Let me show you.

Function, function, function. Gotta get a better motto.

There's a stray (or'nge) cat that climbed in our kitchen window. I named him Bones 'cause that's what he's a bag of. Can't keep him, but I plan to feed him and hang out with him in the alley. Me and Bones. A couple of old souls.

My friend Tamara (not to be confused with my cousin Tamra) is in the hospital. Her water broke and the baby isn't due for two more months. They'll be at the hospital until September and she's one who thrives on rolling around in grass, playing in dirt, and sleeping with fresh air blowing in the window, so I imagine long-term hospitalization will be tough on her. Ultrasounds showed the baby looking incredibly healthy, but still...please think of them and say a prayer if that's what you do.

Courtney deposited a bunch of hand-me-downs in my car yesterday. (Or would they be hand-me-ups, since I'm bigger than she is?) I laughed that some of the things were items that I had handed down to her years ago. I laughed again because some of the clothes reminded me of Mac walking around virtually naked all the time. (I miss you, Laura Mac!) And then I laughed because my favorite item was a pair of tie-dyed underwear that I suspect Courtney tie-dyed herself.

Dirty pseudo-hippies.

I need a cup of tea.

Bear cat.

There was no flood. Just a lot of dreariness, which the lettuce enjoyed just as much as I did.

Courtney suggested that I plant lettuce in an old shoe rack, which turned out to be the greatest container-gardening plan ever!

It gets a bit wilty during the hotter parts of the day, but perks back up in the evening.

Here is a photo of a dirty hippie preparing to eat a gigantic cake pop:

(The cake pops were fun to make...and a huge hit at Marvin's work.)

And here is our de-cluttered living room:

Tomorrow I'll try to post about all the great things that have happened this past week, but for now I'm going to leave you with a glimpse of Mr. Eko - the cat that most people have never met. He tends to hide behind the fridge or under the sofa when company comes over, but the rest of his time is spent talking a lot, annoying Derby, trying (but failing) to turn doorknobs to places he'd rather be, searching for the most comfortable lap available, "drinking" with his paws, and looking like a bear cat. He answers to both "Bear Cat"...and "Rain Man," God bless 'im.

P.S. - Here is a picture of a real bear cat for reference. I hear they like to eat bananas.

Happy Earth Day.

We may as well acknowledge that we're all fucked. I don't mean this in the delightful sense of lovers...meeting in the middle of their hearts and minds and bodies, but in the sense that we're in far more trouble than words can say. Wild salmon are disappearing, as are great apes, coral reefs, native earthworms, wild forests, wild places of all stripes. Last week two more chunks of Antarctica fell into the sea. Dioxin contaminates polar bear fat, and it contaminates mother's milk. Three corporations control more than eighty percent of the beef market, and seven corporations control more than ninety percent of the grain market. Military scientists have placed computer chips in the brains of rats, and can force the creatures to go left, right, backward, forward by pushing buttons on keyboards...

We're fucked. We all know the numbers. We know that twenty-five percent of all women in this culture are raped within their lifetime, and another nineteen percent have to fend off rape attempts. Which means of course that unless one guy is excruciatingly busy, an awful lot of men are rapists...

We know also that 565,000 American children are killed or injured every year by their parents or guardians. We know, too, that there are more slaves in the world today than came across on the Middle Passage. And we know that in the 1830s a slave in the American South cost between $500 and $1000, the equivalent of $50,000 to $100,000 today. And now a slave costs about $50, making them not even a capital but a simple expense, to be used up and thrown away. 

We're fucked. 

If we're so fucked, one might reasonably ask, why not just go ahead and off ourselves?...the answer: life is good. Life is really, really good. Not mediated life. Not televisions, cars, stereos, jobs, professional sports, colognes, perfumes, skyscrapers, steel, asphalt, brick, mortar. But life. Waking up with the sun on your face. Tasting your lover's sweat. Stubbing your toe, petting a dog...helping your mother plant her garden, feeling your body grow heavy at the end of a hard day, and waiting to catch up to your dreams. But to merely reside in the sensual as the world burns isn't good enough. Nor is it good enough merely to mourn the losses both inside and out. Both of these are necessary, but not sufficient...If things are so bad, one can also ask (this time unreasonably, I think), why not just withdraw into the sensual, why not just party (or cry)? Because...this question reveals nothing neither more nor less than an inability to love. If you're in love, with your life, with your body, with your lover, with the tree outside your door, with the world that gives rise to all of these, the fact that we're all deeply, deeply fucked doesn't matter a damn to your actions: if you're in love, you act to protect your beloved. If we are to survive, we must recliam our planet from those corporations which-and people who-are destroying it. But even before this, we must reclaim our own bodies and our hearts from that same grasp. - Derrick Jensen, May 2002

[*photos from my Admirable things folder...found who-knows-where. Yours? Ask me to remove 'em or give you due credit and I will gladly do so. <3]

The past couple of weeks have been all hammock-lounging, Gibran and Psalms-reading, campfire smoke-inhaling, UTI-healing, whole wheat bread-baking, LOST theorizing, cat fur-wrangling, (gladly) pollen-sneezing, clutter downsizing, and plan-making. So the normal routine, plus a few seasonal additions..and the UTI brought on by too many ginseng root beers last week. (I knew better.) 

Four little tomato plants have sprouted in the container garden, plus about a million lettuce plants. The artichokes are hanging in there, but the wildflowers are looking a little floppy.

Last night Marvin and I went to dinner with my co-workers and a rep from NOW foods. They talked a lot about things that happened before Marv and I were born, but none of the terribly exciting topics. I zoned out and kept trying to remember what it was like to be an egg and a sperm and not a whole person, but failed. We left saying that it was time for our Mad Men marathon date, but it was loud in the restaurant and Louie's husband thought we sad Batman marathon. We didn't tell him otherwise.

Back to the hammock and the breeze.

LOVE,
Sarah.

P.S. - Andrea, I found ANOTHER band-aid in the pair of shoes of yours I inherited at the junk swap a couple of years ago. This makes, what? half a dozen band-aids out of a single pair of shoes! It's starting to get a bit eerie because each time I'm positive that I've gotten the last of the band-aids out...but then another one magically appears a few months later. Is it voodoo that youdoo?

Everyone had rotting carpet and a door to pay for.

A few nights ago I had the happiest dream. In the dream I befriended a garden gnome and his fawn friend. We always communicated non-verbally. Last night I was cleaning up my desk and came across this photo of the gnome and fawn from my dream:


I had printed it off the computer in 2008, tucked it into an album and forgotten about it. Now it's framed and every time I see it I can't help but smile.

Yesterday morning I woke up and decided to drive one hundred miles in a blizzard. I don't think I'll be doing that again any time soon.


And this morning I woke up with a song in my head that just won't go away. I'm not complaining; it's a good song.



I've been reading Miranda July's No one belongs here more than you. Loving it so much. Very hard to ration. I could stay up all night quoting my favorite parts, but I'll just leave you with this one:

...Theresa was sitting on the floor next to a chair. This is always a bad sign. It's a slippery slope, and it's best to just sit in chairs, to eat when hungry, to sleep and rise and work. But we have all been there. Chairs are for people, and you're not sure if you are one...

I've had the biggest non-sexual crush on Ms. July since I was eighteen and stumbled upon Learning to Love You More. Best diy collaboration ever. Then it was Me and You and Everyone We Know, with my favorite intro of all time.



And then I discovered the website for her book, which (even if you have no appreciation for artsy fartsy performances and are not mesmerized by the magic of ordinary life) you might think is pretty neat. I do. Obviously.

If I ever get around to hosting a celebrity dinner party the following people will certainly get invitations: Jorge Garcia & Sidekick 22, Miranda July, all the members of Le Tigre (don't remind me that they are no longer a band), Devendra Banhart, Beth Ditto, Aaron Weiss, and Natasha Khan. Lovely weird lovelies.

Enough rambling about famous people that I admire.
Do you know what I miss?
MySpace.
MySpace in the days when you were only allowed eight photos and one profile song.
Now a confession:
I created a MySpace account in hopes of getting Marvin to fall in love with me. We hadn't exchanged phone numbers after our first encounter because he was in the process of getting out of a crappy relationship and I was in a perpetual state of trying to convince myself that I hated men. The MySpace account was Rachel's brilliant idea. Possibly her only brilliant idea of the past decade! (AHAHAHA. Juuuust kidding Rachel. I know you're reading this and both grumbling and laughing about it and you should know that a) I love you and b) right now I'm glad that you're in Egypt and unable to punch me in the boob. I know you wish you could.)
But yeah. Primitive MySpace days...you ruled.

I think I've over-blogged.

Crap.

Snowventures.

Last weekend was a winner. Friday night was spent playing cards with the ladies. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday were devoted to a solo road trip into the mountains to visit my mama and daddy. I love a good drive alone periodically for planning, reminiscing, singing poorly, and admiring the scenery. I got to the snowy parts of the drive just at dusk and just as "Dreams" by The Cranberries started to play. I had an incredibly strong urge to veer off the road into a Narnia-esque field, get out of the car, and spin in circles. I reminded myself that the little events in my life are in fact NOT cheesy scenes from a movie and kept driving. But I smiled the rest of the way.

At home I ate some of my mama's homemade vegetable soup (canned with vegetables from last summers garden...including OKRA! mmm!) and sweet potato pie. We watched a bunch of Freaks and Geeks and went through mounds of old paperwork from the locksmith shop. Closing a business is a lot more tedious than I'd realized.

I miss living in such close proximity to trees and wildlife and falling asleep without the glow of a street light complicating things. I also miss snow.



[The last two photos are of a frozen waterfall and the rock I chose as my defense against potential forest predators after seeing some prints in the snow that either belonged to a big dog, a coyote, or a really big cat.]