The pinnacle of civilization

This past weekend my band played Homeskillet Fest, which is a four day music event put on by a local record label. We were an odd fit for the festival, which features mostly independent singer-songwriter-y types with lots of blues and folk overtones. Most of the types who attend wouldn't know a hot rod from a hole in the ground and don't even own lipgloss, much less dedicate half a drawer to organizing just various shades of red lipstick. We got a good reception anyhow, and my new favorite quirky band complimented our harmonies. I went to buy their CD and found myself with their LP in hand instead because 1) I am cool enough to own a working turntable, kind of 2) vinyl seems more authentic and DIY and 3) for the same amount of cash as the CD, I got great big HUGE album art and a poster and all the lyrics to all the songs. I am a fan of big.

this does not show the baby blue marbled vinyl, which is the best part.

Upon investigating the fine print of the liner notes (I am also a fan of liner notes), I came upon a name that was vaguely familiar, though I couldn't quite place a finger on it. It wasn't someone I knew personally, it wasn't the friend of a friend or an acquaintance or someone I met sometime... I turned to Z. and asked, "That cat who you gave a ride to New Orleans to... the Craiglist guy? Who was he again?" "A film guy," Z. said. "Yoni Goldstein."

And there it was. Sitka is magical for a lot of reasons, but its most notable trait is that it is a nexus. Sitka is the one degree of separation for so many people; it goes beyond mere coincidence. You hear stories of Sitkans who meet each other on the opposite side of the planet after not having seen each other in two and a half decades; you hear stories of folks who are recognized in the middle of the night in a grocery store in Connecticut by their t-shirts; everyone has a cousin or an aunt or a best friend who lives here, or lived here during the war, or volunteered at Sheldon Jackson when it was still a high school. And here is another such Sitka near-coincidence: my man, on his way to see me in my favorite city, picks up a rideshare in the middle of nowhere to save on gas, who turns out to be friends with this band (from Ann Arbor Michigan, thanks, La Fab) that I become a little enchanted with when I see them live while holding hands with Z. here in our sleepy village. We are never farther than a step away from anyone here. That is just the way I like it best.

Depression chic

this is not a very good shot of this outfit.

I realize that it is only Sunday, and that I just updated yesterday, but here is an outfit for you, as well as another insightful posting. I decided yesterday that if it wasn't raining, I was going to wear this dress, which has a distinct Dust Bowl vibe to it. I had forgotten, though, that the last time I wore it was several summers ago, when it was wickedly hot here in Southeast, and when I was eight months pregnant. Since it was the coolest thing I owned, I clipped the elastic out of the waist in desperation. I set it aside after that steamy August and more or less forgot about it until yesterday. I put it on this morning and it looked kind of like a feedsack pillowcase. I added this handtooled belt, which is way too long for me, and my cowboy boots.

my pose seems urban outfitter-y.

You can't really tell, but I also added my necklace with the bird and the key and tiny milkglass earrings and petal pink lipstick and perfume that smells like crushed flowers. Then I was dressed for a Jenny Lewis concert. Since there wasn't one, I played the following songs on my iPod while I walked next to the harbor on my way to have coffee at my friend A.'s little cafe. While I was there I wrote some letters and ate some pancakes and read a few paragraphs of an Alice Hoffman novel - she is a guilty pleasure - and allowed myself a moment of wistfulness. It's hard to be wistful for long, though, if you are full of buttermilk and blueberries. Those are the words of wisdom I have to offer you. That, and, if you get the chance, dress like you are acting out a song. People complement you on your outfit that way.

Still no pictures

Here are some things that helped to erase my truly bad attitude today:

1) S. came back from Europe with the prettiest shopping bag I have ever seen, full of marvelous little gifts wrapped in hot pink tissue paper.

2) There were still lots of cherries when I went to Chelan at 11:00 this morning. I ate the whole bag of Rainiers before noon.

3) I was asked today, "Do you ride a longboard?" No, I said, I can barely walk down a flat street without falling over. Trying to ride a skateboard is beyond me. "Oh, well, I saw a woman in a red helmet longboarding the other day, and my first thought was that it must be you. I couldn't think who else it would be." Dude. I am not that awesome, but thank you.

4) My retro styled lemon yellow bathing suit arrived in the mail. I put it on immediately. It makes me feel like a Vargas painting.

5) I am going to make beets at some point today. Sooner rather than later, hopefully.

That's it. All of it. I am better now, really. All I require is a nap, and maybe a really cold beer. Ahhh.

Not to be all maudlin, but...

I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to those of you reading this whom I have been neglecting or ignoring lately. I am never very good at the communication thing, and it is the very first thing to go when I am faced with difficulties in my life. The past several weeks have been a bit of an ordeal, forcing me to ask some really hard questions and face some uncomfortable truths, and I had to let something slip away. Unfortunately, that something was the connection I cling to in order to maintain my usual equilibrium. I am sorry. I cherish you and I love you, and I was not deliberately shutting you out. I just only had enough strength to do what needed to be done. Now I'm through it, and maybe things will be sort of back to normal. As normal as things ever are for me, anyway.

Sometimes the Universe gives us gifts, you know? And sometimes She gives us lessons. Occasionally, She hands us a pop quiz in order for us to appreciate what we have before us. I feel like I just came up on one of those quizzes. I have come very close in the past several weeks to ruining something glorious because I am insecure and gun shy. I keep throwing the door wide open so he can walk right out if he wants to: telling him flat out that I was keeping an open mind about what happened when I was out of town, telling him that I thought he didn't want me enough, telling him I am full of jealousy and irrationality. Then I needed him really badly and didn't know how to tell him, and somehow he knew anyway. The Universe handed me a giant platter of humility and told me to choke it down and understand that I have been graced with his love and respect. She is offering the both of us the chance to be better people with each other than we have ever been with anyone else, and it will behoove us not to fuck it up.

So thank you, ell and vee and S.F. and K.D. and Em and H. and Meemah and Roo and the other ones who read this and worry about me and love me and hold me up. The Universe is teaching me again and again and again that love is what keeps this incomprehensible rock spinning in space. Before I learned that lesson with him, I learned it with you, and I am unspeakably grateful for your presence in my life.

And thank you, Z., for standing up and standing next to me and being what I want and need. I can't believe it took something this huge and dramatic to convince me that you are being 100% honest when you tell me that you are in it to win it. I hear you. Finally. Stick around, okay? I have a feeling big things are in store for us.

Hey, there, cool people!

Thanks for visiting our sleepy little town. I noticed that you were cool because of your dedication to looking ridiculous and ugly, no matter the circumstance or setting. For example, Mr. Fine Arts Camp assistant instructor, I was struck by your gigantic wire frame aviator glasses that sit crooked on your face and appear to not be prescription - or maybe just not your prescription. Also, I respect the moxie it takes to sport a hairdo that looks as though you cut it lefthanded with safety scissors and styled it by carefully holding your head out of the falling water the last time you showered. Your sweater vest/flannel shirt/slightly too short skinny pants/penny loafers combo is working for me, too. To top it all off, you went the extra mile by growing a leather daddy mustache and then refusing to maintain its integrity by going anywhere near it with a razor for the past three days - possibly since the last time you got the top of your head wet, judging by the hairdo. All in all, I must admire the effort that went into making you look ironic and effortless and INSANE. You realize that you look less rational than the clowning instructor, whose own hair is the color of a traffic cone and who has a rather detailed portrait of Red Skelton tattooed on his person? Okay, just so you know.

Oh, and hi! returning college student! You have grown up so much in the past eight months. I can tell because you are wearing a pillowcase for a dress, and even though it is a shapeless bundle of mushroom colored jersey knit, I can still tell you what color your knickers are, because it is so short that I can see them every time you take a step. Also, I think you may have forgotten that you have come home to a town whose average daily temperature in June is 60 degrees. Maybe you should think about putting on pants or a rainjacket or some socks - although I realize that it wouldn't be practical to wear them with your flipflops, which you are insisting are an appropriate footwear choice for a rainforest in Alaska.

I know I don't have much room to talk, as I have been known to wear leopard print heels with blue jeans, to match my hair dye to my lipstick, and to accessorize with a greasy-haired, leather covered tall drink of water. AT LEAST I BRUSH MY HAIR.

I hope your children mock you when they see pictures of you in your youth. Have a great day!

I am mostly kind of okay

It's the end of day four of feeling really shitty, and I am pretty much over it. I am exhausted and would like to have some kind of idea when this is all going to be over - or at least taper off to a point where I feel like I am on top of it instead of being swept along with my head barely above water. I want to lean really heavily on the shoulder that is right next to me, and somehow I am still finding myself trying really hard to seem a lot stronger and cooler (in the cucumber sense, not in the jazz way) than I really am. I want people to assume I am capable of handling any kind of crisis that the Universe sees fit to bat my way. By people, I mean of course, boys. All the pertinent women in my life know my fronting is exactly that.

So, what is the lesson in all of this? Don't be afraid to take the comfort that gets offered to you? Patience is a virtue? To everything there is a season? Cupcakes are an anytime food? The lesson, I think is: Make a little birdhouse in your soul.

They Might Be Giants - New Music - More Music Videos

I know you miss me!

Once upon a time I got in a little hot water for not updating this blog as often as some people would like. Then I started updating two and three times a week, and the handful of you who actually give a shit about what I am leaking from my brain were happy to peruse the endless lists of random things and the unnecessary sandwich recipes and my musings on popular culture. All that stuff is still fomenting in there, and I'd like to offer a little mea culpa to those of you who tune in just to be entertained by my weirdness. I have been slacking off of late. I know it, and I know you know it. You want more snark. You want more foibles. You want more letters to Santa Claus and Sofia Coppola (what the hell is she UP to these days, anyhow?!?) You want more Monday outfits. I will try to do better, I swear, but bear with me. I have not been spending hour upon mindless hour lolling about the Interwebz these past several weeks, and more often than not I can find more useful things to do with myself. Or so I like to tell myself, anyway.

I don't have an outfit for you today. Sorry. I can't really remember the last time I dolled up proper-like, and heaven knows it's harder to take ridiculous self-portraits of yourself when you fear the humiliation of someone walking in on you while you are practicing your best Blue Steel. I never considered this might be one of the consequences of having a boy around all the time. I suppose the most logical thing to do would be for me to press him into service as my personal photographer, but that seems oddly vain, and we all know how allergic I am to vanity (you may insert an eyerolling emoticon here, if you wish.)

I don't have any savvy commentary on pop culture or politics right now, either. Nothing is blindingly offending me or sending me into transports of delight lately, and I find it hard to wax eloquent about the middling-to-mediocre. Some of you, I know, would disagree with that, but only because you do not share my obvious good taste.

I don't have any amusing stories about the beginning of tourist season or working in a cafe or dealing with imbeciles for you. It has only been a month since the season started, and I was out of commission for more than a week, so I am still in fairly high spirits, all things considered. Give me until the Fourth of July, and we'll talk.

All in all, this is the most intensely boring and uninformative blog post I have written in a really long time, and it is mostly meant as for me, as a reminder to do this. Just for putting up with me, I have a little reward for you:

There. I hope it make you shake your ass.