AJAX BELL

Author of the Queen City Boys books

Category Archives: heartsafire


by Leave a comment

the beginning of the before and afters

I have been sewing.  Really mostly I’ve made a bunch of wadders (a technical term I described to Talks to Owls as something so bad/frustrating/messed up that you just want to wad it up and through it on the floor, but he’d already troubled it out and was laughing because he’s so mean).  I don’t know what’s causing my mediocrity but I am struggling to break through.  I have many unfinished projects or small projects I’ve been meaning to do, so I’ve begun some of them, in hopes of getting my stitchery mojo back.

I keep a file of inspiration images.  Expensive, simple dresses that I’m sure I could make.  I don’t usually look back at these mostly because I’m often happy with what I’ve made, but generally it doesn’t actually look anything like the inspiration I started with.

This is from Anthropologie about 2 years ago:

And here’s my version of it:

Not really the same at all, but good enough, eh?

Now, I’m going to go finish something so I can finally have something to show here.  And maybe in the showing, or the finishing, or the work I”ll find my way back to being able to create pretty things, yeah?


by Leave a comment

filling in the cracks

I really need to get some pictures taken of the new house for you all.  Also I need to get some pictures up on the walls in the new house.  In the mean time here’s some before and afters of my minor home improvements.

Here’s my sewing room pre-paint:

It just wasn’t a relaxing blue.  Too much like a plastic cap on a water bottle or something. So I fixed it:

Pretty! And inspiring! Will soon get some pics of it now that it’s all full of furniture.  It lacks a comfy sitting chair, but is otherwise and excellent personal retreat.

The living room is gorgeous with greenish grey walls, a huge fireplace and rich, dark wood floors.  Some creepy clown painted just the wall over the fireplace this hideous, yucky, utterly uncoordinated red:

This picture does not even begin to demonstrate how much this red really, really does not fit in this room.  Painting would have required exactly matching the surrounding paint. Too much trouble.  Instead we upholstered it with some heavy black twill fabric I had laying around:

Now it’s a lovely, theatery media center.  Also we have no fancy cable in favor of internet TV.  I’m so stupidly pleased with Netflix streaming.

—-

It’s not my usual source of content for you but here’s two celebrity photos that have made me really happy this week:

Manly (there’s an alternate universe where I’m married to Matt Damon and Clint Eastwood is my dad and they are besties)

WHEEEEEEEEEE! (look at that face!  Also, wow, I wish I looked as effortlessly cool as Alyson Hannigan when I was just hanging out)


by Leave a comment

I can I can I can I will

I am moved.  Mostly settled. I have a relatively regular schedule for the next 6 or so weeks. I will sew. I will sew. I will sew. I will sew. (And I will blog about it, but regular internet at home will go a long way towards making that happen for sure.)

I have my sewing room mostly ready to go.  I have a blouse muslin cut out (hopefully one that will end up being wearable).  After the blouse, for my next project, I have purchased this pattern:

Crepe by Collette Patterns

I am super excited about it, although I haven’t even cut out the fabric for the muslin yet and I’m already imagining modifications to it.  My muslin is going to be this weird pima cotton:


I am also imagining this dress in heavier, winterier fabric.  Maybe plaid, maybe something slubby and woolen looking.  Both would require me to acquire oxfords at some point.

Now I am going to finish my day’s work so I really can leave early and go do something about these projects!


by Leave a comment

back to normal blogging: food & shoes & unrelated pictures

I had a fine, mostly relaxing, albeit too short weekend. I capped it with a delicious dinner that I was so pleased with, I have to share it with you.

I started with a small pork tenderloin (about enough for two people with no leftovers) and marinated it for about 5 hours in:

1 cup white wine
3 tblsp. Dijon mustard
5 garlic cloves, minced
fresh Basil, chopped finely
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 350º. Place meat in small roasting pan, with the remainder of the marinade poured over it.  Cook 45 mins, turning once, until internal temp is 140º.

Then we had a leek gratin.  I was a little leery of this, but it was incredibly delicious

3 leeks, trimmed, split lengthwise, and well rinsed
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 Tblsp. unsalted butter cut into pieces
1/2 cup heavy cream (I used half & half because it’s all I had)
6 Tblsp. grated cheese (I used Edam, the original recipe called for Gruyere, but depending on what you’re going for, most any mild cheese would work)

Preheat oven to 350º. Arrange the leeks cut side up in a single layer in a baking dish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste, dot with butter, and gently pour the cream over the top. Sprinkle with the cheese, cover with a lid or foil and bake for 35 minutes. Carefully uncover and bake 5 – 10 minutes more until the top is golden brown and the leeks are tender.

Even better than they cook for same amount of time at the same temp!

We had it with crusty whole grain bread and white wine.  I used too much butter (I never referred back to the recipe after I first saw it) to no ill effect, but I’ll probably try and do it right next time.  I also would cut the leeks into about 3″ pieces after splitting them, to make it easier to serve (although having a knife that’s actually sharp in my house would have gone a long way toward helping that).

—

I have been looking for a menswear styled woman’s oxford for close to two years now.  18 months ago I could find one pair and those weren’t real leather.  Now they seem to be the ubiquitous shoe for fall.  Although, as ever with something like this, I know exactly what I want and my need for detail often means the thing I want doesn’t exist.  But sometimes, as I did on Friday, I stumble on the exact thing I’d been hoping to find.  This time the bar was even raised: they come in purple.   Alas, I’m going to be saving my pennies for a while.  And I’ll probably get the grey ones for practicality’s sake.  Still in the interim, while the weather is still warm here, I will fantasize about fall outfits, with sweaters and the perfect oxfords.  In purple.

Today’s picture brought to you by my desire to have eaten such a lovely dinner in Catalan France, while wearing a vintage patterned shirtdress and purple oxfords.  Someday I’ll have a castle too.


by Leave a comment

perchance to dream

I am so overwhelmed by life right now that the word ‘overwhelmed’ doesn’t even really mean anything anymore.  It’s like ‘awesome,’ so overused that it’s impact has been reduced to uselessness. I wish I could tell you some big sweeping drama that’s tripping me up, but it’s really more like the minute patterns of my days.

About 14 or 15 months ago things started to go all wonky for me.  Since then each month has brought some new and hitherto un-thought of obstacle.  I have for more than a year been waiting for whichever thing it is to pass/complete/recover so that I can get on with every day life and making plans for the future.  And surely the cycle of unexpected things never ends, but it seems I’ve hit a lull.  I’ve weathered the oral surgeries; the long term separation from a loved one; the break up; the 500 year flood; the resulting work over load; the scalding, torturously hot summer; planning, moving and completely and totally rearranging my life, my plans and my future.  And I gotta say, ya’ll, I’m tired.  Like soul tired.  I want to relax and figure out if I even know anymore how to let go of anxiety and worry.  I want to read a book for hours on end, uninterrupted so I can reset myself  to creativity.  I want to remember how to think about designing and forming things with my own hands, simply creating things. I want to plan menus and buy groceries and quietly cook in my own kitchen.  I want to relax in my own personal (physical) space, unencumbered by outside demands on my time, my energy, my love and my mental peace.

At this point, I guess I just need to find a chair.  The right chair.  For the last few months, when I try and imagine this particular part of whatever thing it is now being over (mostly moving etc.), I close my eyes and I see a circle of light from a lamp over a comfortable place to sit and read or think or draw or sew or simply imagine goodness.  Moving has given me and Talk to Owls both space to stretch out and find calm again.  I been working (ugh, working, so over it in any context) to make this space my own, our own, simply someplace that is comfortable and safe and filled only with the things we need to live and create.  Still I lack this imaginary chair.  I can’t quite see it’s dimensions or design, but I know it’s out there. It is the next thing to strive for: completing a space of relaxation and a place in which to gather myself back together and get ready, be stronger for, the many more rounds of unexpectedness that life is sure to bring me.


by Leave a comment

Ain’t nothin’ gonna to break my stride

"Raven and the First Men" by Bill Reid at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, BC.

I think the less said about moving the better?  I will say that no matter how long you have to complete it (3 weeks or 3 days) it still sucks just as much. Also rumors of my impending move to the West Coast have been greatly exaggerated.  Sorry.  All I can say about that is that in this economy good jobs are better than freedom to move around.  And in any economy it’s nice to keep a good boyfriend close as well.

Of course since I haven’t been thinking about anything but moving, I don’t have anything else to talk about.  I read this old post from Bruce Sterling.  There’s a lot of irrelevant info in there so let me quote the important parts:

What is “sustainability?” Sustainable practices navigate successfully through time and space, while others crack up and vanish. So basically, the sustainable is about time – time and space. You need to re-think your relationship to material possessions in terms of things that occupy your time. The things that are physically closest to you. Time and space.

In earlier, less technically advanced eras, this approach would have been far-fetched. Material goods were inherently difficult to produce, find, and ship. They were rare and precious. They were closely associated with social prestige. Without important material signifiers such as wedding china, family silver, portraits, a coach-house, a trousseau and so forth, you were advertising your lack of substance to your neighbors. If you failed to surround yourself with a thick material barrier, you were inviting social abuse and possible police suspicion. So it made pragmatic sense to cling to heirlooms, renew all major purchases promptly, and visibly keep up with the Joneses.

That era is dying. It’s not only dying, but the assumptions behind that form of material culture are very dangerous. These objects can no longer protect you from want, from humiliation – in fact they are causes of humiliation, as anyone with a McMansion crammed with Chinese-made goods and an unsellable SUV has now learned at great cost.

Furthermore, many of these objects can damage you personally. The hours you waste stumbling over your piled debris, picking, washing, storing, re-storing, those are hours and spaces that you will never get back in a mortal lifetime. Basically, you have to curate these goods: heat them, cool them, protect them from humidity and vermin. Every moment you devote to them is lost to your children, your friends, your society, yourself.

It’s not bad to own fine things that you like. What you need are things that you GENUINELY like. Things that you cherish, that enhance your existence in the world. The rest is dross.

Do not “economize.” Please. That is not the point. The economy is clearly insane. Even its champions are terrified by it now. It’s melting the North Pole. So “economization” is not your friend. Cheapness can be value-less. Voluntary simplicity is, furthermore, boring. Less can become too much work.

The items that you use incessantly, the items you employ every day, the normal, boring goods that don’t seem luxurious or romantic: these are the critical ones. They are truly central. The everyday object is the monarch of all objects. It’s in your time most, it’s in your space most. It is “where it is at,” and it is “what is going on.”

It takes a while to get this through your head, because it’s the opposite of the legendary of shopping. However: the things that you use every day should be the best-designed things you can get. For instance, you cannot possibly spend too much money on a bed – (assuming you have a regular bed, which in point of fact I do not). You’re spending a third of your lifetime in a bed. Your bed might be sagging, ugly, groaning and infested with dust mites, because you are used to that situation and cannot see it. That calamity might escape your conscious notice. See it. Replace it.

Sell – even give away– anything you never use. Fancy ball gowns, tuxedos, beautiful shoes wrapped in bubblepak that you never wear, useless Christmas gifts from well-meaning relatives, junk that you inherited. Sell that stuff. Take the money, get a real bed. Get radically improved everyday things.

Sterling says some other great stuff, but the main thrust here is rethinking your (my) relationship with stuff.  Obviously we all do this every time we move.  That’s the easy part: you look at something and think, “Do I like this enough to pack it, carry it twice, unpack it and put it away?” But I feel like I haven’t been saying “No,” in answer to that enough.  So I’ve been thinking much harder about what value objects have to me.  Are they sentimentally meaningful? Like old pictures of my grandparents? If yes, I’m making them active by doing things like framing those pictures and putting them up in my office where I see them everyday instead of just storing them away.

I think some of it is a factor of age as well.  I can look at knickknacks and trinkets now and think, “Am I using this as a way to express or define myself?”  If the answer is yes, then out it goes.  I guess maybe I know myself better now?  The same is true with books.  Do I have this book so people will see it and think that I am the kind of person who has this book? Yes? Away with you!  Of course, I also have a Kindle now, which has greatly changed my relationship with books.  I still love books.  I still want them.  But now I look at them and keep only the ones that are rare, special, or with strong visual impact. Shelves of paperback novels I might read again someday? Gone!  If it can be acquired from the library or for the Kindle it doesn’t need to take up space.

And it isn’t happening this week, moving or not, but I would like to move toward simply owning less stuff.  Or more stuff, as long as it’s genuinely meaningful or useful.  I have been thinking about this for a long time and I am glad to have a chance to begin to seriously act on this change.

If you’ve read this far and you’re still wondering how the picture on this post relates, it doesn’t really, but it does.  I just really love that sculpture and I found a postcard picture of it while I was packing and discarding unnecessary objects, so I thought I’d share the picture with you, rather than hoard away the post card.


by Leave a comment

we work to make our dreams come true

Well here it is Tuesday again.  Fortunately for me, this Tuesday was preceded by a Monday and a weekend, not by 40 other Tuesdays as has so recently been the case.  Talks-to-Owls and I took advantage of that first weekend of freedom and escaped the city to lounge about in a hotel room and walk in Botanical Gardens and see Museums.  Work continues apace. I haven’t wrapped my head around not working 65+ hours a week.  I am exceedingly busy this week, despite not working as much, or perhaps because I am not working as much.  This weekend I will perhaps try and organize my life some.  Next weekend I am going to Seattle for the holiday.  After that everything will become somewhat more normal.  Or become the new normal, I guess, since it seems everything in my life has changed in the last seven weeks.  Actually I’m not sure at all what normal will be now.  I am just making it up as I go along.  Although I suppose that’s what we are all doing all the time.

So, uh, yeah.  I spent the weekend wandering museums while wearing sundresses.  I’m mentally all over the place.  I feel vague, distracted, sort of unable to work and unable to think or process anything that isn’t work. I wish I  lived in museum/sundress land all the time (picture above is from my phone to capture my Saturday night, what joy! wine and a view).  Plus the heat index here is over 100°F and is supposed to stay that way until, uh, September, I guess.  So that isn’t very motivating.

(Thoughts about the oil spill and other news redacted from this post for another time when I’m making more sense.)


by Leave a comment

Day 37: Still Tuesday

Talks-to-Owls and I have agreed that this Tuesday never seems to end. It’s been about 37 days since we last had a day off of work.  Which makes every single day Tuesday.  In a regular week you can spend Monday reflecting on the past weekend, on Wednesday you’re halfway through, Thursday is almost Friday, and Friday is the end!  But Tuesday? Just another day with nothing great on either side of it.  So here I am having been through more than a month of Tuesdays, with half a dozen to a dozen more in front of me. Sure the bulk of it is behind me, but still, the light at the end of the tunnel is faint and seemingly far away.  I guess it won’t truly be bright until I actually have a solid end date. And that end date does depend on how fast my team can work, but it has many wobbly and unknowable outside factors creeping out of the tunnel shadows.

—

I work in the construction industry, in an office that was, until my arrival, mostly male.  I currently have a staff of 5 temps, all female, that are sitting in the larger shared office space that was, as stated, all male.  Overheard this morning (before the girls arrived):

S: Man, the ratio of boys to girls here is just so different you can’t even be yourself no more.
K: Better let one off before the girls get here.
S: T just did.
*I walk into the room laughing*
T: I ate daffodils for dinner last night.  It’s flowery when I let one off.
S: Farting honeysuckle everywhere you go, I knew you were that kind of guy.
T: Flowers and poppy seeds, that’s all I eat.

On the one hand, hilarious.  On the other hand, what does it even mean? I’ve been having weird Wizard of Oz field of poppies visions all morning because of that conversation leading to me to read more into it than I should and wonder what the underlying metaphors I missed were.  (The answer, none, no metaphors, just boys BSing.)

—

I have mentioned elsewhere that I am making a conscious decision NOT to boycott BP over the oil spill.  There are many reasons for this, the main one though is that the gas station I drive by every morning, my most convenient station, is a BP station.  I have been going there regularly for 4 years.  I know and like the people who own it.  I don’t want their livelihood to disappear just because they signed the “wrong” franchise agreement.  Honestly it could have been any oil company that caused this disaster and I do not want to see any more of the little guys get hurt.

(Southern Beale has written an excellent post on the kind of “punishment” that is fit for BP after this disaster.  Surely much more effective than a consumer boycott.)

Truly I ache for the fishermen, the people who live on those coasts and all the regular people who are so seriously impacted by this (we all are in the environmental sense, but the folks who might not pay bills right now because of it really weigh on me).  And it’s so wide reaching.  Like now BP might withhold dividends on stocks? Which would hurt British retirees whose retirement funds include BP stock.  How many more average people can BP fuck over with their greed and incompetence?

—

Here are some things I like:

Firefly lamp

Tom Robbins is weird

Synchronous fireflies

Banksy, especially his “Shop”

Blooming lamp

—

And my cousin and his wife had their first baby this week!!   Welcome Caleb James (who was clearly named after me, though that’s a joke that probably only my mom will get).  Weighing in at 9lbs and 4oz!  Hello big boy!  He’s healthy and home with mama, poppa and puppies.  HOORAY!  Here’s his “little” toes:


by 1 Comment

when summer arrives it sparkles

Another Sunday afternoon at work.  This is, I believe, my 24th day in a row at work.  And cloudy with a chance of storms.  I swear there’s been like 2 dry days this month.  I’m sure I heard some weather guy say weeks ago that the second half of May would be dry.  I guess it’s drier than May 1 & 2, but then almost anything would be.

I’ve been too busy/tired/overworked/uninteresting to post lately.  I almost posted the other night to tell you about my night off.  It consisted of watching recorded eps of 30 Rock, soaking my feet in epsom salts, and eating a dinner of cheese toast dipped in marinara, olives and white wine spritzers.  It was actually a lovely evening.

Last night I used my night off to go see Kevin Gordon, Eric Brace and Peter Cooper at Puckett’s Grocery.  It was a wonderful, intimate show, that way that only seems to happen in Nashville.  There were kids dancing around. One toddler called out, “Good bye, Peter, I’ll be right back!” as her parents carried her out the door.  As if, someone from the stage commented, she was going to drop her parents off and be right back to party.  Good music, good company.  The waitress told my date he looked like Russell Crowe.  Fun was had by everyone, I htink.

The drive to Leiper’s Fork was beautiful as always.  I saw several deer eating in rich people’s yards.  A Bull resting after a long day of standing about in a field.  A heron flying overhead.  Turkeys hunting down dinner.  A bat swooping low to get the good, early evening bugs. On the drive home, I missed a fox because I was looking out the wrong window.  But it didn’t matter because out my window were fields and fields of fireflies.  So dense and bright that it looked like fairies were dancing between the trees.


by 2 Comments

no news is definitely not good

The corner of Electric Ave & Village St. Near my house. Shot by my friend Jacob Briggs.

A lot of folks in other parts of the country have told me that they aren’t seeing any, or barely any national news coverage of the flooding in Nashville (aside from my constant yammering here).  On the one hand, I get it.  I mean the oil spill, car bomb, truck explosion and Tylenol recall all potentially affect a lot of people.  On the other hand, a lot of people here in Nashville are already affected and many more probably will be.

I went and read through headlines as I haven’t thought about much but Nashville in 5 days.  And I went and read national coverage of our situation here.  And I think what bothers me the most is coverage that says things like, “the Cumberland river spilled over it’s banks,” and “weekend rains raise rivers in Middle Tennessee.” I don’t suppose that every single news story needs to be a violent and realistic depiction of exactly how disasterous things are here. Then again I know we won’t get the help and support we need if it looks like we just got a little wet, you know?

The local news here has done good coverage.  Thankfully, since they need to keep all of us informed.  People interested can follow breaking, local interest stories at the Tennessean, WKRN and WPLN.

Morgan and Christy, who run Nashvillest.com have done an AMAZING job of keeping everyone here informed.  Their blog has been filled with useful helpful and timely information.  But what is the most impressive is their Twitter feed.  For five days they have literally been spreading the best information that they have to anyone listening.  They have been passing on first hand accounts, rallying volunteers, getting news to people and getting people to help.  The work they’ve done is so incredibly above and beyond the call of duty of an average citizen that I feel emotional and teary just writing about it.

The work these two girls have done is an exceptional example of how well technology can work. Take a minute and read back through their blog posts and Twitter updates.  Imagine being in a disaster situation where parts of your city where cut off and maybe you had no access to TV but you had a phone on you and could get regular updates from their feed.  It’s been invaluable to thousands of people in this city.  Nashville is a city of Heroes right now.  Like the college president who rescued a faculty member with his canoe.  Like all of our emergency workers, volunteers and rescue folks.  Like all of our friends and neighbors who helped carry, pump, drain and dry.  Heroes to the last little one.  But those Nashvillest.com girls surely helped more people than they will ever know.  I want to thank them for putting together a web presence that has helped me and pthers in so many ways in Nashville, but that really, REALLY came through for us in this disaster.  If you see either of them around, buy’em a beer, alright? I don’t know what else we can do, but they definitely deserve a cold drink on us.

Most importantly for those of you not directly affected by this, check out Nashvillest’s post on what you can do to help.


by 1 Comment

It’s your grey complexion that I admire most


These are from recent emails to friends, I am reposting them here mostly for my own tracking and memory.  My dreams are always detailed, complicated and intense.  So some reason lately I’ve been remembering them more clearly.  Alas I still haven’t been able to effectively translate the detail and story of them into writing.  It’s like they are using up that part of my brain when I awake and I can’t pull the rest of psyche together enough to write them down.  Anyway, here dreams:

I’m only just up. I had what feels like about 70 hours of long, complicated dreams about shopping for a car in city recovering from a massive flood. And more hours of trying to get out of that city before it flooded again. And then more hours about being one of three runaway Indian girls who end up in college in a weird situation where one of the girl’s boyfriend’s sort of creepily manages all three of the girls lives. But I was being pursued by a not acceptable boy and wasn’t sure how to get away (again) or out of the situation without being killed. The phone woke me up. That dream began with one girl running away and “me” and the other girl ostensibly helping her mom to find her, but eventually ditching the mom and joining up with the first girl. It also had hours about acceptable Indian fashion (sexy but not revealing) and learning to put on make up like adults and adjusting to college life and pretending we were making our own lives when we all knew we trapped in some sort of horrible patriarchal system that was going to leave us miserably married or as prostitutes with no in between, since we’d abandoned any help from our families.

Yeah, in the car/flood dream, all the cars were somehow broken down into reassemble-able components and stored in stacked boxes (after being cleaned of flood waters), so I had to navigate through huge warehouses looking at pictures on boxes and the guy kept showing me perfect ones that were like $10,000 out of my price range. He was also wearing a cowboy hat and hitting on me. His secretary kept trying to tell him something that I eventually intuited had to do with the Mafia and was creepy enough that I kept trying to get out of there, but he kept cornering me and talking to me. His father was some friend of my family and I couldn’t just simply escape without causing some insult. I wasn’t going to trade my car in either, as I planned to sell it for one dollar to a victim/survivor of Hurricane Katrina who really needed it (the result of watching Treme before bed, maybe). The dream also contained a lot of walking on destroyed beaches and watching flotsam rush by as rivers rose again.

(the the next night):

I dreamt for hours about church. About being outside a church and listening to the music and waiting while service ended and sneaking in right before the second service and sitting in a back corner. I dreamt the entire service, all the music and the sermon. I dreamt of a sort of a halfway intermission in which I sat and listened to this group of church folks (who worked for the church) tell stories on each other and congregation members. I dreamt about running into [a friend] and discussion the hours I’d driven to be at this service.

I also dreamt of woods and cabins and building a small arched bridge to nowhere that was decorative for me and my about to be husband to walk over after the wedding ceremony. I dreamt of having to put together the flowers and my bouquet myself. Of asking said future husband to wear what I wanted and him consenting (purple tie). I dreamt of planning it with my mom and my Grampa helping me to build the bridge. It was a different smaller, church where the wedding was. In a huge, shady west coast forest, but on a sunny day, so the light filtered through the trees.

(from other comments on this dream)

Last night I dreamt Grampa taught me how to build a small, arched bridge with a railing. He only helped a little so I’d still know how to do it by myself when he was gone.  I had wanted to piece the boards together in pattern like hardwood floors, so they went longways across the bridge.  Iwas going to soak them and bend them.  Grampa told me that bent boards would never be strong enough for me, so cut the arch out of some huge lumber and he showed me how to piece short boards crosswise, beveling each edge so there would be nothing to trip on over the curve.

—

I commented this morning to a friend that it’s almost always me in the dream stories, though not in the sense of actual me.  In fact, it’s rarely ever me, rather it’s always in first person so I see through the character’s eyes, more like I’m reading a book.  When it is really me in the dreams there is almost always a family member present, usually my grandfather, but sometimes my mother or my sister.

Also the detail doesn’t always come back to me at once and it’s frustrating because suddenly a piece of the story will be startlingly clear, but then then rest of seems to fade, so I can’t quite pull all of it together enough to write more than an executive summary of the dream, rather than being able to string together the details to relay the actual story as I experienced it.  Sometimes talking about it is enough to pull more of it from my memory, but other times it seems talking actually deletes parts of what I was trying to remember.


by Leave a comment

Flowers North and South

I just spent a week in Boston, only to return and find that it’s really, really spring in Tennessee.  I took only a handful of pictures while up north.  And then mucked it up while uploading from my camera and somehow half of them disappeared. Oops.  Here’s the few I have left:

click to view all

Most of the missing pictures are also of flowers, since that’s all I ever seem to remember to shoot. A very European neighborhood, entirely paved over but filled with flower boxes in each window sill is miraculously beautiful!

Back in Tennessee every single spring flower in my neighborhood has opened up, so I took and afternoon to walk around and try and capture a little bit of the joy:

click to see all pictures


by Leave a comment

Stomping the Devil’s Backbone

Hi hi hi!  It’s spring, people.  Actually, it appears Tennessee has moved straight to summer, bypassing spring altogether.  It’s currently 9pm and 81°F outside.

Yesterday, my pal, Talks to Owls, and I went hiking on one of the trails off the Natchez Trace Parkway, The Devil’s Backbone (click to see my pics from the day).  It was gorgeous out.  We had breakfast at Puckett’s, reminding me that I love living in the South because fried chicken is an acceptable breakfast food here.

We had a nice drive down part of the Natchez Trace and then hit the trail.  It was a little weird.  Pleasantly we were the only people on that trail.  But spring is really late this year because winter was so cold and long, so the leaves were hardly even peaking out.  But the air was warm and still and very much felt like high summer.  It made the entire hike feel sort of surreal, like time and space had somehow come together improperly.  Still the hike was no less wonderful for it.

Hopefully the pictures show the beauty of the Redbuds peeking out.  It really was a spectacular drive!


by 1 Comment

rainy days and Sundays

click for full size

I had the best day at Cheekwood.  It rained, but not too hard, so I dressed in my Seattle gear and was unfazed by it as we stomped through the gardens.  The museum had a superbly curated American Impressionist exhibit.  But the high point was the security guard.  We were going to take a quick pass through the Fabergé exhibit, as I’d seen it before but my companion hadn’t and we stayed because the security guard was giving a long, impromptu history lecture on the exhibit to a bunch of wealthy, 60+ white women.  He was a 40-something black man and his speech patterns and slang indicated sort of an average Southern, probably lower class background.  But.  Oh man, I can barely describe the beauty of the lecture he gave.  He had clearly spent a ton of time researching the history of Fabergé, the Russian Revolution, the Czars and all.  I sat on a bench with my phone and tried to transcribe notes of what he was saying.  All I managed to get down was:

“Yeah, Fabergé don’t make no junk.”
“You on that internet? Get on Netflix and get ‘The Czar’s Eggs.’ It’ll tell you about this. About that Nicholas and his Czarina and that one boy he had with the hemophilia. He was okay, then this knucklehead, Rasputin, comes in and it’s just a shame that People’s Revolution killed all those people.  Just a shame.”
“That artist [Fabergé] you got to give a high five too, the highest of fives.”

He went on about this one particular object , the Imperial Lilies-of-the-Valley Basket, and how there were 42 Fabergé eggs in the world but the Imperial Lilies-of-the-Valley Basket was the only one.  He told the ladies how the Czarina loved it so much that she took it from room to room with her so she could always admire it.  He knew, in depth, about each object in the Fabergé collection, he spoke how they were made and what they were used for.  Talked about Fabergé using his art to gain favor with the Czar by pleasing the Czarina with gifts.

As we were leaving he was telling about how everyone should come back for the upcoming Chihuly exhibit and demonstrated a fairly extensive about of knowledge on the that subject as well.

It was so pleasing, so wonderful to hear someone who was clearly self taught, speak so eloquently (in his own way), proudly and so knowledgeably about art.  Really, it was joyous and filled me with glee.

Afterwards we walked the water gardens and the Japanese garden in the rain.  Sat for a while under the roofed viewing area in the Japanese garden while it rained harder.

Then I spent too much money in the gift shop.  And had a lovely conversation with the woman who worked there (Mom, I think it was same woman as when you and I went) about art and about how Chihuly is such a marketing maniac that you can’t barely stock a gift shop without his say so (I didn’t get the impression that she cared for him much, heh).

Sometimes I think I could stay in Nashville forever if I could work at Cheekwood.  I wonder if they need a digital archivist?  I could maintain their botany library and the family’s private collections!  Heaven!

Here are some of my favorites of the Impressionist pictures I saw today.

Otto Stark – French Garden

Luther Emerson Van Gorder – Japanese Lanterns

Lilliam Wescott Hale – An Old Cherry Tree

Edith Baretto Parsons – Turtle Baby

Charles Coutney Curran – In the Luxembourg Garden

There was also a William Posey Silva piece that I can’t find a picture of that was called “Garden of Dreams” c. 1925 That was lovely.  Definitely want to see more of his work.

Yes, today was very good day.

—

Picture taken today with my phone, out the rain-streaked upper window of the Cheekwood mansion.  The window was in the middle of the Impressionists exhibit and I thought it looked Impressionistic too.


by Leave a comment

How I spent my winter vacation

Today was a do nothing day.  It snowed and snowed and snowed.  Tons of snow. Okay, well, a little snow in general, but a lot of snow for Nashville.  We just aren’t equipped or prepared for it this far south.  And it was a little layer of ice, a few inches of snow, more ice, more snow and a final topping of ice.  Suffice to say, given the opportunity (and a rare Saturday off work), I stayed in bed.

Which isn’t to say I did nothing.  I managed to some stuff.  I did dress up all warmly this morning to go clear the snow off the porch and steps (for the fourth time), only to discover that after the previous clearings there was nothing left but ice.  Am considering dumping a couple buckets of warm water down it tomorrow.

Since I had pants on already, I took a few pictures, just for the memories.  I confess, I just don’t like snow.  I get it, I mean, I know people like it.  They like snow sports and days off school and the sort of freedom to goof off that Americans get when it’s a rare or major snow.  But I don’t like it.  Yes, it is pretty when it’s freshly fallen.  Yes, it is quiet and pleasant for a romantic walk or an introspective one (if dressed properly).  Still, I don’t like it.  Sledding?  Cold, wet gross and mostly associated with getting snow down the back of my pants. Not fun.  Ditto snowball fights and snow angels. And, after the initial pretty snowfall, urban snow is just gross. Mashed up, dirty, trodden on and weirdly polluted.  Traffic is awful.  Especially in places like Tennessee where almost no one knows how to drive in it, and the few transplants who do either opt not too, or get too cocky and forget that all the other people on the road have no idea what they are doing.  I just don’t like it.  It makes me cranky, crotchety, bitter and unpleasant.

Um, oops, oh yes, I wasn’t ranting, I was detailing my day.  So I went outside.  Then I came back in and hunkered down with my laptop all day.  I installed all the software that had fallen by the wayside when I updated my OS.  I reinstalled all my fonts and lost some time to finding a few pretty new ones (I do love fonts).  I cleaned out my browser bookmarks (backed up first, of course).  5 years of bookmarks.  FIVE YEARS.  Whole folders of hundreds of links I hadn’t even looked at in 2 or 3 or more years.  There’s something oddly satisfying about doing that kind of clean up.  I tided a few folders on my computers.  Organized some photos.  Backed up everything on my external drive.  Managed to clear up 54 gigs of space on my laptop (a lot of stuff had gotten duplicated in the transfer after the OS upgrade, I guess).  Spent a little time tweaking things, as Windows 7 is easy and lovely and light but still new in some ways. I made to-do lists of other things I need to do (which I will start on as soon as I post this). I shopped for and purchased a new bedspread (mine is functional, and in decent shape, it’s just uncomfortable and I kind of hate it). It was a day of nothing and still something of a useful day of clearing up loose ends.

I also watched Twilight.  Now, I haven’t read the books and have no intention of it.  I have very clear idea of the plot through the whole series and I know why some people like it and why others don’t.  I’ve heard critiques of author and of the film.  The whole thing borders on a pop culture joke. Still, I was curious so I watched it.  I admit to liking some pretty lame movies.  I don’t expect my entertainment to always be highbrow or anything.  And overall, for what it was, this movie wasn’t that bad.  It was silly and very cheesy but could have been enjoyable.  However, Edward (or rather the actor playing him) really ruined it for me.  Wow, his BAD BAD BAD overacting and weird pained looks and just bizarreness in how he played the character.  It was painful.  And also, the movie was pretty beautiful in parts (enough to make me really homesick for the West Coast), but I’m unclear on the decision not to have shot it on the Olympic Peninsula, where it takes place.  I recognized a lot of the PNW locations they used (mostly in Oregon and south central Washington).  They were gorgeous locations, but they didn’t look like Forks.  Perhaps the choice was made because there isn’t much picturesque about Forks.  Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of good memories tied to Forks and the surrounding Reservation and forest land.  Just, you know, it doesn’t look anything like central Washington or Oregon.  And yes, it was a cheesy movie, but aside from Edward’s bad acting, what really pulled me out of it was not at all feeling  like where they filmed it looked right.  Like it was green and grey and wet in all the right ways, but it wasn’t the coast.  It lacked salt air or something. I suspect I’m a minority of viewers who would have such a problem.

I’m actually quite cheerful and pleased with my day, even though I suspect this post comes over all rantypants and insane.

Hi!  What did you all do with your Saturday?


by Leave a comment

Let’s get this party started quickly

Libelle and I saw Avatar last night.  It was gorgeous and entirely worth the 3-D experience and price for the visuals. The story lacks, it’s your standard Hero’s Journey with added male-dominated society and offensive Noble Savage (or do I mean Romantic Primativism?) notes.  And yet it was very moving and enjoyable.

Ranking of winter movies I’ve seen, in order of story quality (by my own personal not described standards):
1. The Fantastic Mr. Fox
2. Up in the Air
3. Sherlock Holmes
4. Avatar

Ranking of winter movies I’ve seen, in order of emotional effect on me:
1. Up in the Air
2. Avatar
3. The Fantastic Mr. Fox
4. Sherlock Holmes

When I got home last night I wrote out this long post about the new year and my resolutions. Of course I left it on on open Notepad doc, didn’t save it and closed my computer and now it’s gone gone gone.  You’d think after years of computer use I wouldn’t continuously do things like this.  (It’s also possible that somewhere between when I took the Nyquil last night and when I actually went to bed that I typed over it.)  I’ll try and recreate it here.

Taking as page from a friend of mine (thanks, SH!), I’d like to go into this new decade and say that I am not a writer, not a project manager, a librarian, a waitress or a web developer.  I do not want to tie my identity to my work or to my projects and ventures. I simply want to be and do.  By which I mean I’d like to continue to create and plan and work until I land on what I will be seriously committing myself to for the forseeable future.  So I can be identified, for the sake of clarity as a sewist, or a reviewer, or a waitress, but I will let go of self identification as any of these things and simply do the work I need to get done.

I have in the coming year, approximately 26,000 hours of projects I’d like to complete about about 3,000 hours of time to devote to to those projects.  I am going to have to plan and pick and choose my projects carefully if I want to get anything done at all.  By eliminating self identification I’m hoping to make this process easier. That is to say, if I don’t primarily identify as a writer then I’m not saying to myself, “Well as a writer I must prioritize all writing projects and sideline sewing projects.”

I’m not 100% sure I’m explaining this well.  It might be too abstract, too much my own internal thought process, for public consumption, but I felt the need to put it here for reference in the future.  Overall, I guess my problem is that my focus is so wide that I feel scattered and am not managing to finish individual projects.  I know I need to narrow my focus and buckle down. Rather than say “I’m sewist, I will complete sewing projects.” I am going to let go of what I am and list my individual projects and focus on ones that I can reasonably complete and finish those, rather than tie myself up in the idea of the larger projects.  Hmm, I might be getting more vague the longer I type.  I wonder how often things make perfect sense in my head and I’m still not able to translate them into written words.  Is this a fault of language and communication or have I simply not clarified to myself well enough what my ideas are?  I can say for sure that the lost post I started writing last night was more clear and succinct that what I’ve ended up with here today.

Also I have been trying to include a picture with every post I make here, just for added interest.  This year I am going to try and include a picture I took with every post.  It won’t necessarrily be related to the post, nor have been taken recently.  I just realized I have hundred of pictures on file that I rarely look at and don’t do anything with, so I’ll try and share them here.  Today’s picture was taken in my backyard in Feb 2007.  It isn’t snowy here now, but it’s damned cold and this picture reminds me of how bleak winter is in Tennessee.


by 2 Comments

Everyone rejoice it’s the SOLSTICE!

Because I am on vacation and also not inclined to do work I’ve already done, I will simply re-post last year’s post:

Today in the Northern Hemisphere we round the corner on darkness.  It is the Hibernal solstice when the sun is near its greatest distance from the equatorial plane, standing still as it were.

Today Marduk tamed the monsters of chaos and for one more year we are safe as we move back into the light.

Today we light candles and keep them lit.  Though darkness is already on the run, we must continue to chase it away so spring can come faster.

Today the Oak King is apparently dead, his branches bare and cold.  We thought the Holly King had won, as he remained green,  but long live the Oak King as he returns to rule us into Midsummer!  Go, hang the holly, let it catch bad spirits on it’s tiny horns, protecting us in the months of darkness when the border with the shadowlands is permeable.

Today is the Saturnalia where we eat and dance and decorate the evergreens with red berries.  We will reverse all our roles, switch with our opposites and see the world from the other side, through other eyes.

Today and for the days to come, find joy in each other, celebrate, kiss beneath the mistletoe, feast in the light of candles.  Celebrate the darkness and the joy we have as  it washes away.  Tonight we breathe and meditate on our lives.  We breathe out the things we want gone, we breathe in our wishes for the coming year.  Tomorrow life begins again.


by Leave a comment

darkness comes on standard time

As I did at exactly this time last year, I have taken the refashion pledge:

I pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of “new” manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 2 months. I pledge that I shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovated, recycled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, so that others may share the joy that thriftiness brings!

So I will probably be doing most of my sewing blog posts over there, but I will try and link them here when they go up.

I made Thai green curry for dinner to stave off the depression of the first Standard time early sunset. Spicy, wonderful nom nom noms!  And hopefully to help me feel better.

The past two months of house guests, lots of running around, plenty of work and then, most recently, being sick, have left me feeling broke down and worn out.  I have need-to-do projects stacked knee-high around the house. I feel the need to just catch up on my life.  Like not even the projects, just you know, being me who isn’t hosting guests or sick or at work.  Ugh.  Lots of sewing will surely help. I should get started on that. 🙂

This weekend I spent a bunch of time fantasizing about a lovely, relaxing summer holiday here.  My mom is just now flying back from here, which also seems about right for where I’d rather be right now.  I did, after many false starts, finally book my tickets to Seattle for the winter holidays.  Dec 20-28.  I’m very much looking forward to that too.

I didn’t do anything for Halloween, but come home and put on pajamas. Lame, maybe, but so relaxing.  I’ve been thinking about my Gramma Marge and my Grampa Ray a lot today. El Día de los Muertos means honoring them.  For a while now I’ve been wanting to make a standing El Día de los Muertos altar for them in miniature.  I should perhaps take some time today to put down my plans for it so that I can start making the little pieces of it over the coming year.  I will light a candle for them tonight.

Picture today is my dining room fireplace “altar” for honoring the dead.


by Leave a comment

weekend mash up

Gmail is advertising to me: “Learn How To Kiss A Girl In A Way That Makes Her Melt In Your Arms” presumably because I was quoting Cory Branan lyrics back and forth with TimmyMac? Hard to say. Also I’m pretty sure you can’t learn how to kiss on the internet. I’ve often wondered if it’s something that one just inherently does right. I mean, can it be learned at all?

I might consider trying to make something like this. I’m not actually sure I would wear this, but it’s called “Willamette” and something about the fabric and cut makes me think of summers at the beach with my Gramma Marge (who lived in the Willamette Valley–Mid-Valley– for those of you not in the know). I actually can’t decide if I like it or if just calls to me in some nostalgic way.

I stumbled on this posting the other day and am now actively fantasizing about winning the lottery and buying a this gorgeous riad in Marrakech. I mean check it out, it’s a steal. We should all just pool our money and go. I know things can’t make me happy, that I have to find it in myself. But I bet it’s WAY easier to look inside yourself when you live in a place that looks like that.

I know I’ve been in absentia for a while. I did post my pictures of my Seattle trip. I don’t know have much to say about it. It really was a grand and lovely trip. The weather was gorgeous. The company was fantastic. The food was great, as was the beer. I’ve been a little homesick since I got back and I keep dreaming about the ocean. Also I’m pretty proud of the pictures I took on this trip, though I think they are an unrealistic portrayal of the city. It’s that beautiful, just not that beautiful every day.


by Leave a comment

Thinky thoughts

I am freaking exhausted.  Staying up until 4 am pretending to be a cool rock chick will do that, I guess. Fun night, better day (despite the hangover) showing the PNW boys Nashberg.

Fall still seems to be raining it’s way in.  I’ve gotten pretty used to Indian summers here. I guess it’s still possible.  It’s just been so overwhelmingly grey and insanely wet for the last week.  The air tastes like despair.  I have been here, in the sun, for so long now that apparently it takes only a week of grey for SAD to set in.  Luckily a good day of bright Southern sunlight can knock it out.  Now if only the sun would come out.

Libelle and I went shopping yesterday and I got an amazing wool coat, Italian, with the tags still on at the new Goodwill for $15.  I am smitten with it. It’s purple, but not too purple.  I like autumn all right, though I lament the loss of summer.  The coat is so wonderful that I think I might actually make it through winter.  I will try to take pictures tomorrow.

I lost my evening reading random personal blogs that Google Reader recommended me.  Usually it recs me sewing blogs or something clearly related to other blogs I read (like music or local news) but I got these two random ones.  One a girl who seems lonely and sad, but maybe doesn’t realize how pathetic she comes across (lots of writing about the boyfriend she misses, even though they broke up a year ago and she hasn’t spoken to him in seven months, ugh, so sad).  And another is a sort of hipstery dude in Brooklyn, but he posts kind of interesting art, and these hilarious (possibly unintentionally so) one line movie reviews, so I might follow him for a while.

Then I was thinking about how these blogs are nothing but weird windows into people’s lives so I went back and read my own entries from the last three Septembers.  And I guess since this blog is sort of about nothing, it is also a weird little window into my life.  I was reminded that I get really homesick every September, so it is excellent that I am going out to visit this week (omg, I need to pack).  And there’s odd little entries like this one that make my life seem interesting.  I guess my life is interesting.

I was contemplating some meme where you put all your past addresses into Google Earth and post the pictures of them, but then it seemed oddly morbid. Still, here is the house I grew up in.  It is part of what makes me interesting.  This pictures makes me happy.  Maybe it is because it seems so sunny.

The Placebo version of this song was on the premiere of Vampire Diaries (which so far doesn’t suck) and reminded me of how much I love it.  I have probably listened to it six times tonight.  It makes me feel lonely and happy at the same time.  This video is clearly dated though still incredibly lovely.

This live performance is also dated, but the emotion in it is fantastic.

I am covered in mosquito bites from walking around Spring Hill cemetery this morning.  I hate the word “upcycle.”  I am tired and achy.  I should be in bed.  Instead I am scrunched up on the love seat eating a sandwich consists of wheat bread (the cheap, crappy kind that is like brown white bread), tartar sauce (better than mayo on sandwiches) and havarti.  It is kind of trashy and incredibly delicious.