January 2009 Archives

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Strange things are afoot at the Circle K. None of which I can talk about here. Sorry. Much of it is not my tale to tell.

In girlwichy news, however (which is mine and no one else's tale to tell), we're going to be experiencing some upgrades and/or alterations over the next few days-ish.

-Ish because it's Boywich who'll be doing the grunt work, and nice guy that he is, he's doing it out of the goodness of his heart, so I ain't gonna nudge him to do it quickly.

That will mean several things:

a) the site will hopefully end up looking a bit prettier.
b) there will be a live feed to my Twitter stream (I don't know what the proper term is, so as per usual, I'm coining my own.)
c) there may be a little downtime.
d) there may some unexpected scary crashes (ouch! don't hurt the cat).
e) I may need to stay out of his way by not blogging during upgrading.
f) the earth may open up and swallow its young, in which case, hey, it's been nice playing with y'all, and "I'll see you in hell!"

In News of My Life:

1. I finished my grad school applications. Somebody give me a cookie.
2. I finished my hat. Somebody give the hat a cookie.
3. Kitwich has twice attacked the hat. Nobody give her a cookie. Though I just gave her some milk, so I guess the tough-love plan is not especially in effect.

PS. If the whole novelist plan doesn't work out, I wanna be a rockstar.

Don't be alarmed, folks. Posting's light because I am in middle of major deadline, and there's no soup in my house. Erm, actually there is soup, but it's last week's soup. So I can either eat it, or make some rice and beans. Or something like that.

Tune in next week for further thrilling adventures of the contents of my fridge. Now, with more Nicaraguan dark roast coffee beans!

Oooh, that reminds me, I never had my 6pm cup. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm caffeinated.

Having a pretty good week, as it turns out. I've been spending lots of time working on my own fiction, which I haven't done in donkey's years, and the degree to which I am enjoying it, though it's a slog, bodes well for going back to school. So very excited.

It may require a change of abode, or a change of knee joints (having mondo paino in the kneeo lately, which means not so much with the 3 hr. bicycle commute), but I'll get it worked out in the end.

The cat is happy because I've been plastered to the couch for days, the bike is happy because I just took her for a wee ride to Miz Fury's place, and I'm happy because - oh, I dunno, it might have something to do with finally finally finally letting myself do what I'm meant to and want to do.

Yeah, like that.

Tra la! Now, bring me that horizon...

Sometimes there comes a yarn so unutterably beautiful that it requires the dropping of all other knitterly commitments. I got two yarns in the mail today, and they were both gorgeous, but the variegated was hypnotic. I pulled it out, I got out the swift, I wound it, and I immediately began knitting a little earflap hat.

Mind you, I already had a gift hat on the needles - nay, two gift hats on the needles. One of them on the exact size of circular needle that this hat will take. But I can't help it. It's too too beautiful.

It's the yarn equivalent of the specialest boy in the world, of the chocolate cake that you can't say no to, of lavender bath salts, of a delicious Phil Wood bottom bracket (I know, that makes no sense to most of you, but trust me on this). Can't...say....no....

This hat will knit itself, and then I will marry it.

Or else I will run off to Paris with it. My bicycles will have to come along, because they are my one (or three, or four) true loves.

Or I will go to a birthday party and eat a forbidden cupcake. Or I will drink a little too much grog and sing pirate songs. Or I will dance naked in my apartment. Or I will curl up with my darling girl (cat), and blow bubbles while our problems drift by and wave to us. Hello problems. Goodbye problems.

Later:

Had a day of full-on, no-holds-barred weirdness yesterday, and somehow woke up feeling better afterwards. Perhaps it was the minimalist, yet curiously thorough, four hours of sleep I got. Perhaps it's the second day of clear winter sunshine we've got in a row.

Or it could be that friend's offer to cheer me up. You know, cheer me up. Not that I am likely to take him up on it, but it's nice to be asked. Also, after a week of bloated yuckyness, I woke up, looked in the mirror, and got hit over the head with my own fabulousness.

I just forget, you see.

A friend of mine said today that she could feel that I was unhappy this week, even though I hadn't told her. I hadn't seen her or talked to her, or IMed with her, and at least twelve hours went by before I remembered she'd texted me last night and I hadn't responded yet.

I suppose the lack of communication is a clue, but I have the feeling she'd known even without that.

I don't know why, but sometimes the couple of people who are my very closest friends seem to know without being told when I am feeling like shit.

I love them for that, of course, though I still feel like shit anyway.

It's a complicated thing, the reason that I feel like shit, and I don't want to talk about it, tangled as it is with various shades of green and flavors of jam and some yarn that looks just like black hair and is really just impossible to count stitches for a gauge swatch on.

There's this cat sitting at my elbow washing so loudly I can hardly think straight, and I drank some warm milk with the avowed intention of putting myself to sleep with it, but really just because I wanted to taste something sweet and mild.

Kitwich knew what it was, and meowed for her cut. I'd already finished it off, but laid the mug on the floor so she could pull out the dregs with her paw. She is so clever. I have to think that most cats would try futilely to shove their big heads inside the mug. She merely sniffs, assesses the situation, and uses her foot.

It may be that I am doing the big-head-inside-mug thing myself, but I cannot stop, because, well, I simply don't want to. And all the thinking in the world isn't going to make me feel differently than I feel. In fact, it just gives me a headache.

I bought the wrong coffee and cried over it. I need a haircut again, though I swear I just had one two weeks ago. All my laundry is always dirty because I can't seem to get my back operational. I never did put all those millions of knitted gifts in the mail, and they are stacked in my house, awaiting wrapping paper and large envelopes and a trip to the post office which I never want to make.

I think of taking a bath but then remember that I never have the patience to see one through. Most of all, I want what I want, and I want above all to feel that I deserve to have what I want. Whether or not I have to actually get what I want in order to feel that I deserve it is a question that's yet to be answered.

I know that's a lot of openwork sentence structure to wade through up there. But that is the gist.

"And this ghost of your other lover walked in and stood there, made of thin air..." - Laurie Anderson, Gravity's Angel

I was asked the other day if I wanted a boyfriend, and I couldn't answer the question.

I also couldn't, because of who was doing the asking, tell the whole truth about things.

But when I thought about it later, I realized the strongest, deepest reason that I couldn't answer the question was that I don't know the answer.

And then, in a different conversation, I hear myself say that I'd wish myself a boyfriend into being, except that I don't want him (theoretical boy) getting all up in my face about everything. Because that's what boyfriends do, isn't it?

Not initially, of course. Initially they are too impressed with whatever it is that they've decided is impressive about you. But then, later, after they've gotten over thinking how lucky they are (which in most cases takes about two weeks or five minutes, depending on how soon you have sex with them), they start to have a big fat opinion about your every move, your every thought and decision and choice. As if you need their help making decisions about everything. As if you asked. Just as if you're a child with no will or brain of her own.

And mind you, as a child I had plenty of will and brain of my own. It's just that no one listens to children.

And men don't listen to women, by and large.

I have a voodoo doll which Miz Fury gave me for my fortieth birthday, and which was of some small use in getting over Boywich. I don't want to have to use it again. It's enjoying its tightly wound little nap, there in the corner of my desk.

Boywich, by the way, was the king of opinions about my every move and decision. And I didn't find it helpful in the least, though the opinion he shared with me this evening is one with which I thoroughly agree.

He said, and I quote, "Well, you know no one is ever going to be good enough for you in my eyes."

So much easier to love a married man, and put him up on the shelf next to the voodoo doll, isn't it? Neither gets anywhere near my skin.

"Nothing of him that doth fade, but that suffers a sea change into something rich and strange." - Laurie Anderson, Blue Lagoon.

PS. Methinks I will wish for a lover, instead.

PS2. I should in fairness add that Boywich does not do that sort of thing now. He's quite supportive and offers good advice when asked, just like a friend should. Which sort of proves my point that it's a phenomenon specific to romantic relationships.

I liked this meme of Wendy's, so I think I will do my own bastardized version of it - bastardized because I hate following directions, and memeish because I love lists.

Indeterminate Number of Random Facts About Me:

1. I am currently singing a song in French. Okay, two minutes ago, but still.
2. I sorta-speak a couple of languages (including French), which is to say that I can converse on a kindergarten level, eavesdrop with aplomb, and semi-follow movies without relying on the subtitles too much.
3. I speak a very small smattering of a couple of other languages, but my accents are so good that native speakers will start talking to me, thinking that I am fluent.
4. My dream jobs are, roughly in order: novelist, photographer, mixer and namer of colors, dancer but not to anyone else's choreography, rock star, children's book writer & illustrator, winemaker, astrophysicist, bicycle tour leader, professional swimmer, kisser of sweet coffee-colored boys. Okay, that last one was just to see if you're paying attention.
5. I taught myself to bake bread when I was eleven or twelve years old. Then I taught myself how to cook everything else. I cannot, however, cook rice.
6. I wear radically different colors in winter and summer. Radically.
7. I own about 40 hats.
8. I have a really, really difficult time parting with books. As in, I've only done it once, and then only two small boxes' worth.
9. My bicycles all have names.
10. My two all-time favorite TV shows are Firefly and MASH.
11. I have been in love approximately four times in my life. Three out of four were philosophy majors.
12. My cat was born in the wild. Boywich once looked up several of her more esoteric behaviors and found that they are characteristic of imprinting.
13. I have had several close encounters with other wild animals - all positive and rather magical.
14. Boywich and I are very, very psychic. He once guessed the last name of a boy I was dating, with no hints and no prior information, and got it right on the first try.
15. When I was a kid I used to rename myself all the time, and I'd put those names on my school papers in lieu of my real one.
16. Sometimes my dad still calls me by one or two of them.
17. I am killer at Boggle but I kind of suck at Scrabble.
18. I think my very sexiest look is underwear, knee socks, and my pirate T-shirt.
19. To date, no one but Miz Fury has witnessed this outfit, but she concurred with that assessment.
20. I am older than many of my friends, but not than the boy in whom I am presently interested.

Hey, it's me. Remember me? The girl who used to post every other dayishly.

Yeah. Well.

I keep writing these little posts and then deciding they are too personal, or too dull, or half a thought but I don't want to tell you the other half, or I am not sure about that pic, blah blah, and then it sits there in the drafts getting cold, and who really wants cold brain mash anyway?

Which is ironic, since my brain is such a hotbed of feverish activity of late. Yes, I know, that's two warmth-related terms in one phrase. But there's a whole lot of cookin' going on up there right now.

Which is just as well, because we're headed into the coldest week thus far this winter, and I am madly strategizing ways to keep pedaling whilst also keeping my toes attached and in good working order. Not sure if it's even possible, honestly, with my current shoe-pedal arrangement, but we shall see.

They did actually clear the bridge this week, and I had a gloriously unfettered ride into town yesterday, and an only slightly icy one home tonight, which I handled well enough. Had that moment when I realized I was barreling downhill at about 20 mph and right onto a series of icy patches, kept my head when I began to skid, slowed down with my legs, braked a little in a relatively clear spot, and all in all kept control of the vehicle.

Yay me.

Yay me in several other ways this week, I think, though it's merely Monday. Again I am being cryptic, but I talked it all out with Boywich the other day, and it was all very interesting. Here's the general outline:

Everything is fixable. No opportunity is ever lost.

Also, I am a replicant, apparently. Or maybe not. Jury's still out on that one.

Aren't my clementines pretty?

Looking at the stack of things I've knitted for family gifts this winter, I can't decide whether I've accomplished a lot or whether I've spent an inordinate amount of time knitting what seems like very little.

The yarns are nice, anyway. A combination of stash and newly purchased things, so some of it is more to the taste of the recipient(s) than to mine. But you know, that is in the nature of gifts.

Had lovely rides today. The only way I could have had more fun riding my bike would have been to have 20-year-old knees instead of the well-aged ones I have. Oh well. "A girl does what she can, sire." Cute and quotable, that Drew Barrymore.

We're in for a big snow bomb again, so I will be trying out my new rollers. Hopefully not falling all over the place, but - well, there is gonna be a learning curve. I'll also likely be riding in some of the snow tomorrow, trying to get in a little outdoorness (and maybe a puppet show) (really) before I get trapped in the house again. I am not loving this winter.

I am having bigger thoughts than these, and I keep planning on telling you about them, but apparently the percolating process is still in effect. Either that or I'm just not ready to share my toys yet. Mmmmm, brain toys.

Bill Nye would love those, no?

He makes me want to add a separate list of people I have crushes on who are nerdy rather than hot but whom I can't help but love anyway. Carl Sagan's right at the top of that list. Leonard Nimoy. Andrew Stanton. Joss Whedon. Um, my ex. (yes, that would be Boywich) (big nerd, that one. and very sweet.) (no, I don't have a crush on him anymore; I am just saying, that's the category he falls into)

This Mars Rover driver who works at NASA and whose name I haven't a clue about (I've seen him in a documentary). Reading this, you may well be thinking that I myself ought to be appearing in someone else's sexy nerd list...

Also, and I am not sure what, if anything, this means - I keep having these dreams in which my cat has cloned herself and become many Kitwiches, and I am trying to sort out which one is the right one.

People carry some funky things in their bike bags. Obscure-looking tools, 15mm wrenches. C02 canisters. Books of poetry. Condoms. Spare underwear.

Now, it seems, I need to start carrying a pair of ice skates.

I mean, really. The Willie B last night was like riding on a sheet of window glass.

I felt the traction going, thought, okay, I am gonna take this very slow, and if it gets bad I will get off and walk it. So when the rear wheel starts to slide out from under me, I manage to keep control but decide to be smart and not court broken bones. But, yo, for real, I could barely keep myself and the bike upright while walking, with one hand on the guardrail and the other holding the bike.

After a whole lot of very slow walking and some very careful riding, I got home late, cold, and weirded out. So today I took the day off. I worked on some fiction (not as much as I had planned, though my nightshift-oriented day is still young), made some soup (it came out really, really good), comforted a friend who's sick via text message and telephone, and bought some minor groceries (essentials: jam, milk, and tangerines).

I carried an umbrella and thought about how much more pleasant it is to be on a bike when it's raining (assuming one is suitably Gore-Texed) than on foot (sans Gore-Tex). But I still didn't want to go for a ride.

I had thought I was just being wimpy about it, but then I read this*. Even the redoubtable Bike Snob thought it was bad out.

One of his commenters had a good idea - 311. I think a serious cyclists' onslaught of 311 complaints about the bridges is decidedly called-for. Whether or not it will do a damn bit of good is highly questionable, but the situation has been ridiculous this winter. It was like watching some kind of weird gravity-challenged ballet out there, as cyclist after cyclist went down, hard, falling on their sides with their bikes sliding out from under them. And then walked along, slipping and sliding on their feet, with their bikes sliding out from under their hands - not even enough traction to wheel them along.

Seriously, folks, they used to clear these paths. The bikeways on bridges maybe got plowed and salted a little bit later than the car lanes, but they were treated, and they were usually in decent shape.

Riding through the winter used to merely be a matter of having suitable clothing and equipment, and a certain amount of true grit. Now it's taking your life in your hands anytime there's a hint of moisture and the temp gets into the 30s (the thermometer on the bank sign as I neared home still read 34 degrees F - or a little above 0 for you Celsians).

*For the record, I started writing this post before I read the Snob's, so the ice skates remark was a case of great minds, or at least similar experiences leading to the same conclusion.

PS. The DOT's automated phone message says flat out that they are not clearing or salting any of the bicycle and pedestrian paths this winter due to budget cuts. In other words, they are openly sacrificing safety for money. This ought to be enough to knock NYC right off the "most bicycle-friendly cities" list. I guarantee you any of the cyclists who rely on their bikes for real-life daily transportation would sacrifice fancy covered bike parking shelters for a bit of road salt.

This will sound a bit bipolar after yesterday, but honest, I'm quite mentally healthy on the whole. I have noticed, however, that sometimes a down day is followed by a delightful one, as if to show myself that life is still worth its salt.

So here's a list. (It's been a while since we had a good list, hasn't it now?)

Things That Make Me High:

1. Exercise.
2. Preferably on a bicycle.
3. Buying new bicycles.
4. Coffee.
5. Socializing, especially after a protracted and perhaps unwelcome period of solitude.
6. Vinegary collard greens. Also yams.
7. Cute boys.
8. Sunshine, especially in midwinter.
9. Good music.

Okay, there isn't a tenth.

Apart from the cute boys part, and the good music (which I now have on but which did not figure largely into my day), I had all of those things today.

Oh yes, and:

10. Getting a haircut.

So there is a tenth.

Just don't tell my mom about the bike, okay? Or my dad. Or anyone I know.

xoxo,
Lizbon

All his hands are in flower form. But still he sinks. - uh, me, actually. written yesterday.

Welcome to the new year. Feels a lot like the old year, if you ask me. Knee still hurts. Back still messed up (and I'm an hour late for taking my Naproxen so I'm feelin' it).

This was my first cup of coffee of the new year, and it looked so fetching that I took a picture of it. I then decided that taking pictures was what I wanted to do with my remaining daylight, so Nikon and I went for a nice walk together.

I mean, it was cold, and I just missed Golden Hour, so the light was fading fast, and my back hurt just carrying that little camera, but still and all it was good to get out and look and think.

I realized, as I was walking along, that I don't get into those deep thought processes when I'm riding my bike, which is weird at first glance, because you'd think there'd be something meditative about all that pedal-turning. And there is.

It just doesn't bring on thoughts about much else other than the bike itself. And the meditative bit only happens at night, when I start to focus on the sounds of motion.

Of course, there's a very good reason for this - during the day, or earlier evening, the streets are a very real, and deadly, videogame. And if my mind were wandering away from me even a tiny bit, I'd be paint on somebody's bumper. You need your wits about you in this joint.

I watch, sometimes, one of my faster, more nimble friends threading his or her way through traffic and am amazed at the physics of it. In the spectrum of cyclists, I am quite cautious, and lately, very slow.

When I was less injured and it was warmer out (knees like warmer), I had gotten a bit faster, and I remember going for a ride with one of my friends with whom I hadn't ridden in a long time, and he, after turning to wait for me and finding that I'd kept up, exclaimed, "Hey, you got fast! I turned to see where you were, and you were right there. That's so cool."

And it was such a happy, perfect moment.

I hadn't even realized what a good, good summer I had until it was gone. And now, I am not sure of course, but I suspect I am having kind of a bad winter, with one thing and another.

Funny how you can never see just where you are when you are in it. As if we've always just come up from underground and stand here, blindly looking around, trying to get our bearings.

Wow. Didn't mean to be a downer today; that just seems to be where the stream led.

Enjoy the pics anyway. I think the blog's been a bit Nikon-starved for a while.

There is something heartbreaking about the squeak of a guitar string on a recorded piece of music. Likewise, the faintly discernible sound of someone breaking a glass in the background on the recording of Charlie Parker that Kitwich and I are listening to now.

As a New Year's present to her, I let her choose the First Music.

First Music of the day is always an important thing; it's how you enter (or, I guess, re-enter, though somehow it always feels new to me) the world. And by that logic, I suppose first music of the first day of the year might have added weight, though it honestly doesn't feel portentous - just nice.

This particular album starts out vibrant and jumpy and settles itself gradually into a gently vibrating pool of molasses that carries you along with it in the most delicious way. I adore it, and it's the kitten's favorite. You can tell by her body language whenever I put it on.

Of course, that may have something to do with the fact that she's a birder, and - well, you know his nickname, don't you?

But getting back to that guitar string theory (see what I did there?), I think the reason why it always sends me a little when I hear those kinds of noises in an otherwise seamless recording is that it's a little jolt of reality. There is a live human playing this beautiful thing, and ohmygod it's real.

I had that same feeling about a conversation I had, more than a week ago (but it's still thrumming around in my bones), with the boy I like.

It wasn't the kind of conversation where you instantly agree with everything each other is saying. It was much better than that.

It was the kind of conversation that gives one furiously to think, and the kind where I looked across at him, and felt the guitar-string jolt. He's real.

You may read that and think, duh. But - how can I explain this? There's a mad difference between constructing an image of someone and falling in love with it, and interacting with a living, breathing, substantial, complicated, warm-blooded, differently impassioned human being. As a young person, I might have chosen the former.

As I am now, give me the hot, messy, complicated, challenging, beating heart of a solid human any day.