This happily cramping in bed day has been devoted to reading the stacks of printed things within reach, dog-earing and underlining the parts of books, zines, and magazines that I deem the most valuable, and then copying those parts into various journals, little black books, and lists. Once I've digested and/or re-written the goods, the book, zine, or magazine gets passed on to someone else. This has been my system for awhile. It's usually a slow process, but a lot of progress has been made on "the stacks" today. I'm taking a break from my "work" while Marvin takes a break from his. This break was spent browsing ffffound. It was a good ffffound day, as you can see from the pictures above. I only stumbled upon one vagina. You never know what you might ffffind in someones collection. Today I learned that people who like pictures of bunnies dressed in aprons and Fight Club also might like crotch-shots. Who knew? There was also this:
Marvin has given me permission to marry Robert Downey Jr. in the event that I am widowed. My only other Marvin-approved options are Jorge Garcia and Matt Millard:
Get the cuss out of here, worry.
You's a draining, good-for-nothing, fun-sucker.
I hereby declare the untroubled spirits of four-year-old children for us all.
I will lie down and sleep in peace, for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. - Psalm 4:8
It was so strange to wake up to the sound of an alarm today. After all the fun-havings, I am suddenly very productive. Cleaning, reading, Netflixing, embroidering, returning phone calls, making plans, preparing food...checking things off of lists like crazy. Hopefully my return to work tomorrow will feel just as nice.
After 7.5 months of being happily Facebookless, I started up a new account so I could keep in touch with Marvin's family. I got really attached to all of them over the past week. I'm no good with telephones; they're no good with e-mail...so...Facebook it is. I've already been "found" by a few Russellville kids...which is okay. I just don't want to catch myself wasting precious hours of my life browsing through the picture albums of people I barely know or would probably never choose to spend an afternoon with.
Watching Amelie does a body good.
So does eating fruit.
And dancing to your new records....
....with a cat.
Love,
Sarah
P.S. - A big congratulations to Derek and Stephanie who did a wonderful job of making a baby! Marv & I are honored to share our anniversary with Ingrid's birthday. Also, I really like her mini-Derek-ear. Well done. I can't wait to meet this great little girl in person...one of these days.
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.
I ask this... If there should be an assassination, I would hope that five, ten, one hundred, a thousand would rise. I would like to see every gay lawyer, every gay architect come out - - If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door... And that's all.I ask for the movement to continue. Because it's not about personal gain, not about ego, not about power... it's about the "us's" out there. Not only gays, but the Blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us's. Without hope, the us's give up - I know you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. So you, and you, and you... You gotta give em' hope... you gotta give em' hope. - Harvey Milk
As we grow up we are encouraged to use our free time doing things like watching tv, shopping, and eating out. Things that keep us sitting still and spending money, as the concept of play that was so natural to us as children becomes foreign. For me learning to ride a unicycle has been more freeing than I could have imagined. - Kristine Virsis
Word of the week: HOPE [thefeelingthatwhatiswantedcanbehadorthateventswillturnoutforthebest.] What to do with it: GET SOME.
I've been letting things get me reaaaaal down lately. Things like the oil spill and homeless animals and rape and classism and racism and borders and how sad people look as they go about their daily routine. Optimism seems to get harder...but I keep reminding myself that there are (probably? hopefully?) as many good things happening in the world as there are bad. They just aren't dramatic enough to appeal to the masses, so they don't get televised.
For instance:
This week Sarah Reilly saved dozens of tadpoles from a rapidly drying puddle; they now stand a chance at becoming frogs! Marvin Reilly rescued a tiny kitten from a stack of tires at his work and it is now sleeping beneath his beard! A bittersweet farewell-to-the-pool party was had at the PleasureDome! Steve Bates didn't drown in the flash flood! Lauren Matlock and all her housemates didn't get shot even though they live in the for-real ghetto! Endangered crocodiles hatched in Cambodia! Thousands of rubber ducks raced down the Connecticut River to raise money for charity! People are overcoming stuff! Folks are loving each other! Songs that don't suck are being written! Trees are still growing nice 'n' tall in lots of places and grass still conquers the sidewalks, doggone-it!
I'm tired of the gloom. Gonna build something better.
Amen?
Today marks the fifth year that Marvin and I have been dating. You know, the anniversary that we would be celebrating big-time had we not gotten married. People tend to toss the poor dating anniversary aside once they tie the knot. I bought Marvin a cookie, tied it up with a ribbon, and will probably eat half of it and retie it before he comes home...because that's what marriage is all about.
I got paid to plant flowers at work today! It made me wish I had a landscaping job, although I'm sure the majority of landscaping isn't as pleasant as playing in a flower bed.
Last week I sent Kathleen Hanna a very unofficial letter of interest regarding a summer internship with Le Tigre. I told her that if for some crazy reason they were unable to find a suitable intern, I would gladly quit my job, temporarily abandon my husband and cats, fly to NYC, and work my happy little feminist derriere off for her. She wrote back and said that they had stopped taking resumes due to the overwhelming response, so I need not ditch my spouse and job, but that my unofficial letter had made her day. This made my day. First the Jorge Garcia self-portrait, and now a personal e-mail reply from the riot grrrl of all riot grrrls. Two responses from celebrity friend-crushes in one year. (Actually Ms. Hanna is more of a heroine. I not only want to be her best friend, but also want to be just like her when I grow up. Or at least as fearless.)
on my eyes I use the dark circles of sleepless nights to great advantage
for lipstick I wear my lips
- one of the world's best poems according to me, by Rochelle Kraut
This week I vowed to always be true to the following things: hammocks, meteors, returning phonecalls. I am no longer true to housekeeping. I also attended a non-house-church for the first time in probably six years. What did I get from the experience? The desire for trendier hair and a collarbone tattoo. No, really I just prayed a lot that God would help me to not judge hipsters so doggone much. Especially nice ones in a house of worship. The commute to and from Little Rock was nice though, and confirmed that I need to get out of the house and workplace more often. A cheerful heart is good medicine.
Derby just yowled and carried on like cats do when when they've caught you a "dinner" of dead mouse or bird. The Derbs, however, was proud to present us with a wadded up paper napkin. Quite the hunter.
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?
It was a great comfort for me to learn that Netflix does indeed recycle their return envelopes.
One less pleasure to feel guilty about.
I'm anxiously waiting for bike rides, hammock weather, and an anniversary road trip to Nawlins (and wherever else the road takes us.) I've been reading up on Marie Laveau and have already decided what I'll be ordering at the Gumbo Shop. Roadside America gave some good suggestions on Louisiana oddities. So far the Leprosy Museum seems to have the most potential.
Today we found a perfect camping spot and I tried my first veggie burger from Burger King. It was...well, what one would expect from a fast food veggie burger: edible, slathered in ketchup, and probably a year old.
Cat, dog, and hermit crab sitting for Heath and Josh this week. Wishing someone would craft me a cute wrist-cuff so I can fashionably cover my tattoo while at work. If I have to explain, "...it's from a song my friend wrote," while a stranger holds my hand one more time I might lose my ability to fake-smile!
My favorite customer purchases at the natural foods store thus far:
Bee pollen. "It increases my chickens' libido."
Cucumber flavored tonic water. "I have a confession to make: I buy these to use in my signature gin & tonics..."
Peppermint essential oil. "I read that you can put this stuff on a cotton ball and stuff it in a mole tunnel to run the little devils outta your yard!"
I won't even mention the elderly woman who used the phrase, "it just stays soft!" while telling me about her husband's erectile dysfunction. Or the Hispanic man who mostly communicated with me through the use of a Spanish/English dictionary: Wife. Needs. To reaffirm. To increase. Bust. Hmmm. No hay.
Today, all cars, all fathers, all mothers, all children and lovers will have to forget about that thing in the sky, going around like a persistent rumor that will get us yet.
-Anne Sexton, my favorite
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.
