Usually, after a trip to California I add something to my household that from then on feels essential. How did I live without it before? One year, it was a rice cooker, another, a Dyson stick vacuum. This year, it’s gonna be a new waffle maker and bourbon vanilla extract. Used the extract for French toast this morning — yum!
Heading home shortly. I don’t know why, but when I get back I want to do a deep cleaning of the downstairs.
In case you’re not on Instagram, here I am modeling my new haircut. Billy’s caregiver used to be a stylist and a good one as it turns out. Did you know you should change your side part every other month?
Christmas in July. For trump, that is.
I’ll say no more about SCOTUS for now, but holy fucking Christ.
Ever since Ken retired we hardly know what day it is. That’s why we announce on Friday evenings, “IT’S THE WEEKEND!” For a while, I made a point of cooking up a nice hot breakfast on Saturday mornings but not so much anymore.
Still weekends feel different, they do. No appointments or classes or zoom calls (for me). He has a cocktail in the evening. Less roaring and beeping construction sounds. Fewer kids at the playground next door.
Soon we’ll be treated to the “Cape Effect.” Love it. The Cape Effect is when our town becomes noticeably quieter because so many vacate to their second homes.
As for us, we’ll be heading to LA soon. Just in time for their “June gloom.” I’m gonna load my kindle up with books this time so I’ll always have a novel in my pocket.
My brother won’t be up for attending a protest, but since one of the No Kings gatherings will take place in nearby Pasadena, I may pop down the hill for a bit.
PS Two digital collages above from this week’s Paris Collage Club visual prompt. Combines my photo of Ken with Finn, a former PCC prompt (the tree), and photo of a quilt.
Two more:
It was a shocker to find a figure framed in that slave cabin window (above). Revealed by the quirks of the filter. As many times as I looked at that photo of mine, I’d never discerned the person inside. Photo below.
Here’s the exposure slid to the brightest setting.
The last time I saw Alvin Ailey was in 2013. It’s a little hard to believe sometimes how time passes. The show, no surprise, was spectacular and moving. It was good to get out.
Stitching to a terrible Netflix Series, Ransom Canyon. Hallmark movie without the Christmas, I say, including the signature near-miss handsome lead. This hero looks like a mash up of Timothy Olyphant and Matt Damon and all I can see is how he’s not Olyphant. Then there’s Ugly Brooke Shields. If you watch, you’ll know who I mean. Lots of preposterous story lines.
Walked over to Chinatown before the performance last night and got a little turned around getting back to the Wang Center which isn’t the Wang Center anymore but hey. It was a lot of steps, steps on uneven, wet, and unpredictable sidewalks. I’m tired today.
I listened to Cory Booker for a short while before my doctor’s appointment and then for a good long while later, stitching in the afternoon sun. I’m noticing how much better I feel. I’m noticing how much it matters for people in power to speak up.
Got quite a few “finishers” in the works. Antidotes to despair I suppose. Medicine against feeling powerless. One stitch at a time.
Trimming, binding, signing, and adding dowel sleeves. It always takes longer than I think.
Here are examples (below) from four recent series of digital collages. Almost all incorporate paper collage or photos of my own. If I weren’t feeling tongue-tied by national events I might have something to say about them but they can speak for themselves I guess.
You could stitch a dotted ring around an indigo moon. The houses below evidence diamonds and trefoils and zigzags, all manner of pattern. Somewhere a child bellyaches. Somewhere else an owl calls out, mournful. Haven’t we expressed all our sadnesses already? The trefoil stamp of trauma, the zigzag edge of semi-repair?
You can’t fool the moon or the lightning striping the sky at dusk.
When the red-tailed hawk screeches, we know to look up. But that’s all we know.
Make your move motherfucker is one way to respond to upcoming events on The Hill. Preemptive bullshit. Flowing like a river into microphones and screens. I wish we hadn’t needed a word like “sane-washing.” And journalists? Please! Even Carl Bernstein wishes he was still on the beat. Imagine Deep Throat withholding evidence to promote his upcoming book release.
The hawk rides the thermal climes – yes, we have thermal climes even in suburbia. If you’re really blessed and it’s a clear day, the sun will illuminate the red wedge of her tail turning feathers into stained glass.
Who you gonna call? Motherfuckers of so many ilks, it makes the head spin. To say “felon” doesn’t quite capture the in-law’s tawdry sadistic infliction of pain upon his own sister. Too bad the French won’t say, Sorry motherfucker — your visa is no good here. So many roiling nations – it’s as if our national disaster is contagious – France, South Korea, Germany, Syria. And Gaza can’t catch a break.
We look for heroes in the strangest of places. Turns out the healthcare CEO assassin comes from money and privilege. Sorry, ladies. Worse, he liked posts by the South African Dipshit Brigade.
But what of poetry you say? What of the elegant, nearly effortless dip of the hawk gliding on the air currents, currents that sweep over even your suburban rooftops? What of these expressions of grace?
The greasy bundle of vice is no longer a fluke. Not a despicable and regrettable error this time. No. Americans knew who they were voting for. Sort of.
He’s grinning in front of Notre Dame and shaking Macron’s hand like he wants to rip that man’s shoulder out of its socket. To see it is to wonder: how will I survive this? How will we survive this? Will we survive this?
Hope is a scratchy wool cape that I put on to address certain people. Underneath, endless itching. Underneath, angry red striping rashes that cannot be ignored. Underneath, deposits of body-ash and rubble-ash that floated in from Gaza. The dusty grey evidence of wickedness lines my collarbones. What washcloth is up to the task?
Get fat. Go hide. Get fat and go hide. Gather preemptive condolences for the retirement of your former self. Sputter, motherfucker, motherfucker, like somebody’s listening, like it’s a badge of honor even if no one is listening and it’s not a badge of anything.
The heat wooshes, reminding me that all the coming misery will take place on a timeline, in a framework of seasons. Does it help to think that? Does anything?
