With feet like roots and acorn boots.

Hesitancy looms.

Tucked into the round wicker chair in the back forty of my parent's basement, a sense of cool and calm have settled in as well. The frigidity of the basement is welcomed today. My neck is tomato red.

Back up.

This morning, Aunty Marj and I painted the entire deck around her pool in our bras. Well, I was in my bra. We worked quickly and the sun burnt both our necks/shoulders (and my back) to a crisp. It was glorious. Working with her was glorious. She is a journalist and I would like to be a journalist. Therefore the conversation was as filling as my mother's rhubarb crisp that we ate for dessert today. Delicious and filling words of wisdom, thank you. After a job well done, her and I sprawled out on the fakey tile floor of the sun porch and doused ripped up pool towels and ourselves with turpentine and any and all traces of the oil stain washed away and disappeared completely. I left and walked down the sidewalk toward home with my skin reeking (a nice reminder of Martha Street) and a one hundred dollar gift certificate for dry cleaning almost as crisp as my neck tucked into the front pocket of my paint smattered shorts. I have always regarded Aunty Marj as a big tipper, but that was just plum hysterical. Thanks for a great day, great lady. You rule, teach me everything you know.

Brule's rule.

My penchant for writing has gone with the south winds and the ease with which I use to sit and think and then write has gone as well. I am not sure if this is because I am so deliriously happy with Thom, or due to the very strange city/country routine that I have fallen into, or the fact that I am no longer alone in my apartment. I keep having to remind myself that this too shall pass and praying that the fluidity with which I used to think/write will once again return. I am not sure so anymore. I have been thinking so much, switching gears in the last few months, planning and plunging ahead for the months of toil and reclusiveness that are to come. I will write in the woods. I will write in the woods. I will write in the woods. It is funny how often I find myself repeating this very sentence over and over while rolling walls, while cooking for two, while washing the dishes, while folding my dad's work shirts, while carrying cucumber salad to the gazebo, while staining a railing and I suppose only time will tell. For now, I am not writing because I cannot.

Finding Thom was pure luck, a shot in the dark, a lottery if you will. He is good to me. He is good for me. Before I found him I was in a place where contentedness abounded in my singleness, but my desire to adore someone and to be adored trumped everything else. It trumped the insane social calendar, the bananas dinner parties, the dance nights, the expensive haircuts, the long shifts, the solitary bike rides. In retrospect, I can still do all of those things, but my priorities seem to have shifted in the quiet of the night. It has been deliriously easy to fall into the role of someone's lady, someone's girlfriend (which is such a strange term, it has been years since I have tried it on for size), and I think this trend of adoration will be an easy one to uphold. I miss him when he leaves the room. Barf. Love is nice. It fits like a glove.

Since the loss of my apartment, I do miss my liquid dinners with Rebecca with a surprising severity. I miss Thursday dinners and bottles of nice wine where she would traipse in, dump her shit, perch bird-like on the same kitchen chair (on her side of the table) and we would talk while I would perform magic and make something out of nothing. Out of all of the things I miss, I miss that. But girl, we will start again as soon as I find a new home; with feet like roots and acorn boots. You know how the rest of the song goes, we listened to Yosh sing it one hundred million times while winding through the Alps; you slumped against me, me slumped against you. Speaking of trains and running away to Europe, please do yourself a favor and watch this. (Click on Le Film and die happy). Oh Audrey, how I love you.

Let's run away together.
Europe is closer than I think, I think.

This is terrible. Just when I discover my path, I loose my ability to write. Hands are tied. Oh well. Who cares, I am in love with a man with the best taste in shoes (and everything else).

Le sigh.

About town.

Wet apple blossoms.
Baby green colored shrubs.
White on pavement, rain rain rain.
Clean sheets with stripes.
Breakfast laid down like a newborn beside the bed.
Creamed earl grey with Babs.
Abi's laugh.
Short latte, black.
Bare toes.
A man in a green cardigan holding a passport printed umbrella.
A sort of letterpress class at high noon.
Hand drawn loose leaf.
Jeanette's delicate gold leaf.
Copper etching smell.
Boyfriend socks.
One green apple eaten.
Thinking of Liza.
Missing JJ.
A noon hour kiss in a fishy entrance way.
More silvery rain.
A silver bun on the bus.
Crazy people coming out of the woodwork.
Helvetica, everywhere possible.
Back at home, espresso cups strewn about.
Thom's shirt smell.
Handwritten notes dappling white and wood surfaces.
Two cameras on the coffee table.
Hella for Ikea, apparently.
Three pairs of glasses for two with 20/20 vision.
Willy Wonka's sunglasses.
Six apples in a bowl, uneaten.
A cup for lager, filled with pretentious pens.
Teak and green fabric.
A low hanging pendant.
Light wind from the north east.
No mail.
Good Monday.

Queen Papaya.

See? I told you so. Maiya got fatter. I am pleased as punch. And Kaleb can ride a bike now. Awesome.

(I am in love with this baby lady).
Photo credit goes to Tante Marj and now my mother, baby paparazzis of the year.

35 Club.

Hi.

I am not sure why I am so hesitant to write these days. Perhaps it is the lack of quiet, the lack of darkness, the lack of a home. Feist and Grizzly Bear are in the throes of a duet in my ears and the tricky afterthought effects of Gravol are just beginning to course thick through veins. I am trying not to throw up on my (not so) white keyboard. Now, a public service update. Yes, I am still without a home but am far from homeless. These are my days: Monday to Thursday a tender mother wakes me up with song or back scratching exactly the same way she did six years ago (time lapse) when I lived here lived here. Every morning I stay in bed for five extra minutes, allowing myself to linger in the cocoon of warmth in my very single bed (I refuse to sleep anywhere else), then I drag upstairs to my familiar spot at the oval oak dining room table and watch my mother putter around. One cup of coffee, check emails and daily design sites, haggard hair, haggard face, haggard painting outfit. We eat in silence, both of us, mother and daughter lost in our respective paper/electronic coloumns. We both clean up reluctantly, and go to work, together. We paint. I listen to my delightful coworkers cackle and babble on about delightful granddaughters (Norah!), perennial gardens, sexy weekend getaways in their husband's sexy midlife crisis vehicles of choice, canning, babies, babies, babies, aches, pains, family. There is more laughter. It is wonderful, I love working with them. I roll. I am terrible edger. We sit down three times and everyone is sore but there is no point in talking about it anymore seeing as they have been doing this for majority of my life. Respect, ladies. Respect. We finish, last stripes and flicks of the wrists, bodies heavy and slow with tiredness and disinterest in gawdy paint colors. We eat the delicious dinner that my mum miraculously pulls together in the time that I am washing away my tiredness/soreness in the shower. She is incredible. Cal comes home. They kiss, always. We linger at the table, laugh, talk about things. Sometimes I go for bike rides, but most of the time the wind is up and I am too tired to ride fixed without the vaccuum of city traffic to pull me along when my legs feel like quitting. Today I thought about Thomas and sat on the front step of the deck and folded laundry while my mother and grandmother tooled around the yard talking shop (perennials again [their collective plant knowledge is very impressive], and damn those rabbits), and in the far reaches of the back, back yard, my father makes perfect rows for the garden with a how that is bigger than a modest rafter (basically) even though he is even more tired than mother and daughter. I think about Thom again and the beautiful Brooks saddle that Jon found in his dad's garage from thirty years ago (heirloom) and then put away the folded clothes and write to various people that are on my mind. Seizure inducing stills of American Idol flash from the giant television stuck to the wall out of the corner of my eye and then the phone rings. It is Grandma.

"Come over, your jeans are reeeeeeeady" she says as she crunches into the receiver.
"Oh, okay. Be right there" I say, suddenly in the mood for a drive and something crunchy. When I arrive she pads to the door holding a bowl of dry Captain Crunch in her grandmother hands. Plaid shirt. I quickly picture her bent over the sewing machine eating cereal absentmindedly as the needle tick tocks in the crotch of my jeans.
"You are seventy three years old. You are seventy three and eating Captain Crunch. Dry. I love you" I love her, so much.
"It is delicious dry; even better than popcorn". As she says this, she tosses me my two favorite pair of jeans, both of which are worn through in the left inner thigh from my own Brooks saddle. Her attempt at matching the denim with the patches is a complete disaster and I love her even more for it. Shit, what a lady. Helen Helen Helen. You hate mending, and you love Captain Crunch. She is also a proud member of the 35 Club. Tomorrow, instead of playing a competitive round of Scrabble with me, she is going to 35 Club to eat scones and drink punch and talk about being born in 1935 with a bunch of other people who were born in 1935. Here are some things that happened in 1935, just for a bit of perspective:

- Amelia Earhart is the first woman to fly solo from Hawaii to California
- Iceland becomes the first country to legalize abortion
- The polygraph machine is tested for the first time. Leonard Keeler conducted the experiment in Portage, Wisconsin
- Babe Ruth played his first National League game in Fenway Park in Boston
- Nazi Germany adopts a new national flag with the swastika
- First screening of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first feature-length animated movie
- Penguin produce the first paperback book
- The China Clipper makes the first Pacific Airmail delivery

How Much things cost in 1935: shit.

Average Cost of new house $3,450.00
Average wages per year $1,600.00
Cost of a gallon of Gas 10 cents
Average Cost for house rent $22.00 per month
A loaf of Bread 8 cents
A LB of Hamburger Meat 11 cents
Average New Car Price $625.00
Canada Dry Ginger Ale 20 Cents

That was interesting. All facts copy pasted without permission from a slew of interesting websites.

Anyway, I still have yet to puke on my laptop. This is a good thing I guess. Oh right, I should hook my proverbial jacket on the e-brake of the first train of thought. Conclude, conclude, conclude. It is so difficult to concentrate these days now that there is a new baby in our inner circle. My cousin Kate had a baby lady! She, the long haired child who is too precious to be named or clothed is stunning. Jer, if you are reading this, I agree with you. That child is a born pianist. Her hands are bananas. Anyway, I want to see this queen, but until then, I will listen to podcasts and think of my beloved and his hands. I am living in a town outside of the city (vague, I know), paying off debt before I leave for the woods, living the good life with my parents in the land of plenty. On the weekends I have been floating around town at the heels and at the hip attached to the endlessly long legs of my new beau, Thom. We drink espresso on the kitchen floor, all knock-kneed with joy and wonder, we ride our bicycles and I am getting fat again from all the croissants and whipping cream that I slip into the food I cook in an effort to fatten him up. I am happy, ridiculously happy. JJ, I heard The National's "So Far Around the Bend" this evening and thought of you. Me, you, us, soon. Pop Montreal.

I know you’re a serious lady
Living off a teacup full of cherries
Nobody knows where you are livin
Nobody knows where you are

Take a bath and get high through an apple
Wanted to cry but you can’t when you’re laughin’
Nobody knows where you are livin’
Nobody knows where you are

You’re so far around the bend
You’re so far around the bend

I’ll run through a thousand parties
I’ve run through a million bars
Nobody knows where you are livin
Nobody knows where you are

You’ve been humming in a daze forever
Praying for Pavement to get back together
Nobody knows where you are living
Nobody knows where you are

You’re so far around the bend
You’re so far around the bend

Now there’s no leaving New York
Now there’s no leaving New York

You’re so far around the bend
You’re so far around the bend

Now there’s no leaving New York
Now there’s no leaving New York
Now there’s no leaving New York
Now there’s no leaving New York


Thankfully, this song isn't as applicable as it used to be (save for the fact that I have dropped off the face of the earth [happily so]) but I still love it and I still think of JJ when I hear it. I am also happy to report that Maiya is getting even fatter and so is my love. One hundred percentile of love.

Bye.

Would you rather.

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack. Kind of. Almost.

It has been days, weeks since the idea of even gracing this page with flying fingers has even crossed my mind. I have been a bit distracted, to say the least. I type this with a loopy grin stretching across my creased morning face. Many things have changed and since settled within the last couple of weeks. Much to my own surprise, I am living with my parents in their lovely home for a few weeks before I am set to leave for the woods. My tent is ready, I have my supplies, my clothes are packed for the most part and I am technically ready, save for a few hundred rolls of duct tape that I have yet to charge at the store. Thanks dad.

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.

But.

There is always a but. Last night when I set up my tent in a smoky haze while my parents ran around their giant yard trimming this and burning that in the half hearted rain, I lay on my back inside of my tent in the garage and questioned how in the world I will be able to do this. It is not the work that scares me, it is the missing. The great and deep missing of things, of neighborhoods, of my bicycle(s), of the man who has made my eyes turn into constant constellations that are so bright even strangers burst out laughing when they see me at the post office, in the grocery store, at the shop, on the sidewalk, rolling ceilings. I took down the tent quickly, it was an easy set up. It is a two man, even though the box it came in swore it was three. Two person tent. Instantly I am in a white living room with Billy bookcases as one of two people inside a two man tent with starry eyes. The idea of leaving just became one buhtrillion times harder.

The weekend. I am a weekender now. I pack my faux Louis Vuitton duffle bag strategically at every week's end and try to think of everything I will need for the weekend in the city. Last weekend, all I needed was a kimono, a book of poetry (Beth I found you the perfect book of all time), tiny tennis shoes that look just like Grandma's, and my good chopping knife. Wandering around town and standing in a forever long line laughing at the Italian butcher, perusing the aisles upon aisles of books and judging their covers, eating oranges peeled behind my back and grinning nonstop. Good weekend.

"What is it? My dear?"
"Ah, how can we bear it?"
"Bear what?"
"This. For so short a time. How can we sleep this time away?"
"We can be quiet together, and pretend--since it is only the beginning--that we have all the time in the world."
"And every day we shall have less. And then none."
"Would you rather, therefore, have had nothing at all?"
"No. This is where I have always been coming to. Since my time began. And when I go away from here, this will be the mid-point, to which everything ran, before, and from which everything will run. But now, my love, we are here, we are now, and those other times are running elsewhere."

-A. S. Byatt, Possession

When I read the above excerpt last night while tucked into my childhood bed in my home away from (no) home, the air in my lungs held fast and without a fight my mind went to a room of white and wood with a canvas hanging backwards on the wall.

I do not know how or where to begin.
I am full, I am full, I am full.

More to come; I am back from the grave of the uninspired and am slowly, slowly shaking off the dust. Elbows out, chin up (and very red), kid gloves, too long bangs, giant heart, Cat Power in my ears, the Architect on my mind. Off to chase my mother with a paintbrush. I have always wanted to be a painter. It sounds so romantic--I just wasn't picturing this. Better money. Also, below, introducing the man causing all the commotion.

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.

See you C. U. Kornelson, Megan