where are we again?
window ghoulies
somebody who designs the displays for shake rattle & read has been working some serious creative overtime…
weekend delights
my super-adorable niece got her money’s worth out of the trains exhibit at the amazing museum of science and industry on saturday.
and afterward we all trekked over to margie’s candies for ginormous ice cream sundaes.
it can be most excellent to have a few kids handy as an excuse to kid it up ourselves. :)
the mysticism of friendship
I don’t know how they do it, but they do. I will be scraping along in the sediment of whatever mundane moods seep up of a given day, given week, and a glowing little missive will come fluttering into my inbox to spark alight all the damp and dreary ends back into something warm and pulsing. stillness along the threads that comprise my extended friendship network is completely understandable and natural in the way of ebbing and flowing busy lives, if mournful to the one who’s blue– and I do know that my own fingers should tap out a morse to call forth a reassuring echo when in need– but sometimes these true friends just, somehow, know, and do it, all on their own, just like that– and the whole thing comes awake, alive, and I am nestled, nested, cocooned once more by the knowing of those who value and love me in this world, and all is right again.
bananas and avocados give me an awful stomach ache
have done since I was in my teens. always seemed a bit inexplicable to me and didn’t help that it’s a somewhat inconsistent reaction. but sitting here this morning with my banana-laden breakfast cereal grinching in my belly, I did a little google search out of curiosity and turned up a trove of validation. relief at least in that I am not alone. huh.
mufflerman
just drivin’ thru town.
homemaking
we worked really hard on our living space this weekend– lots of trips up and down the three flights of stairs (both with the burning legs to prove it), enormous amounts of things gone through and either organized or removed bodily from the premises– still far from "done" but worlds better– space to live and breathe in, walls taking shape, greater efficiencies and arrangements to delight the eye. the process was not without its snags and emotional pitfalls, as we worked to loosen our respective grips on effluvia from past lives– lots of head-butting and occasional stomping on toes (for the most part mine on his)– but this, too, I believe, is a significant part of the catharsis: learning to occupy the process together, to ride those swells and plunges with a minimum of choking. in the course of things we are reminded, time and again, in practice, that we both see and hear one another, a gift which I've never experienced so dynamically and honestly with another human being. when you've got two strong-willed and creative folks living in close proximity, there's bound to be some weather generated– but for the most part the sun shines and things are growing. and cocktail/dinner parties are in the works! yeehaw.
october morning
the treetops out the windows are turning from green to golden, the black underlying framework standing out bolder and bolder daily. sunrise shines pink against the window-studded brick wall down the way and must be blushing sleepers in their beds and giving rose-hued dreams.
my dreams have been fantastical and vivid, and I lie in bed after waking, drowsing, to recall them and find myself drifting into new scenarios and cul-de-sacs.
##
I go out for lunch with the work friends to a pastry place we're trying out for some event– and after we've eaten our slices of quiche and crusty brioche, we rise to go– I'm somehow full of bounces and race for the door and have to pull up in a hard stop as a display wall of hundreds of tiny cubbies filled with pastries looms in my path– I reach out a single index finger to help brace me as I halt, and my momentum transfers and the whole thing wobbles gigantically– I try to steady it with the same finger, but a kind of groundswell has taken the thing and rocks it, and it comes crashing down toward me– mortification ensues in the flakey chaos I have wreaked.
we're driving back to work and rounding a bend in a swank and leafy neighborhood when I see a little black dog with its collar caught on a branch of shrubbery and call out to stop– I leap from the car and run and release the little dog and lift it up in my arms so it can't dash off– the black ringlets of its fur are soft against my fingertips and where they brush my arms. we try the houses one by one to locate the creature's home and in the process meet the inhabitants, and it turns into a fantastic adventure involving characters who seem ordinary at first but whose suburban facades cloak astonishing powers and intrigues that now escape me. I know that rescuing and returning the dog to its rightful owner initiates a string of incidents that involve underground cavern hideouts and complicated layers of good versus evil and non-human flying creatures and hiding in escape chutes like breathing vacuum tubes from spies of the enemy and job offers to join the resistance and an old man god of dubious beneficence who can be summoned to walk through solid rock mountains– in the end, sadly, we must return once more to the routine workday– though years seem to have passed, our hair has grown, and we all seem a good deal older and more interesting if not necessarily wiser.
september chicago
(from the notebook, undated but a couple of weeks back)
there are birds of prey out the windows– I hear them, ticking in the night– or maybe that's just a cicada winding down– I've been here just over two years– I don't feel settled, I resist it– will I ever feel settled anywhere? where would I fell settled? I do feel calm and right with my darling, but geographically, socially, professionally, just a little bit I am feeling unsettled, wrought, overcaffeinated, despairing, irritable, late, clumsy, hopeful, slouchy, and deliciously, exhaustedly, heart-recklessly, skitteringly, naughtily, snoringly scattered a good deal of the time.