what a pretty paquin

oh anna. you look like summer and you're dating a vampire so right away i love you.

also we have sand castles in common. nice craftsmanship.

call me! we'll go to toronto island for a picnic on sunday.

x

a thoughts and pictures post

the first time we went to see evil dead the musical we got verbally attacked by this insane bulldog man. he told me to move my chair in more and when i said i couldn't he shoved the chair with me in it and jeremy turned into a superhero slash werewolf and refused to stand down to the guy even though i'm pretty sure he was frothing at the mouth from his drug high or withdrawal or whichever makes you scarier.

but the point of this story is actually a happy one cause even though that frightening thing happened i had a great old time and one reason why is that jeremy never took his arm off the back of my chair. even during. and after. i remember he said to me we could go or we could stay and that it was totally up to me so i stayed because jeremy makes me feel brave and the musical started and it was so funny and campy and we went back 4 more times and brought friends.

so to summarize the key points are don't let bullies ruin your fun, jeremy is amazing and singing zombies always make everything okay.

i can sing three dixie chicks albums without even having to think about the words like it's an involuntary function like breathing. this may be a weird thing to confess.

my reading feeding continues. including some re-reads like nine stories and the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. and now midnight in the garden of good and evil. did you know that is based on a true story? between reading this book and the first two seasons of true blood (more on that in a minute), i want to move down south and climb up a mystic looking tree covered in moss wearing a pretty ivory dress from anthropologie. jeremy can learn to play the piano and i can lie on our giant wood floor and refuse to wear shoes.

so steph loves sandwiches and i love sandwiches and steph told me to watch true blood so i did after a short time delay and i loved it.

i like to put the characters into lists of who i love more and change it around after each season as i see fit.

right now it's: eric, sam, new hot werewolf guy, bill and then jason.

and sometimes lafayette.

i love the hemmingway quote that reads 'all you have to do is write one true sentence. write the truest sentence that you know.'

is there a nobler ambition?

i don't think it means writing sentences like 'i have two legs and that is the truth' either, i think it means something that is universally truthful. which could be huge and existential or very small and within you. or some beautiful connection between the two.

we want to turn the diningroom into a sunroom garden. we rarely eat at the table (except when we think it's funny to sit at either end and ask to pass the butter), and it's being slowly taken over by our plants, so, the plants win!

we're going to put some comfy chairs down and a low round coffee table in the middle and the rest will be shelves of plants and books. and in the morning we'll sit there to drink our coffee as the sun comes up from the east and we'll close our eyes and think we're in a forest.

sylvia came for dinner wednesday night and it was her first time over so she got the grand tour and i was like 'here's our record bowl and the mantle jeremy made and the framed leaf crown and our rhinoceros footstool' and stopped and thought, 'wow, our apartment rocks'.

what else? the spider had babies. and we never kill spiders in the house it's a bit of a constitution so it's been funny trying to gingerly avoid or gently re-locate the smallest spiders you ever did see. like how i saw that giant beetle burrow in the grass and didn't want to walk on the grass anymore cause i kept thinking i was taking out whole beetle villages.

jeremy says it's called anthropomorphic when you attach human emotions to non-human things. i tell him not to talk like that in front of the tea-towel.

x.

strong like snail

did you ever notice a snail? like really get to know the guy? saturday was perfect rainy snail weather so i spent some time with a few and i'm glad to report they make for pretty good company. not heavy on the conversation or anything but solid in character and moral values.


snails appear to be social animals. or they don't have eyeballs and assume that they're always alone. i liked the view from their ground level eco-system - a rich forest in miniature.


i watched one in particular for quite a while as he explored the head of a flower with his goopy delicate feelers and had one of those moments where i wondered if there was someone bigger than me, watching me observe the snail, who was observing the flower. and so on and so forth until someone falls into a mirror image of themselves and the universe collapses.

happy monday! may you be blessed with the time to be snail like in speed. and may you quit that which keeps you from this most noble quest.

painting picture prose

there was a moment here when i pondered on the safety of walking barefoot through central park. there's a fine line between shoeless and fancy free, and skidly and unhygienic. i walk that line often. the dress is a disguise.

this picture makes me think of cape cod. even though i've never been there and this is actually new york. i think it's the yellows. they remind me of 'splash' and that cape cod scene where young tom hanks falls off a boat and gets rescued by young mermaid daryl hannah.

remember when she named herself madison? it's like she unknowingly birthed a baby name trend that wouldn't start until twenty years later.

you can't tell by this photo but this day was so hot. for a spell i was glued to this wall by heat's oppressive arms. and the poster adhesive.


often i'm entranced by the way in which photos lock moments in time. like this picture of our wedding day. the version of us from october the tenth two thousand and nine is perfectly perserved in the the middle of that field in the middle of that day.

and when we're old in real life but young still in the picture we'll wink at one another like we're connected. we'll smile like we're intrinsically the same.

summer short stories

when strawberries are in season i can't decide which feature is my favourite - their colour, their smell, their taste. it's like trying to choose between jeremy's eyes and ears, (i pick both! or death!).

i wash them and hold them and smell them and bite them. the strawberries, not the ears.

sometimes i take their picture. sometimes i eat them leaves and all.



jeremy took this cool photo at that bar we love. the bbq one that plays the blues. i drink the highway 61 blonde and stare out the window. we like to make up stories of the couples walking by.


from over the lavender it seems small, from under it's tall, shooting bravely towards the sun.

lean and lanky it hopes to win first prize in the growing competition. though secretly it worries how the blue ribbon will work with its complexion.

you should hang some charley harper on your bedroom wall. you'll have sweet dreams of circles and seashores and grey.

charley harper's work reminds you of childhood and the woods and the pleasing simplicity of basic shapes which are all pleasant things if i do say so myself. why yes, yes i do.


i first learned of him when jeremy bought me his birds and words book for valentines day this year. it's a picture book mostly but the whimsical stories that go with the drawings reveal not only an artiste, but a true lover of nature.


he drew for ford times magazine for a real long time but his works have also been anthologized in some beautiful coffee table books that you should buy and leaf through and fall asleep in. face down from your reading position sprawled out on the carpet floor.


in the introduction to birds and words, written by todd oldham, charley harper's work space is described comme ca:

"his tiny studio off the family home he shared with his artist wife edie and their son brett was full of all kinds of nature field guides and text books".

perfection.


more perfection: bacon and a bird and a campfire blowing whimsically eastward in the wind.

appleby station is frozen in time

lucy came to visit. back from bc for a week. that's enough time to take one of these photos.


and eat some of these pastries.

i ponder on the logistics of self portraits in the future. us three when we're 80 reminding lily she needs to sit on the end because that's the logical method we figured out years back, (she has the longest arms and the angle is right).

it's important to arrive at these conclusions early on in your female friendships. this and who of you can sing all the words to gloria estefan's congo.

over here getting an education

the reason i've been off you see it's that i've been sandwiched between some paperbacks with j.d. salinger. after catcher it was nine stories which i just now finished on the bus ride home from work. my favourite one was teddy.

even though it broke my heart.

also i read the july issue of vanity fair. the one with elizabeth taylor on the cover and the article of her long love affair with richard burton. what an epic romance!

though they'd been divorced for years, he still wrote her love letters. he wrote her one the day he died that she'd receive coming home from his funeral. it's the one letter she wouldn't let vanity fair reproduce. it's the one letter she still keeps in her nightstand.

also we have our winner for the pretty lady competition. wowsa.

and two more last things - one, my orchid is starting to bloom and two, we saw the moon through my new binoculars and i'm here to tell you the moon up close is the coolest thing ever.

second to orchids.

holy bing boo bonanza, did i ever LOVE this book. our new york city guide mentioned it and i remembered that jer had a copy and i picked it up two days ago and finished it last night.

and what a finish! so joyous i could cry.

it's funny to read people's interpretations of books after you're done reading them. it can be so affirming when they agree and so strange and foreign when they don't. like they must have read a different book. like they must have met a different holden.




the smart way to say it is stream of conscious narrative but i say i felt like he was telling me the story himself. it was personal and intimate and i laughed like i did in complicated kindness when the sarcasm hits you in that funny spot. right on the nose.

to j.d. salinger, thank you for being a beautiful writer.

and to jeremy, thank you for having beautifully written books hidden in our bookshelves for me to find when it's the right time.

this guy was napping on my quilt when i got home. he looked real comfortable too. like earlier he'd made a sandwich and watched some shows on dvd.



i put him in a jar and stuck him on the window ledge and he stayed there for a moment, probably thinking of the fun he'd had. probably wishing he could stay.

but you can't stay, bee! you'd make the guests nervous and we have no bath towels that come in your size.