Monthly Archives: February 2009
Time and place
| February 5, 2009 | Filled under Shorts |
… the late afternoon sun which looked sad and pleasant at the same time and which reminded her abruptly of New Year’s Day last year. There hadn’t been anything important about that day. She had just happened to look at the sun in the same way. She leaned back on the bed. It would be nice to be here or somewhere like this every day.
— from Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, possibly the book that made me want to become a writer, and most definitely one of the most depressing children’s books I’ve ever read.
Bayou City History
| February 6, 2009 | Filled under Internerd |
I’m not a big fan of The Chronicle’s massive network of unemployed bloggers, but there is one blog I’ve found I can’t live without: Bayou City History. It’s well written, and uses a good mix of readers’ anecdotes as well as the newspaper’s archives, and vintage ephemeral photos. A good resource for anyone who disputes Houston’s coolness.
Flaxen
| February 6, 2009 | Filled under Shorts |
My freshly shampooed-and-styled coif now smells like cigarettes and barbeque smoke. Do you think it’s okay to use Febreeze on hair?
On Having a Husband
| February 9, 2009 | Filled under Blog |
One of the benefits of having CLH home again was realized this weekend: instead of a useless vine-covered alley outside the French doors of our bedroom, I now have a terra cotta-paved patio on which I can sit in the mornings and drink a cup of tea, and where in the evenings after walking the dog CLH can enjoy a smoke from his pipe. My easement will soon be the home of a container garden housing plants grown expressly for their use in cocktails: mint, basil and hopefully a few small citrus trees. And cilantro, the love-it-or-hate-it herb. I am a lover.
When CLH was away my nightly ritual consisted of walking through the house in a certain order, turning off the lights both upstairs and then downstairs before climbing into bed with my vicious beast to protect me. The formula was complicated: 1) turn off all the lights upstairs expect for the one over the landing We do not want to fall down the concrete stairs. 2) Turn on the front patio light, the entry hall light, the bedside table lamp and the bathroom light. 3) Turn off the light on the landing. 4) Turn off the entry hall light. 5) Head to bathroom, brush teeth, wash face. Turn off bathroom light. 6) Get into bed, turn off lamp. 7) Obsess over whether I remembered to lock front door. 8) Turn lamp back on, turn entry hall light back on, check front door, turn entry hall light back off, crawl back into bed, turn lamp off again.
Having two people to do this job, one of whom is willing to brave the world beyond the closed bedroom door when a strange sound is heard outside or upstairs, it makes going to sleep a night a lot easier.
It becomes important to remember the following things
| February 11, 2009 | Filled under Shorts |
I am not what my friends think of me. I am not what I think my friends might think of me. I am not my friends. I am not my ex-boyfriends…
— more at bluishorange
I would add a few of my own:
- I am not my job.
- I am not who I was five minutes or five years ago.
- I am not who my family thinks I am.
It all seems so simple
| February 11, 2009 | Filled under Shorts |
Magic Molly on writer’s block:
One of the problems is that we’re incapable of seeing the uniqueness of our own situations. Looking around you think, there’s nothing to think about here. Or write about/chortle about/stew about. But that’s where you’re wrong!
I have been in a depressive mood of late. I feel scattered, unfocused, unaccomplished. It’s a good time for affirmations, as corny as affirmations can be. Here is another one, from my friend Bob Allen:
I am reminded that what I write about is less important than the act of writing itself.
The Enchanted Rock Wikipedia page…
| February 12, 2009 | Filled under Shorts |
Is a wealth of fun and interesting geological words, many of which I will try to slip into casual conversation this weekend:
- granite pluton
- Llano uplift (I learned this in a college geology class: llano is Spanish for “plains”
- monadnock
- leviathan proportions
- igneous batholith
- metamorphic schists and gneiss
- human visitation
Also? Amazing aerial photography of the structure, including the above image from 1912.
Just put your lips together and blow
| February 12, 2009 | Filled under Internerd |
Is it too late, too passe, to post election-related links? If not, then here is the Gum Election. (Via Web-Goddess.)
Psuedo-romantic Valentine’s Day plans
| February 13, 2009 | Filled under Shorts |
- Ride Interstate 10 as a passenger to the Hill Country of Texas.
- Take advantage of hotel’s cable television.
- Hike to the top of Enchanted Rock
- Drink only microbrews and local wines
- Buy gifts for no one but myself
- Take as many pictures from the back of the motorcycle as possible.
Trip report coming next week, assuming we don’t decide to stay in the hills of Central Texas forever.
Sex Machine
| February 16, 2009 | Filled under Shorts |
Mazda Miatas are such feminine-looking cars, and yet I know two men who each own one. After passing another man-driven Miata on the highway this weekend (red, naturally) it occurred to me I have never seen one driven by a woman.
Layers
| February 16, 2009 | Filled under Blog |
Friday was beautiful, and though the rain threatened we did not get wet. By the time we got to Fredericksburg the sun was out and the temp was near 80 degrees.
Saturday was cold and windy. This necessitated clothing myself in every article of clothing in my pannier:
Bottom half:
- Cotton calf-length socks of CLH’s
- My running socks
- Leggings purchased that afternoon at Wal-Mart and adorned in the ladies restroom
- My only pair of jeans
Top half:
- Quick-dry running tank top
- Plain black t-shirt
- Long john top purchased at Wal-Mart and adorned in the ladies restroom
- Turtleneck sweater
- Button-up hooded sweater
On head:
- Neck of turtleneck pulled up to my nose
- Hood of hoodie worn under helmet
- Red bandana tied over nose, mouth and ears to keep the snot at bay
- Helmet
It was a good trip. Pictures coming later this week.
Sunday morning reading
| February 22, 2009 | Filled under Shorts |
Paradoxically, no matter how strong our parents are, we have to knock them off in order to carry the body of our childhood safely through the world. Our childhood’s body will be composed of those two. Which one is our legitimate parent, the one we claim we belong to, only our psyche knows. A person won’t have the answers until she has slipped out into the larger world, without either of them anywhere.
From “My Father Was White, But Not Quite” by Fanny Howe. Via Bookslut. And because it’s just so beautifully written, another quote:
Still, there is little as liberating as the discovery that you have the same memory of a single event as someone you loved years before.
Word nerd
| February 23, 2009 | Filled under Internerd |
I would want to live in a building that was a giant crossword puzzle.
The Balinese Room
| February 24, 2009 | Filled under Blog |
Karen posted a picture of what remains of the Balinese Room on her blog Sunday — pretty much all that remains is the historical marker. We were thankfully gone, out of the country, when Ike hit, just like we were out of the country when Katrina hit, and I haven’t been down to Galveston since. I’ve seen pictures, and heard stories, and the pictures and the stories are too sad.
I have always been fond of The Balinese Room, from it’s tiki bar loungey-ness to it’s underworld beginnings. It represents to me decades of yore which seem far more colorful and interesting than the time in which I reside. More recently, it was the home to our Saturday night party at the first and second annual Sandblast Scooter Rally.
Galveston has often played final fiddle to other famous US cities — it’s smaller than New Orleans, less Victorian than Boston, the water is not so nice as it is in Tampa. But to this girl from Oklahoma, who saw the ocean for the very first time while driving past Crystal Beach, Galveston is home to endless corridors of mystery and fascination.
Karen has been blogging recently about recovery efforts in Galveston. Five months have passed. Pictures abound on Flickr of high water marks and rebuilding efforts. But the stories are the most interesting to me.
The Sandblast Rally has to be moved this year, thanks to Ike and other factors. And because it’s no longer on the beach (it’s in New Ulm, Texas) the name has to change to. Now it’s the Mudblast Rally. The first annual, I guess. The saddest thing about this is that there is no place in New Ulm like the Balinese Room. There is no place anywhere like the Balinese Room.
But today is Fat Tuesday, which means tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the day for starting over. The day for cleansing. I wonder if that makes Galveston’s Mardi Gras celebrations more poignant this year — after all, starting over is what they need the most.
O’Conner had an inner critic
| February 25, 2009 | Filled under Shorts |
When I sit down to write, a monstrous reader looms up who sits down beside me and continually mutters, ‘I don’t get it, I don’t see it, I don’t want it.’ Some writers can ignore this presence, but I have never learned how.
— Flannery O’Conner (via Maud Newton)
