this year i...

.fell in love.
.went to duluth.
.went to st. louis.
.was promoted.
.bought a house.
.watched my sister marry.
.adopted the sweetest of mexican puppies.
.cooked a duck.
.bought my first NEW bike since middle school.
.ruled at ping pong.
.said yes.
.went to mexico.
.cooked a rabbit.
.read 29 books (for shame - must do better).

(inspired by S A M)

swoon

so, if anyone has a lot of money to throw around and wants to buy me a present, they should visit this woman's site. the plum coat or the normanville in red would do nicely.

xoxo

a bit more -

joe and i bought a christmas tree - it's aluminum and beautiful and needs to be put up this weekend. does anyone know where one can find awesome vintage ornaments (i'm really only interested in bulbs and an amazing star topper ((maybe midcentury modern))) for a respectable price?

i'm loving this man's photography right now. beautiful (and beautiful subjects).

puny (joe) and zeus jones (sj) have joined forces for a good cause - support it.

the other night i dreamt that i was in an infomercial for mascara and then, the next day, i went out and bought some new stuff - somehow my dreams are marketing to me. the final marketing frontier.

i just finished All the Pretty Horses. loved it. it deserves a blogpost of its own, but i'm busy and lazy all at once right now and can't bring myself to do it. maybe after bookclub next week...

two days ago, we celebrated the birthday of my absolute favorite lady and i made the best cake i've ever made. just saying.

VIII [john dos passos]

A brown net of branches
quivers above silver trunks of planes.
Here and there
a late leaf flutters
its faint death-rattle in the wind.
Beyond, the sky burns fervid rose
like red wine held against the sun.

Schoolboys are playing in the square
dodging among the silver tree-trunks
collars gleam and white knees
as they romp shrilly.
Lamps bloom out one by one
like jessamine, yellow and small.
At the far end a church's dome
flat deep purple cuts the sky.

Schoolboys are romping in the square
in and out among the silver tree-trunks
out of the smoked rose shadows
through the timid yellow lamplight...
Socks slip down
fingermarks smudge white collars;
they run and tussle in the shadows
kicking the gravel with muddied boots
with cheeks flushed hotter than the sky
eyes brighter than the street-lamps
with fingers tingling and breath fast:
banqueters early drunken
on the fierce cold wine of the dead year.

a platter of figs

i first ran into david tanis's A Platter of Figs sometime early this past summer at sarah's house. i had shown up characteristically early for book club and we were lazing in her screen porch eating some delicious cheese and drinking our red wine out of chipped tea cups - both of which are oft occurrences at her lovely apartment. i started paging through her copy and was immediately captured by the beautiful photography throughout. i read a page or two and decided i must have it, if not for the actual recipes (which i hadn't yet delved into), then for the lush food photos. it is a foodie's coffee table book.

while i've now owned my own copy for several months and scoured every recipe, i've been intimidated by his beautifully simple menus. i can't really say why - maybe it is the many ingredients i've not worked with before or maybe it is just knowing the skill with which they were carried out the first time and penned into this book. however, i finally got over the hump and made (part of) a menu. both the oven roasted rabbit and the parsnips from were served this past saturday to the fantastic mike and mali. and let me tell you, that rabbit was most certainly the most delicious thing that i have ever made in my entire life. perfectly tender and popping with the herbs and bacon. delicious. i urge you to try it - will even give you the recipe if you ask nicely.

also, in the middle of making some maple butter. have i mentioned that fall foods are my favorite?

updates: or, i'm a bad blogger

sorry, blogging fell to the end of my to-do list for a moment there.

went to mexico, had wonderful time even though the hurricane missed us after so many days of rain and warnings. coconut ice cream topped with kahlua is a new guilty pleasure.

it's a bit late to invite, but we're reading Lark & Termite this month for book club. next month is already chosen and it is All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. apparently it is "less bleak" than some of his novels. however, if you've read back a ways in my blog, you'll know i like his bleak very much. if you have any interest in joining us for december's book, let me know - i'll get you on our book club email list in which we debate days and next book.

this weekend was a lot of family time. joe and i went to my parents house (with clementine in tow) early on saturday. the boys cut down seven or eight trees and we stacked the firewood. then, my parents, joe and myself (sisters and their men too squeamish), slaughtered our five chickens and rooster. i am seeing pot pies and dumplings in the near future.

i'll leave you with some pretty things from etsy - christmas shopping has begun and i'm going to try and buy homemade whenever possible this year. these are a few of my favorite things.

Bitter Yuck or, Lauren needs to learn to keep things out of her mouth

so, clementine, when frustrated, has taken to chewing on the corners of things. specifically, my wonderful arm chair and the carpeted stairs. to curb this, we invested in a product called Bitter Yuck.

while spraying it on the chair, i decided that i should probably taste it - just to see if it was actually going to repel a small, crazed puppy. WORST DECISION OF MY LIFE.

now, i don't claim to be the brightest bulb always, but really? i just had to taste something that has both bitter and yuck right in its name? several gulps of milk, cranberry juice, whiskey and a final gargle with listerine and i still dealt with that taste in my mouth for the rest of the night. i'm fairly certain that clementine will not be making the same mistake anytime soon.

also, go to the soap factory's haunted basement. my sister cried and forgot how to read. i'm serious.

awww

this is me at my absolute happiest thanks to an incredible man that has decided to hold on to me forever.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree [WB Yeats]

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

wishlist

a person or two have asked what i'd like for my 26th.

here is a short list:
earrings
plants for tiny to dig up
art
reading material

while this indian summer has been charming, i'm ready for fall. i'm ready for raking leaves, brandy and hot cider, trips to the apple orchard, bonfires, and a hayride.

does anyone know of a good hayride? ideally, one where i can have a thermos of said brandy and cider?

also,

reading The Dud Avocado by elaine dundy and thoroughly enjoying it.

have any suggestions for september's book club?

oh, the domestication.

this blog has been obsessing me.

weekend plans:
knit sweater
plant daffodils
make english muffins
patch pants
make jalapeno jelly with mom
state fair
see movie with joe
walk puppy

yes, i'm obsessed with a storage blog and my weekend plans revolve around making food and gardening. the house has me in full domestication mode. doesn't help that the tiny puppy has me/joe up at 3:30 and 6:45 for trips to the backyard/bathroom.

in which i receive plentiful updates from florida

a few months ago my dad finally, after months of begging, added on unlimited text messaging to my parents' family plan. until this momentous date, my mother could not send or receive text messages. thank goodness he saw the light.

the above is one of the many photos/updates i've received from my mom in her week-long vacation with my dad in disneyworld. AMAZING.

brief book notes

reading A Moveable Feast has me falling fast and hard for hemingway all over again. the man had style. (you still have time - pick up the new edition and meet with us...)

while i'm surprised by it, it looks like i haven't raved about abebooks.com enough. they have hundreds of independent booksellers looking to sell you the book you want in the edition that you want. if you've never been there, try it. quick shipping, good prices and you don't have to shop at a giant like amazon.

i think i may be intrigued enough by the synopsis that i'll have to pick up a copy of this book. those kooky canadians, they get me every time.

bars and books are reading The Dud Avocado for the coming month - while i'm not a huge fan of the huge crowd, i think i'm going to read along with them. if you're more patient than i and can wait your turn, i recommend you go - it is a great crowd and a book i've been meaning to read for some time.

BSE (best show ever)

this is it - this show cannot be missed.

tucker is one of the most talented people in this life that i call a friend and it is about damn time we all get to ooh and aah over him.

meet clementine.

she is the tiniest of puppies and will be moving in with us next weekend.

that makes this coming week the longest of weeks.

what!?

okay, okay, i don't have many photos from the wedding.

this sums it up pretty well - i felt like cinderella all night in that dress.

for once, not food (drinks)

so, i'll have some wedding photos soon - not quite yet. i promise i'll post at least a couple. it was an amazing celebration of my sister and her husband. it's wonderful to finally have a brother!

in the meantime, please fall in love with sara - i have. then, make her watermelon lime agua fresca. if you're unsure about this delicious beverage, come over - i have a pitcher in the fridge.

also, i have a new favorite tea.

uh-oh

sometimes, you have no idea that the thing that you desperately need more than anything else exists until your boyfriend instant messages you a link to it mid-morning.

this would be one of those instances.

in which the server is down, printer jammed, and i cannot work.

hey there, how are you? i've been scarce, i know. sorry. i'll try and be better about it.

bookclub is meeting next month - the new, revised copy of A Moveable Feast is our fare. should be an interesting conversation. meeting at the new house (!) at a date still tbd, but i'm thinking third week in august tentatively... any requests?

speaking of, the new house is wonderful. leaving everyday to come to work for eight hours is seeming like a strange punishment right now. i have boxes to unpack! books to alphabetize! how dare you make me leave!? please, please come and visit. i have been bad with the invitations and my phone keeps dying because i can't find my charger (packed in some obscure box). give me a call or text me, and know that you're very welcome as long as one of us is home.

my sister's wedding is this weekend - get ready for copious amounts of photos.

in three weekends (mid-august) we're going down to st. louis for a table and piano... want to house-sit/watch kittens?

what is new with you? let's sit in my back porch and discuss over cold drinks.

final saturday

it just now dawned in me that this is the last lazy saturday afternoon i will spend in front of the boxfan reading in my fourth floor apartment. the last i'll spend in any apartment. it is the last time i have to think about what my landlord will think of this or that paint color. the last time i'll utter the words security deposit or lug my laundry down six flights of stairs. the last time that i need to worry about the music i'm playing late on a tuesday night and whether the neighbor can hear it through my walls. the last time the super will come and replace a light bulb for me.

while i'm fully ready for this next move, i'll miss it. just a little.

(okay, now that i've written that, i'm giggling about it. miss my tiny, cramped kitchen? probably not.)

less than a week. come help us unpack and have a cocktail in the backyard soon.

catch-all

+joe's friend paul came in on tuesday and i've quite enjoyed getting to know him.

+ dinner at heidi's induced the most delicious food coma i've had in ages - the anise lambshank is to drool for.

+ thursday's bookclub for Ada or Ardor : A Family Chronicle was the finest yet, amazing conversation, food and company. we'll be reading A Moveable Feast [Hemingway] next - new edition out on the 20th.

+ square lake and my mother provide entertaining conversation.

+ got cryphy and may have also gotten my old job back at solera?

today, we're headed to sea salt eatery for some tacos and later in the day, we've actually been invited to barbecue three blocks from our apartment - other people live around here? we close on the house in less than two weeks and i'm starting to think of little else; i cannot wait for this small house to enter my life.

edward is ready to move, please.

starry, starry night

who told kimberly baker how much i liked constellations?

ADA or Ardor: A Family Chronicle [excerpt]

Children of her type contrive the purest philosophies. Ada had worked out her own little system. Hardly a week had elapsed since Van's arrival when he was found worthy of being initiated in her web of wisdom. An individual's life consisted of certain classified things: "real things" which were unfrequent and priceless, simply "things" which formed the routine stuff of life; and "ghost things," also called "fogs," such as fever, toothache, dreadful disappointments, and death. Three of more things occurring at the same time formed a "tower" or, if they came in immediate succession, they made a "bridge." "Real towers" and "real bridges" were the joys of life, and when the towers came in a series, one experienced supreme rapture; it almost never happened, though. In some circumstances, in a certain light, a neutral "thing" might look or even actually become "real" or else, conversely, it might coagulate into a fetid "fog." When the joy and the joyless happened to be intermixed, simultaneously or along the ramp of duration, one was confronted with "ruined towers" and "broken bridges."

The pictorial and architectural details of her metaphysics made her nights easier than Van's, and that morning - as on most mornings - he had the sensation of returning from a much more remote and grim country than she and her sunlight had come from.

Her plump, stickily glistening lips smiled.

our house...

after much looking (looking at small houses, looking at crazy, giant houses, looking at almost justright houses), we've found the house. our house. and now, i'm in such a place as i can't sleep - moving this or that in my head, repainting that room, planning our first meal there.

you guys, it's perfect. it has a big, beautiful kitchen with a giant gas stove and this counterspace that makes my heart pitter-patter. the kitchen leads directly out onto a big porch for dining and a sunny backyard for a garden. also? a rec room! it's downstairs, with a bar. we're going to get a ping pong table! and, and, and... movies projected on the garage in the back and a craft room upstairs and laundry in the basement instead of that sketchy laundromat over by butter.

we're moving mid-july. then, getting a puppy. you're already invited. it's up on garfield near 29th and johnson in NE.

cherry and orange butter cookies

i know, i know - i've been a bad blogger as of late. life has been busy, mainly in that good way where you don't realize how much time has past until you look at your blog and realize there are two entries for the month and less than three times that many days left.

this weekend joe and i watched janessa's house and the keisha for her. sitting on her porch and listening to neighborhood sounds made me impatient for the house that we keep coming so close to - only to miss it by a day or a few thousand dollars.

tonight i am a bit too tired for anything real-life oriented, so instead i'm hiding in the kitchen with gatsby (he always seems to be the most affectionate when i'm covered to my elbows in cookie dough or soap suds, unable to really pet him). i bought the biggest bag of cherries they had at the grocery store and i'm now faced with creative ways of eating them. today : cookies (tomorrow : scones). The recipe is from The Sweeter Side of Amy's Breads by Amy Scherber. i made the cookies MUCH smaller (probably about a TBSP and a half) and round and then flattened them out a little by sticking a halved cherry on the top of each.

(there would be a photo here of said cookies if blogger wasn't so much like a turtle)

Orange Butter Cookies

(makes 15 cookies) - i made almost forty smaller cookies

1 3/4 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour

1 2/3 cups cake flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 1/4 cups sugar, plus extra for topping before baking

1 cup unsalted butter, slightly softened

2 1/2 teaspoons orange zest, finely minced

1 large egg

2 egg yolks

Position one rack in the top third of the oven, one rack in the bottom third of the oven, and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheets with baking parchment.

In a bowl, add all-purpose flour, cake flour, baking soda, and salt, and whisk together.

In another bowl, using an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, cream together sugar, butter, and orange zest on medium speed for 2 minutes, or until light and fluffy, scraping sides and bottom of the bowl frequently. Gradually add eggs and egg yolks, mixing on medium speed until everything is well combined.

With the mixer on low speed, add dry ingredients in stages. Mix only until everything is well combined, scraping sides and bottom of the bowl frequently. There should not be any pockets of dry flour left in the dough.

Using a large soup spoon, a metal ice cream scoop, or your clean hands moistened with water, scoop out big balls of dough, placing six balls on each prepared cookie sheet. Use a scant 1/4 cup to estimate the size. Using three middle fingers of your hand, press firmly on the top of each ball to flatten it to a thickness of 1/2 inch. Allow dough to push up between your fingers so an imprint of valleys and ridges remains. If the dough is sticky, you may have to moisten your fingers slightly with cold water to keep them from sticking to the dough. Sprinkle tops of cookies generously with extra granulated sugar. They will spread a moderate amount during baking. Bake cookies for about 15-16 minutes, rotating cookie sheets halfway through the baking time. The cookies should be pale but baked all the way into the center. They should be soft, but be careful not to underbake them or the centers will be doughy.

Cool cookies on sheets for 5 minutes, then remove them to a rack and cool completely before storing.

i had also planned on posting a very cute picture of edward after he created a small cave out of blankets and only his head stuck out - seeing as how i couldn't even get dumb blogger to upload the picture of a cookie, i didn't try on the edward picture - maybe later.

absolutely delicious

to admit this probably is more indicative of my lack of technological prowess than i'd like, but joe has finally convinced me to use delicious and damn - if it wasn't made for a cook, i don't know what was (my theory being that is why it is called delicious). up until now, i had a string of emails going with titles like birthday dinner, recipes for the week/end and the next cake i bake. while they started out as great ideas, when these emails got to be 35 message long monologues with unruly links and no real way to find what i was looking for, i knew i needed something new, but didn't know what that would be. joe told me how great delicious was, but i couldn't quite picture how it would work.

he finally got to me by starting an account for the houses we are looking at and holding my hand while i baby-stepped into a new networking site.

i've spent the better part of the night transferring my vast email-log to a delicious account - notice that the top tag is dessert... that is how you know it is mine.

send me your favorite foodblog entries! encourage me to grow this new online cookbook that i may even convince my mother of its use!

also, while writing this entry, i have been sitting in my 400 degree kitchen waiting for the biscuits i'm making to finish rising and turning golden. if you go to the tag for biscuit you'll find the base recipe - then sub fresh ramps for chives, red pepper flakes for cayenne and make sure you use Hook's 10 yr cheddar and you'll have the same finished product that joe just pronounced very good.

we might own a home?!

seriously. and, the wait?

killing me.

[edit] this, turns out, is not the house for us.

embarrassing,

but, i could watch the parent trap over and over again and it would be just as entertaining.

bacon monster

life is picking up speed, gaining momentum with the rising temperatures.

highlights:

+first BLTs of the year and realizing that gatsby will eat any bacon left out on the counter EVEN IF THERE ARE FOUR SLICES LEFT. he is a bacon monster.
-+ i've been promoted to manager at work
+ puny art show/michelle and danell's party
- i hate hate hate a certain company that is causing me financial woes
+ bikerides and casing neighborhoods for a new place/final place

i'm pretty sure that there is nothing better than spring in minneapolis - everything, but everything seems lovely. even the bad seems very fixable.

p.s. please reread my side of the mountain - it is better than you remembered.

p.p.s. the long goodbye is AMAZING and a quick read - hurry up and read it in time for bookclub.

gatsby's lament and resolution

HALP! i don't fit in my new box!

MUCH BETTER...

a bit more on the book front:

if you have not read The Graveyard Book by neil gaiman, please, please pick it up. i know many of us scoff at the idea of reading YA fiction, but just because it is meant for a younger age group doesn't mean you'll glean any less from it now. his acknowledgement page made it very necessary to my life that i reread both books of The Jungle Book sometime this summer.

Cops never say goodbye. They're always hoping to see you again in the line-up.

on may 6th at 7:30 pm, eric, christian and i will be discussing the pulp fiction of raymond chandler, specifically, The Long Goodbye which features PI philip marlowe in a biting social commentary which is also partially autobiographical.

while i was not the one that came up with this read, i'm really excited about it. i've seen a couple of his novels/screenplays (the big sleep, double indemnity, strangers on a train) in film form and very thoroughly enjoyed them.

let me know if you'd like to join us for food, drink and discussion.

A Green Crab's Shell [Mark Doty]

Not, exactly, green:
closer to bronze
preserved in kind brine,

something retrieved
from a Greco-Roman wreck,
patinated and oddly

muscular. We cannot
know what his fantastic
legs were like--

though evidence
suggests eight
complexly folded

scuttling works
of armament, crowned
by the foreclaws'

gesture of menace
and power. A gull's
gobbled the center,

leaving this chamber
--size of a demitasse--
open to reveal

a shocking, Giotto blue.
Though it smells
of seaweed and ruin,

this little traveling case
comes with such lavish lining!
Imagine breathing

surrounded by
the brilliant rinse
of summer's firmament.

What color is
the underside of skin?
Not so bad, to die,

if we could be opened
into this--
if the smallest chambers

of ourselves,
similarly,
revealed some sky.

oh my,

i almost wish i had never heard of this designer ... i am now on a wild goose chase for anything i can find from his new collection online - even worse than that, when i find it? i'll be spending money. while i like the whimsy of all of his peices, the rings are what fascinate me the most - not just from this collection, but from BJORG jewellry in general

it got me looking around and here is a list of rings that you should admire:
- while frances wadsworth jones has many beautiful baubles, this ant ring in gold is my favorite.
- jacqueline cullen works with black fossilized wood, swoon.
- this laura berutti ring makes me think of the canary ring my mother used to trick me with...
- i love the entire gentle current series and it has a beautiful stone ring in it
- sometimes, the best rings are the kind with a secret.
- valeria salum's jewelry is interesting and quite versatile.
- for some reason, all i can see when i look at this ring, is alice in wonderland - i like that.

i'll call him slowpoke

i am buying this sloth from the como zoo. he sleeps all day, occasionally stirring to flare a nostril or half-open an eye. he awakes at night to change trees and only poops once a week. i feel he will get along famously with both edward and gatsby.

foodsnob

it came up the other night, while eating nachos - the kind with minced jalapeños and cilantro that had been soaked in lime juice, aged pepper cheddar, black beans, and freshly dice tomatoes and purple onion - that i may be a foodsnob. this is because my idea of nachos is the above, where some girls that i know, well, their idea of nachos is chips and cheese and a microwave.

this got me to thinking: where exactly did i get my ideas about food and when? there was a time when i microwaved nachos with the best of them when now the idea wouldn't even cross my mind...

while i'm still not sure, i would like to thank the following for my current foodsnobbiness:

*my mother for baking almost daily and letting me make the fork marks in the peanut butter cookies
*my nutrition teacher for being a babe
*spain for scoffing at store-bought mayo and pasta sauce
*nick for being far food-snobbier than i could ever be
*tastespotting.org for providing me with amazing inspiration until its demise
*louisa for being waaaay more advanced in the chocolate arts
*sunday dinner for making me bake weekly

john uskglass, the raven king

is finally making more of an appearance in the book! you know you want to come and share your thoughts on this one... the second half - waaaaaaay more interesting then the first, i promise. christian and eric and i had loads to say about the first half and if you ask nicely, maybe we'll enrich your mind with our ideas about mr norell and magic reminding us of medeival clergy and religion...

april first, 7:30 pm, we're meeting at my fourth floor abode to discuss the second half of this not-so-plot-driven novel (i know, i know, it's late - but someone is too cool and going to be at sxsw the week before).

best company ever

february 26th, 2009 8:00 p.m.

menu:
fried oysters marinated in guiness
split yellow pea fritters
mixed greens with a golden balsamic dressing and tamari pumpkin seeds

orange cinnamon crème brûlée

pinot grigio and riesling provided by mali

guest:
mike davis
mali chansouk

while not completely and not quite officially yet, joe has moved in. last night we had mali and mike over for the first of many dinners that i'm sure will happen (there is already talk of one at their house) - this one as a sort of celebration/housewarming for joe. if you haven't been over recently, you should come - see how the library is turning into a spaceship.

package deal

i must say that there is nothing quite like getting dolled up two nights in a row to tick two - TWO bars/restaurants of my list with the one, the only lovely louisa. she and i, there really is an art to our banter... like ping-pong, only more graceful.

prohibition must be your next date spot. i promise you'll charm said date's pants/skirt off - dark wood, low lights and jazzy music.

barrio is my next bring-the-parents hotspot - latino-kitsch decor (not the bad kind), good tequila and the best shrimp taco i've had since summer and sea salt.

it is entertaining

that the second i get a stable internet connection in the apartment, i stop internet-ing.

i breakfasted out twice this weekend, made me feel very decadent. but, that was also the number of nights that i stayed in; i don't think i spent any more than i would have in a regular weekend. i don't know why i hadn't been there before, but the grand cafe is amazing. please go and order the eggs en cocotte - you will be overwhelmed with how savory and rich and wonderful it is. i also want my someday-when-i-have-a-house kitchen to resemble the interior of this lovely, lovely cafe.

jonathan strange & mr norell is coming along nicely and i'll be at the halfway mark in time for bookclub. i also bought myself a new collection of short stories by pam houston which i cannot wait to devour.

speaking of devouring, work has consumed my life lately - i've been a bit stressed - and i'm taking a well-deserved break this weekend with joe in duluth, staying in the nicest place i've stayed on my own (we booked the olcott suite).

with the cancellation of sunday dinner this week i feel like it's been years and years since i've seen any of you. how is everyone?

the magicians of yorkshire

for february's bookclub, we will be reading susanna clarke's first novel: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norell which comes with the praise of one of two faithful bookclubbers, christian and neil gaiman also said it is"Unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last seventy years." which is saying something since this is the man who wrote both American Gods and Anansi Boys.

we will be meeting at my house on february 25th at 7:30 to discuss the first half of this book (it is long enough that we've decided to spread it out over february and march... please bring something to share and let me know ahead of time if you'll be able to make it.

Requiem [John Updike]

It came to me the other day:
Were I to die, no one would say,
“Oh, what a shame! So young, so full
Of promise — depths unplumbable!”

Instead, a shrug and tearless eyes
Will greet my overdue demise;
The wide response will be, I know,
“I thought he died a while ago.”

For life’s a shabby subterfuge,
And death is real, and dark, and huge.
The shock of it will register
Nowhere but where it will occur.

by the by,

the above could prove very, very dangerous if i am not properly supervised...

if only this jacket would go on sale for about 75% off, i'd be so set for spring.

friday, i think that christian and i are going to tackle a new dish off the tried and true foodblog that made me wonder if there is such a thing as too many szechuan peppercorns in a dish (i'm pretty sure the answer is no). i may even bake that satsuma mandarin/vanilla upside-down pound cake that i've been drooling over for ages... now would be the time to try and finagle a seat for dinner friday.

last night,

last night was girls that i'm just getting to know and chocolate chip cookies with red wine and knitting projects i've been meaning to start. it was walking home in the dark with the snow crunching under my feet and my father's birthday present under my arm. it was sitting on the belgian velvet couch and listening to the beginnings of a remix until it was firmly engraved in my head.

what i'm trying to say is last night was really good, the kind of quiet good that leaves one content for days in its wake.

so proud...

could someone please borrow obama's suitcoat? i need to sew this inside...

i think the last time that i felt like this about politics i was still in high school and was headed to a rally with my spanish teacher whose father inspired hope in us all.

also, new bloglove? yes, please.

never a truer graph has been made

can we never talk about the nicknames i've given my cats?

if the fridge is full,

i recommend the balcony.

j'adore ça

some of my favorite movies end with the american missing their plane and staying in paris.

eyelashes:frozen

chase's iphone said it better than i could.

The Quiet World [Jeffrey McDaniel]

In an effort to get people to look
into each other's eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly a hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn't respond,
I know she's used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.

entre tú y yo,

this past week, a pretty amazing little boy named jackson introduced me to this movie. while i had once doubted i'd like neil gaiman, christian completely erased this doubt with american gods and anansi boys. who wants to go see it with me?

i've recently realized that my taste in jewelry is pretty predictable. i like: secrets, bones/hearts, trees/leaves, owls, and featherssss. these themes are also evident in most art that i enjoy - i need to work on my element of surprise...

if you're interested in january's bookclub, i recommend picking up a copy of the book immediately, if not sooner.

also, i may have met my match?

speechless

darling 2009, i'm glad you've begun.