fridge

awesomeness of note:

1. Best Letter Ever From A Nephew.
this is a few years old and moved with me from the fridge in iowa to the fridge in chicago. it’s a photocopy of a school assignment my sister randomly found one day in her kid’s backpack. it reads: “In February we are writing about someone who is close to our heart. My Aunt Sara is close to my heart. She makes me happy when I’m sad. She sometimes goes to HMC with us. She loves to wear the earrings that my mom made for her. She is my favorite aunt. She loves me and I love me and I love her. She is like a hero to me. I love my Aunt Sara.” I think one day I will have to make another copy of both sides and frame them for myself.

2. my friend masha’s arrestingly beautiful little girls. this photo just replaced the equally adorable one from last year.

3. birthday card from maggie & heal, captioned: “Miss Q.P. Urkheimer” and on the back: “brained her fiance after failing to pick up an easy spare at Glover’s Lanes, Poxville, Kansas, 1936”; inside heal has written, “Right before our California reception, I checked out a whole shelf of etiquette books from the library so I could cram. Now I’m kicking myself, because I can’t remember whether ‘Send card featuring a neglected murderess as heartfelt birthday greeting’ was on the ‘Do’ side of the page or the ‘Don’t’.”

4. really intricate christmas card from een, which I could stare at all day, reproduction of “The Creatrix” by Mark Ryden, oil on canvas. it’s got dinosaurs and a woolly mammoth and a little spaceman in a spacesuit and a beehive with a clock in it and an undersea santa claus with four arms and countless other delicious things to feast one’s eyes upon.

5. awesome giant bunny birthday card, also from een, which kind of reminds me of donnie darko in a wonderful way.

6. little valentine card which showed up in my mailbox along with the most delectable chocolate chip cookie ever a couple of years back from maggie & heal; it reads: “It’s true! It’s true! We think you’re NIFTY! And we’re thrilled to be your pals. And we thought you might like one of these. xo, Heal & Maggie”

7. photo of me with maggie & heal’s cat, guy crowder, with whom I shared a real bond, mailed to me after he left them for elysian fields with the assistance of kitty aids, poor fella.

8. little page torn out of tiny notebook: “DEEP THOUGHT about LIFE. Our drum: >BANG<. Another drum: >BONG<. We must all DANCE to the MUSIC of our own DRUM. But what if our own drum is BROKEN or we are hearing someone ELSE’S DRUM by mistake?” and I’ve got a rotten sense of rhythm to begin with.
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sidenote: maggie & heal bought my iowa house. before and throughout this transaction, I used to go over to their house, often on the spur of the moment, and play dictionary and boggle and write letters longhand and eat delicious food and just generally feel, I dunno, kind of like the best sort of family. they’re both gorgeous, warm, generous people and wonderful writers and a big part of the iowa that still holds my heart. living here in the city where everyone’s always got about a zillion things scheduled, I really really miss that slow time I shared with them– it hits me at odd hours, about six times a week.