My Worst Habit

My worst habit is I get so tired of winter
I become a torture to those I'm with.

If you're not here, nothing grows.
I lack clarity. My words tangle
and knot up.

How to cure bad water? Send it back to the river.
How to cure bad habits? Send me back to you.

When water gets caught in habitual whirlpools,
dig a way out through the bottom
to the ocean. There is a secret medicine
given only to those who hurt so hard they can't hope.

The hopers would feel slighted if they knew.

Look as long as you can at the friend you love,
no matter whether that friend is moving away from you
or coming back toward you.

--a poem by Rumi

Love Affair with Walt Whitman

A Noiseless Patient Spider

A noiseless patient spider,
I marked where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Marked how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be formed, till the ductile anchor hold
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

So, this sort of blows the cover of my handle, those of you who know me, will know who copied this poem. Don't know what to say in addition that isn't said perfectly in this poem by Walt.

bizarro little house episode

When I am working from home, I tend to watch the daily Little House on the Prairie rerun and usually I've seen the episode at least 10 or 15 times before. I still love it and frequently even cry while watching (earlier this week, the 2 episode arc of James (played by little Jason Bateman!) and Cassandra's parents dying and then going to live with the Ingall's was on and I cried like a baby).

Well, today I turned it on and saw an episode I've never seen before - and it was CRAZY!! I missed the first 10 minutes or so, so I'm not sure how it started, but what I saw was so completely awesome, I had to share it.

As I turned it on, Almanzo and John Carter (the hot neighbor with the 2 boys, one of whom is little blond Jason Carter) are on some kind of vacation in Minneapolis or Sleepy Eye. They walk up to a Japanese bath house and have this weird exchange with the proprieter - then proceed to get naked (!) and step into an indoor bath. Then, 2 Japanese women come in and try to scrub them in the tub, which totally freaks them out. They ask the women to stop scrubbing them and then this giant sumo guy comes in with 3 smaller Japanese guys, who all get naked and come into the bath. The women start scrubbing these other men who are writhing around and loving it.

Seriously, this was the raciest scene I have ever seen on Little House - but the awesomeness doesn't stop there. Almanzo and Jeb are walking around the next day and this little old lady asks for help crossing the street - they help her out by causing this big scene to stop traffic and walking her across. Of course, she pickpockets Almanzo and when they try to get the wallet back she totally manipulates the situation and gets them arrested.

Back in Walnut Grove, a hot new preacher comes to town (!) which makes Reverend Alden and Mr. Edwards kind of freak out - I'm not sure exactly why though. Anyway, Hot New Preacher is actually in town to present Rev. Alden with a new house, so he asks Laura and John Carter's wife to help him get the house ready. Of course, Mr. Edwards thinks the HNP is totally sexing up the ladies and spies on them, eventually running up and punching out HNP. In fact, Edwards thinks HNP has cast a spell (!) on Laura and Mrs. Carter in order to make them have sex with them - he goes to Doc Baker to find out if this is possible.

Anyway, ultimately Almanzo and John have to stowaway on a train to get home (they must have been in Minneapolis) and Rev. Alden gets his new house, which he loves, and all ends well.

This new Little House episode was such an awesome Valentine's Day gift - I got such a kick out of it. I wonder if there are others that I haven't seen! A girl can only hope...

Neighbors for Porkys in Northeast

I just stumbled across a blog called "Neighbors against Porkys" where concerned residents of Northeast Minneapolis are complaining about the new locally owned burger drive-through restaraunt on Central Avenue. Honestly, I think the only way this place hurts our neighborhood is by putting a little extra fat on our waistlines. If I am correct, there is an ugly old Burger King a block or two away on Central and I don't hear a big uproar about getting rid of that. Could Porky's possibly be a really horrible thing for the neighborhood? If you live near Central and 19th, I think there are much bigger problems of crime than Porky's could ever contribute to. Would you rather live near a big vacant lot on a sketchy street? If you choose to live that close to a busy street like Central, of course there will be businesses close by. One of the blogging posts is titled "Local "Pork Tenderloin" Blogger Says Porky's Disappoints" Is this for real? By the way, the Tasty Burger is supposed to be fabulous. I guess when the weather warms up, we will see if the classic cars and motorcyles make a horrible noise and upset the calm, soothing ambience of Central Avenue Northeast.

Netflix for Books!

So, I know I've mentioned to some of you that I think it would be a cool idea to have a Netflix for books. I was thinking real, live books - but I just discovered Netflix for Audiobooks! I'm so excited! It's at http://www.simplyaudiobooks.com/ - I've already signed up.

I am going to save the audiobooks on my iPod and listen to them at the gym or on the plane. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

White Magic

Check out this band, White Magic. I saw them while in Portland and the lead vocalist, Mira Billotte, is absolutely amazing and captivating. If you click on the link you'll go to a myspace page and to the right you can listen to some songs. My three faves there are "Very Late", "Childhood Song", and "The Light". If you ever get a chance to see them perform, DO SO.



On a disparate note, I finished a portrait painting last night of my friend, and will include dark, badly shot, picture of said portrait here. The portrait's subject's blog is up and to your right, Jason T Miles, a true artist, check out his blog peeps!



Me, I'm a dabbler, but how I enjoy dabbling...

wet delhi cow slime

I just wanted to share this from an email Ryan sent me from India - I could tell you this story, but I don't think I can do it with quite the flair that he has:

ok-one funny story-so all the cows walking around-if you want to call the cows to come to you to feed them-you would say "la-la-la-la-la",etc.-so I couldn't quite remember this, then it just came to me- I was not paying attention to how many cows there were around me, so I said "la-la-la-" to one of the cows-at least five came running around the corner totally surrounding me sticking their wet slimy noses all over me-ICK!! wet delhi cow slime-some local saved me and lured the cows away with some white bread- kinda freaked me out-funny, I speak hindi cow.

Next Blog

I've never really spent much time in Blogger before we started this blog, but in messing around I have clicked on the Next Blog link at the top a few times and, man, there is some awesome stuff out there.

I guess you just get sent to random blogs as you click on the link, so every experience is different. Last night, I actually found that Obama video from one of the blogs, which was definitely cool. I also came across some woman's scrapbooking blog last week - I was completely fascinated. You should have seen the intensely detailed scrapbooking pages she put together - I marveled at the thought of having enough time to do ONE of those pages, let alone books of them.

I've seen people's travel blogs (young Dutch kid in New Zealand, elderly couple in their RV), notes on video game exploits, art projects, comments on media - everything. I definitely recommend people take a spin.

I also wanted to add a couple of friend's blogs to our list of links, but I can't figure out how to do it.

#1: Brooke's India blog - this is Ryan's brother Aaron's girlfriend. She is making some comments on their travels. I love her telling of the time they spent in New York with Sergio and Bretton:
http://mysteryintrigueandgiardia.blogspot.com/

#2: Eric and Maria's blog - these are friends living in Seattle. Some of you may have met them when they have visited (Melissa knows Eric from college). They are having a baby any day now and this is their baby blog. The video of Maria's belly completely freaks me out. I'm seriously rethinking the whole pregnancy thing - enjoy!
http://web.mac.com/mesztergal/iWeb/Eric%20%26%20Maria/Eric%20%26%20Maria%27s%20Blog/Eric%20%26%20Maria%27s%20Blog.html

Reservation Road

I finished reading Reservation Road by John Burnham Schwartz recently. I was interested because I was recently slightly obsessed with Joaquin Phoenix after seeing "Walk The Line" and I wanted to read this before seeing the new movie based on the book that he is in.

It is a devastatingly sad book, the majority of it explores the aftermath of a child being killed in a hit and run - both from the perspective of his family and the man that killed him. Yeah - this isn't exactly a fun read.

But it is really beautiful at times - mainly about the treasure of small moments, little observations of love that a lot of times are so small we just enjoy them internally and never share them with the person we love. The family that has lost their son spends a lot of time remembering moments with him and trying to find their way back to each other - the man that killed him is dealing with observations of his love for his son that he knows he must give up in order to come clean about what he did and face the consequences.

One of my favorite moments is when one of the dads is comforting his son at night and he lifts his son out from the covers and feels the trapped heat under the blankets from his small body. I just love when a book finds those moments - something that I've felt before, such a feeling of intimacy and love and caring, but I've never really articulated it. I know that little ball of heat when my cat is sleeping under the covers, or when I lean over to kiss Ryan good-bye in the morning - those sweet private moments that give me a little pinch of love for my family. I just appreciate that this book made me take more notice of those things and remember that love is made up of so many little moments. I shouldn't be moving so fast that I don't remember to feel all those special things.

I also think it is really interesting to get in the mind of a person that I'm sure anyone reading this feels an immediate disgust for - the hit and run driver. This book isn't an excuse for him - it just puts you in his head and gives you all of the motivations and situations that led up to him making that decision. Then, it lets you see how trapped he is, both in his hatred for himself and his dilemma with his own son. I really feel like his story ends up as heartbreaking as the family that lost their boy.

Really, the only downside of this book is the subject matter - it makes me ache just thinking about it again. It's a tearjerker at times, but I feel like it also trys to be honest, warts and all - there are no one-dimensional characters, it's really a portrait of human beings.

Music & Memory

After writing about the Editor's show the other night, and the dance party, and so on, I've been thinking about the nature of music and memory and how it enters our lives in unexpected ways. I bought a car that has only a tape player, so I dug out my moldy old tapes, and on a long drive started listening to various mixes. I found one made for me by a boyfriend in college that is pretty great considering it's from-oh-1992 or something. Lots of Peter Murphy and so on. Then I found a tape made by someone I was in love with who was far away at the time (circa 1995 or so)...these songs that I hadn't heard in years brought back sharp feelings and longing for those days. Then a mix tape made by my best friend for my 25th birthday. It's amazing how we all have the ability to sing along word for word with songs we haven't heard in maybe a decade and it's like not a day has passed. My musical taste and interest has obviously changed over the years and I wouldn't choose to listen to most of the music on the tapes now, but there is something so visceral about my reaction to the songs I once loved. Music can cement a certain memory and emotion in that time and place and to hear the songs again brings back that emotion in such an unexpected, strong way.