans headache when i realize i have bobby pins right here, right here in the dish my candle is sitting in- no getting up at all- and right here, to my left, is a drawer full...
August 2011
4 posts
She grinned and watched her feet walk her right to my teller window. Her red shirt gave away that she was either playing hooky from work or, well she told me, had been allowed to leave work early that day. It was slow, she said, and added that she had been having fun but with no work, well… she couldn’t just hang out, she guessed, and I thought she half winked at me. Her hair was...
and then...
First you find out a house you fell all-over inlovewith (one word) can not be yours, and then you weep, and every other day after that you think of why it might be ok followed by why it is the worst thing in the world, mostly because you had your wedding all planned for the day after you held the hot little front/back door key in your hand, and then you live a few more days and it doesn’t...
you know you're stuffing your face for no good...
with two bites left to go of your blueberry pancake, you realize there weren’t actually blueberries in it.
June 2011
2 posts
i'm ready
-to be a 9-5er. for a little while.
-to own a home. though buying one is about the most confusing thing i’ve never done, involving the most money
—i spend countless hours in my brain, landscaping and decorating homes i’ll never live in
-to NOT be working on a holiday (any of them) for the first time in (maybe more than) a year
May 2011
1 post
My hands are dry.
I can feel the skin tight over my finger bones. I scrubbed the whole kitchen this morning with a bucket of water and muscles that ached for purpose- on my hands and knees and belly I scrubbed. I listened to This American Life and dislodged dust and mysterious drips from the cabinets. Now, I’m eating peach/blueberry cobbler I made last night for lunch, and I’m happy. The chickens...
April 2011
2 posts
RIP Roosty
Yesterday evening was the last day of my rooster’s life. It wasn’t a great or long relationship, as I only wanted him for his body: his tail feathers, his brilliant red comb.
We coaxed him into an open space and I only peeked once after I heard the shot echo off the barn wall. I gagged. I imagined the inside of his lungs, and his heart, and his muscles being ripped into by each...
March 2011
5 posts
bones
When I label tumblr as a waste of time, I forget how inspiring it is. Then, I come back for a little visit, and I sigh with contentment.
It’s that time of the [school] year that my planner has no space for more ink. I have three to-do lists going at any given time. My brain is blown away by the fact that I will not have homework ever again in T-minus 27 days.
Until then, I will finish...
best thing to happen to e-mail:
I received this alert:
“You wrote “I’ve attached” but there are no attachments”…
Thank you G-mail.
socks on
I have so much exciting stuff zipping through my brain I can hardly keep my socks on the past couple days.
[stuff] = photography, finding a [beautiful to-me because it’s my own] house to live in and fill with rest and warmth and joy, finding a grown-up girl job [and believing that I’m capable of a grown-up girl job]
[see also]: overwhelming amount of (photography) inspiration and...
spring's a comin'
I know this because last night I dreamed that I found a dirt road that dead ended in a puddle the size of an Olympic pool. It had heavy, drag you toward shore waves and everything. and it was fun, even though my clothes got wet. and it was bright, chemical blue,somehow, with just enough mud and sharp stones to know it was puddle after all.
my favorite part of elementary school was when we...
I remember that fondly, often.
February 2011
7 posts
life, now
he drinks Jack and Coke ‘cuz it tastes “like candy” and I sip Peppermint Schnapps from a shot glass ‘cuz I’m sick and we study cognitive psych for hours and then dream about better things and eat my mother’s left over goulash,
but I couldn’t be happier. (also,
i fight stress, which is semantically counter-productive, and as i do i pray that someday it...
old pictures, new frames
I was listening to NPR on my way to work, when a story about putting wind turbines up in a French town came on. The big frustration is that these things will destroy the historic beauty of the night sky that has been lit up only by the light of an island abbey for centuries. Environmentalists say you’ve got to put wind turbines where there’s wind.
…Break away from France with...
I don't always love snow...
…but I love blizzard snow. It’s that “maybe we’ll be trapped at home a few days and we’ll have to scrounge up what food we have and shovel paths that look like hallways and not have to go anywhere but drink hot chocolate and sit with afghans and knit more afghans, and we’ll all have to work together” feeling. Like, I’m a survivor.
Also, I forgot...
January 2011
4 posts
To my [photography] professors:
Hello,
I will have a life after college. I really don’t believe that the fact that I haven’t seen the show at the UICA yet will destroy me forever as an artist, and I refuse to be the person who “learns to live on 5 hours of sleep”, or comes into work on Sunday. I don’t really envision myself as a master photographer with a long list of gallery showings by the age...
Mom and Dad are in the kitchen discussing...
Mom’s getting frustrated. Dad’s math has been wrong, he thinks, for years.
Mom: “We need pudding.”
things I'm thinking about
1. making upcycled clothing for my future children
2. photoshop actions all over the place… apparently this is what photography is in the portrait world, and I’m not really against it. they make the things we see in the real world more how we imagine them in our brains. a bit of photo philosophy.
3. new coats are worth the money if it means you don’t hate the thought of...
December 2010
9 posts
Update, for myself, generally
It’s good to look back and forward, all at once, to get a good sense of things.
1. The Case for Faith by Lee Strobel is currently changing my life. It’s like standing face to face with the facts that make you feel like the place Jesus said he’s making for us is so close, warm, and real that I can imagine it as a real place now. He was serious. It’s a real place. And,...
inspired by someone's family portrait
Mom hated dad’s black socks but he wouldn’t take them off. He was nearly there by now. Nearly there and, by that, completely gone, I mean. He never touched her anymore- probably couldn’t feel her four fingers one bit on his shoulder for the split second the flashbulb lit us up- us in our black sea- living, fading islands. Probably didn’t notice his Morning Walk pleading at his feet for him...
found some old creative writing poems...
Hometown Poem #1
First Unpack boredom and set All components Upon life’s sturdy, or unsturdy, Chopping board. Carefully assemble as you wish. Run Through heavy muck fields- onions spray the sky with only green Foliage Pick one medium onion. Blade properly in place between Future A and Future B slide down slowly through layer one, two, three… thick slices burn, woosh, thump beside, on top of...
Why I'm a Hypochondriac
On my 40 minute drive home from school today, I was convinced I was dying. It sounds dramatic, but if I’m being honest, it wasn’t the first time. You see, I’ve had a strange pulsing pain in my head the last few days. Today, my throat became sore in that special way that strep throat does when it’s just a baby. So, I’m driving, listening to NPR, and I itch my ear:...
"Protein is deer."
-child
tears and Beach Boys
Her eyes dripped with tears stained black with eye liner. The tears trickled down the wrinkles under her eyes, across the wrinkles in her cheeks, and fell off her chin. Her body tightened as she began to tell me that her husband had drowned in California. He was pretty famous. The drummer for the Beach Boys, she continued. They were heroine addicts together and she said the eulogy at his...
daddy text
[spelling is his own]
“i put straw in the chicky coop cleaned and filled the water and gave them some food they all thanked me and said that i was very thoughtful and except for the Rooster he turnd his back to me and raised his tail I didn’t no weather to scratch his butt or duck I think he thought I was moving in on his territory”
also… I thanked him profusely via text,...
November 2010
3 posts
it's Sunday again
It’s Sunday again and I’ve skipped church today. My bedroom is about 80 degrees all night because in the room across the hall is a pellet stove that blazes out blessed winter heat. To stay alive through the night, I must balance the sweating I do with frequent water breaks mid-sleep. But I’ll take that over freezing my toes off any day.
I visited grandma with my parents, and...
all the rage: grapevines
I wasn’t concerned about my flight to San Fran. Then I heard about full body pat-downs and I was a little put-off… Figured it would be awkward and probably ineffective, considering the wide array of methods one has for carrying explosives if one is so inclined. [see: body cavities] Whatever. I’ll deal. Then, first-hand, from the mouth of a guy who works there, I heard not...