I walked into my usual deli this morning for my usual cup of coffee, only to find the three guys behind the counter standing shoulder to shoulder and staring, gape-jawed, at the television mounted opposite the counter near the ceiling. I turned around, rain sluicing off my umbrella and glasses running water, to see what it was that had them so entranced.
It was otters. Specifically, footage of two otters holding hands and being all snuggly-wuggly. And I'm still not sure what was more adorable -- the otters themselves, or my deli guys practically cooing over them (and looking embarrassed to be caught at such things).
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Friday, August 24, 2012
cusp
There's a moment every year--a clear, crystalline moment--when you are reminded that summer will not linger forever, that fall is on its way.
Sometimes it hits you over the head, comes storming in (or at least threatening to storm in) like God's own thunder, and sends an entire city into lockdown.
Sometimes it is meditative, or vegetative, or sad.
This year it was more subtle than that. After a seemingly endless string of broiling hot city summer days, we forgot to turn on the bedroom fan one night earlier this week before going to bed. I woke up hours later, 2am and filled with strange dreams, drenched in sweat. I got up and turned on the fan, drank a glass of cold water, returned to bed and eventually to sleep.
Just as it began to grow light, in those moments before true dawn, I woke up cold, and I pulled the sheet up tight around myself and curled towards Evan, whose broad back and tangled hair felt comfortably, wonderfully warm.
I am leaving town this year for Labor Day Weekend, for the first time in ages and ages, and last night got it into my head to settle on a knitting project for the trip. Apparently I am done with my summer silks and pale, bridal colors. I pulled out from deep in my closet a gorgeous over-sized hank of merino wool in rich dark burgundies, jewel reds, almost browns: the perfect transition piece into the coming autumn.
That moment, that cusp, came early this year and even if it gets up to a hundred degrees next week there isn't really any going back.
Sometimes it hits you over the head, comes storming in (or at least threatening to storm in) like God's own thunder, and sends an entire city into lockdown.
Sometimes it is meditative, or vegetative, or sad.
This year it was more subtle than that. After a seemingly endless string of broiling hot city summer days, we forgot to turn on the bedroom fan one night earlier this week before going to bed. I woke up hours later, 2am and filled with strange dreams, drenched in sweat. I got up and turned on the fan, drank a glass of cold water, returned to bed and eventually to sleep.
Just as it began to grow light, in those moments before true dawn, I woke up cold, and I pulled the sheet up tight around myself and curled towards Evan, whose broad back and tangled hair felt comfortably, wonderfully warm.
I am leaving town this year for Labor Day Weekend, for the first time in ages and ages, and last night got it into my head to settle on a knitting project for the trip. Apparently I am done with my summer silks and pale, bridal colors. I pulled out from deep in my closet a gorgeous over-sized hank of merino wool in rich dark burgundies, jewel reds, almost browns: the perfect transition piece into the coming autumn.
That moment, that cusp, came early this year and even if it gets up to a hundred degrees next week there isn't really any going back.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
turns of phrase
I love Ta-Nehisi Coates. I don't know or care overly much about half the shit he writes about, but I'll read him on pretty much anything. And sometimes he writes something so obvious, yet so beautiful, in its clarity that I want to shout it from the rooftops.
"Via The Atlantic Wire,
Steve King claims he's never heard of anyone getting pregnant from
statutory rape. Specifically he said that it isn't "a circumstance
that's been brought to me in any personal way."
Again the thing about power is that it makes opening your eyes optional."
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
that momentary kind of love
Some current loves of mine.
Underground New York Public Library: This woman wanders around the subway taking pictures of people reading books, and sometimes ebooks, and that's pretty much it. It's great. There's a lovely interview with her this month on Vanishing New York (which is also a wonderful, wonderful thing). Follow her Facebook page for daily updates.
Jeremiah's Vanishing New York: the subtitle of his blog pretty much says it all, but he's got some great stuff here.
Humans of New York: wonderful, quirky, gorgeous photographs of people walking and talking and living in the streets and parks and plazas of this beloved city of mine.
Scouting New York: a movie location scout's take on the big apple.
"It is a funny question. Do you know what I mean? That kind of momentary falling in love that happens when you see a person on the train with a book."
(Jeremiah, Vanishing New York)
Underground New York Public Library: This woman wanders around the subway taking pictures of people reading books, and sometimes ebooks, and that's pretty much it. It's great. There's a lovely interview with her this month on Vanishing New York (which is also a wonderful, wonderful thing). Follow her Facebook page for daily updates.
Jeremiah's Vanishing New York: the subtitle of his blog pretty much says it all, but he's got some great stuff here.
Humans of New York: wonderful, quirky, gorgeous photographs of people walking and talking and living in the streets and parks and plazas of this beloved city of mine.
Scouting New York: a movie location scout's take on the big apple.
"It is a funny question. Do you know what I mean? That kind of momentary falling in love that happens when you see a person on the train with a book."
(Jeremiah, Vanishing New York)
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
tomatoes
For years, coworker Manley would visit his mother every summer and lug a suitcase of her garden-grown tomatoes on the train back to New York City. The next morning he would bring us each a paper lunch bag filled with these perfect, beautiful, delectable fruits.
His mother's tomatoes haven't been doing so well these last few years, and she herself is getting too old for much gardening. But it's tomato season again and our CSA is practically overrun with the darned things (cheerful elongated yellows and bright round reds and deep purples and gorgeous jewel-like zebra-striped greens), and I need to remember to return this much-loved waning-days-of-summer favor.
His mother's tomatoes haven't been doing so well these last few years, and she herself is getting too old for much gardening. But it's tomato season again and our CSA is practically overrun with the darned things (cheerful elongated yellows and bright round reds and deep purples and gorgeous jewel-like zebra-striped greens), and I need to remember to return this much-loved waning-days-of-summer favor.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
'hey my love do you believe that we might last a thousand years or more if not for this...'
I have a friend who adores Dave Matthews Band. I, as I am sure you are not overly surprised to learn, do not adore Dave Matthews Band, but they do have one song that I have loved ever since first hearing it in 1996.
But the thing is, I don't think I've heard it much since then, and apparently my connection to it doesn't have much to do with reality. I was explaining to her, over a couple of beers the other night, that Dave Matthews always seemed kind of facile to me, and frat-boyish, and easy. Except this one song that I loved, and that always felt dark and drugged and tinged with tragedy and danger. She asked me what song it was, and I told her, and she just looked at me funny and laughed and started reciting lyrics.
Celebrate we will
'Cause life is short but sweet for certain
We're climbing two by two
To be sure these days continue
No doubt she has a point, but I still stand by mine too. I don't know that I know many songs as sad, as beautifully desperate, as this, and even after nearly fifteen years, despite all its lovely pretty lyrics, it still brings me to tears.
But the thing is, I don't think I've heard it much since then, and apparently my connection to it doesn't have much to do with reality. I was explaining to her, over a couple of beers the other night, that Dave Matthews always seemed kind of facile to me, and frat-boyish, and easy. Except this one song that I loved, and that always felt dark and drugged and tinged with tragedy and danger. She asked me what song it was, and I told her, and she just looked at me funny and laughed and started reciting lyrics.
Celebrate we will
'Cause life is short but sweet for certain
We're climbing two by two
To be sure these days continue
No doubt she has a point, but I still stand by mine too. I don't know that I know many songs as sad, as beautifully desperate, as this, and even after nearly fifteen years, despite all its lovely pretty lyrics, it still brings me to tears.
Friday, August 17, 2012
new york city (friday night)
Had dinner this evening with an old friend, a magnificent woman, a practically sister known and held dear since time immemorial.
She is roughing it these days. Dark circles and sharp tones betray the exhaustion she is too depleted, too proud, to own.
We ate expensive pizza and drank cheap wine on this comfortably warm August night, and made our way to a nearby Chelsea bar patronized mostly by warring girls throwing political views (Sandra Fluke: virgin or whore? Of course I dove right in) and cute Irish bartenders asking our names.
We talked about work woes and family woes and the trials and tribulations of being young or not so young and alone in this city, in the greater world, in this life.
I found myself wanting to give her Sarah, gift wrapped and glowing in white tissue paper, welcoming and life-saving and warm, but instead I struggled to even really advocate therapy from this place of constant imperfection, and so I hugged her goodnight and came home.
She is roughing it these days. Dark circles and sharp tones betray the exhaustion she is too depleted, too proud, to own.
We ate expensive pizza and drank cheap wine on this comfortably warm August night, and made our way to a nearby Chelsea bar patronized mostly by warring girls throwing political views (Sandra Fluke: virgin or whore? Of course I dove right in) and cute Irish bartenders asking our names.
We talked about work woes and family woes and the trials and tribulations of being young or not so young and alone in this city, in the greater world, in this life.
I found myself wanting to give her Sarah, gift wrapped and glowing in white tissue paper, welcoming and life-saving and warm, but instead I struggled to even really advocate therapy from this place of constant imperfection, and so I hugged her goodnight and came home.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Saturday, August 04, 2012
bridal shawl, beaded
Knitted bridal shawl, natural bamboo/merino/silk fingering-weight yarn, with gold-lined clear glass beads, now available here.
Friday, July 27, 2012
'but sometimes you can't be sure...'
My mother, a few months back, had a run-in with the police. By which I mean that she was working in the garden one spring afternoon when a cop car pulled up in the back alley (this is not as threatening as it sounds -- we are talking small town America here, not the mean streets of Gotham, and this particular alley is lined with wild flowers and climbing roses) and asked if she lived there.
When she nodded, he asked if they could talk. She, ever the polite hostess even while anxiously awaiting the worst, asked if he wanted a cup of coffee. He proceeded to spin a tale, an outlandish tale, involving a husband gone missing half a century ago, a suspected murder, and the concrete floor of my parents' garage.
That was merely the beginning. My mother and stepfather, in cooperation with the local police department, cleared out years' worth of accumulation (rusted barbecues, rain buckets and potting soil, boxes of old books and baby clothes and photographs and letters). Eventually there was space for the police to bring in ground penetrating radar equipment. The grandson of the missing man came to the house, along with a local news crew, and the police set to work. The GPR picked up something -- an anomaly, an unknown, perhaps a body -- grounds enough to break through the concrete, dredge up what may lie hidden beneath.
But the story was even stranger than that. The missing man, Isak Iverson, disappeared in 1967. He was 71 years old, and had been married to his wife, Helga, for fourteen years. They were both born in Norway. He emigrated to the United States in the '20s, she sometime after World War II. During the war, it is said, Helga was a member of the resistance, and had the distasteful but necessary job of disposing of Nazi bodies in the ice and snow of the Norwegian mountains.
Family lore was that she'd offed her husband, buried his body in the family garage, poured a new concrete floor, and eventually reported him missing.
Yesterday equipment was brought in and concrete was smashed and absolutely nothing was found. My parents, Isak's grandson, and gawking neighbors milled around outside waiting for news, and word spread quickly that there was no body; that Isak Iverson was still missing, will officially probably be missing forever.
The police still believe Helga killed him (old stories linger of a blood-stained corner on a wooden dresser, a wallet with cash left bebind), and that his body is likely somewhere on the property ("A beautiful place to rest," said one cop, and he's right), but the investigation is over. The story is finished.
But maybe Isak, despite all the evidence, just left: started a new life, found a new wife, retired in his golden years to a warmer, balmier place -- Hawaii or Florida or sunny San Diego. Or maybe there was an accident -- an argument and a push and a fall, and the inevitable ensuing panic. Or maybe Helga, resistance fighter who stood up to one of our great human evils, really did murder him but had her reasons.
It's hard to think that we will never know, that sometimes there is no closure, and that this is truly where the story ends, shrouded in a strange and lingering sense of mystery and history and loss.
"Disappearances, apparitions; few clues, or none at all.
Mostly it isn't murder, a punishable crime -- the people just vanish. They go away, in sorrow, in pain, in mute astonishment, as of something decided forever. But sometimes you can't be sure, and a thing will happen that remains so unresolved, so strange, that someone will think of it years later, and he will sit there in the dusk and silence, staring out the window at another world."
(John Haines, The Stars, the Snow, the Fire)
When she nodded, he asked if they could talk. She, ever the polite hostess even while anxiously awaiting the worst, asked if he wanted a cup of coffee. He proceeded to spin a tale, an outlandish tale, involving a husband gone missing half a century ago, a suspected murder, and the concrete floor of my parents' garage.
That was merely the beginning. My mother and stepfather, in cooperation with the local police department, cleared out years' worth of accumulation (rusted barbecues, rain buckets and potting soil, boxes of old books and baby clothes and photographs and letters). Eventually there was space for the police to bring in ground penetrating radar equipment. The grandson of the missing man came to the house, along with a local news crew, and the police set to work. The GPR picked up something -- an anomaly, an unknown, perhaps a body -- grounds enough to break through the concrete, dredge up what may lie hidden beneath.
But the story was even stranger than that. The missing man, Isak Iverson, disappeared in 1967. He was 71 years old, and had been married to his wife, Helga, for fourteen years. They were both born in Norway. He emigrated to the United States in the '20s, she sometime after World War II. During the war, it is said, Helga was a member of the resistance, and had the distasteful but necessary job of disposing of Nazi bodies in the ice and snow of the Norwegian mountains.
Family lore was that she'd offed her husband, buried his body in the family garage, poured a new concrete floor, and eventually reported him missing.
Yesterday equipment was brought in and concrete was smashed and absolutely nothing was found. My parents, Isak's grandson, and gawking neighbors milled around outside waiting for news, and word spread quickly that there was no body; that Isak Iverson was still missing, will officially probably be missing forever.
The police still believe Helga killed him (old stories linger of a blood-stained corner on a wooden dresser, a wallet with cash left bebind), and that his body is likely somewhere on the property ("A beautiful place to rest," said one cop, and he's right), but the investigation is over. The story is finished.
But maybe Isak, despite all the evidence, just left: started a new life, found a new wife, retired in his golden years to a warmer, balmier place -- Hawaii or Florida or sunny San Diego. Or maybe there was an accident -- an argument and a push and a fall, and the inevitable ensuing panic. Or maybe Helga, resistance fighter who stood up to one of our great human evils, really did murder him but had her reasons.
It's hard to think that we will never know, that sometimes there is no closure, and that this is truly where the story ends, shrouded in a strange and lingering sense of mystery and history and loss.
"Disappearances, apparitions; few clues, or none at all.
Mostly it isn't murder, a punishable crime -- the people just vanish. They go away, in sorrow, in pain, in mute astonishment, as of something decided forever. But sometimes you can't be sure, and a thing will happen that remains so unresolved, so strange, that someone will think of it years later, and he will sit there in the dusk and silence, staring out the window at another world."
(John Haines, The Stars, the Snow, the Fire)
Friday, July 20, 2012
'everyday life is a life lived...'
"Everyday life is a life lived on the level of surging affects, impacts suffered or barely avoided. It takes everything we have. But it also spawns a series of little somethings dreamed up in the course of things."
(Kathleen Stewart, Ordinary Affects)
(Kathleen Stewart, Ordinary Affects)
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
no, thank you!
1320 yards of pure alpaca goodness arrived in the mail today, along with a box of books from the mother -- there's not much more a girl could ask for, really, at least in so far as the postal service goes.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
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