puppy love

The puppy was named Kenya. She was a service animal — not a guide dog, so it was okay that I interacted with her — and she was three months old. I met her in line at Starbucks. She licked my hand as I petted her and I tried not to cry, but there were at least three very good reasons for tears to occur. So I got an expensive latte with a complimentary trip down memory lane. I am superstitious about the 23rd day of the month, so today I am finding all sorts of signs amongst chaos. For example, I am now convinced that I wrote that last sentence simply to rediscover my love for the word “amongst”, forgotten until just a few moments ago. Egyptian Magic is a company with a skin cream that is supposedly the best skin cream ever. They all say...

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Posted on 23 Dec 2009 | Comments Off

sage and ginger

One crow sits on the porch and his caw seems timed, a perfect heartbeat. I am putting moisturizer on my face, stuff I bought because it was additive-free and on sale, stuff I would not buy normally even if I could afford it, which I can’t. I am thinking of what I am not thinking of. I don’t often get caught in this loop, just sometimes when I am tracing an old pattern. The crow’s caws trick my brain into silence. Thoughts settle like sediment and then I think: what am I not thinking of? For once, I am not thinking of guilt over my morning routine, of how long it takes or how loud each movement might be. The house smells like last night’s sage and ginger. One cat’s meow forces syncopation. Then the crow leaves, and it is just bare...

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Posted on 14 Dec 2009 | 2 comments

on holidayspeak

Yesterday, I tweeted: “In response to someone wishing me a merry Christmas, I said it back instead of wishing him happy holidays. I hope no one reports me.” As is usual for me, I neglected to be specific enough in 140 characters or less, and should have added a very important word to my tweet: accidentally. I did not think about saying “merry Christmas” in return; I just did it. As I was raised Roman Catholic, I celebrated Christmas for many years, and during that time wished people a merry Christmas. I was a child, and did not consider my wish to be harmful or prejudiced. As I grew older, I understood the implications of forcing one’s religious preferences on others, and changed my language accordingly. Even when the words lost...

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Posted on 10 Dec 2009 | 8 comments

thanksjeweled

This Thanksgiving, my sole accomplishment has been introducing FunkyPlaid to Bejeweled 2. He is … a little obsessed. The good news is that he is extremely good at visual strategy games, so he has almost exceeded my highest score. The bad news is that I am pretty sure he can just keep going. Forever. It is traditional in the American blogosphere (and I can’t believe I just typed that) to make a list of things we are thankful for today. I was sifting through my archives in order to link to some old Thanksgiving lists, but not once in eleven years have I written anything during this time of year worth reposting. That’s just fine. I am sitting on the couch with sunshine on the back of my head, laptop on lapdesk on lap. My fiancé is...

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Posted on 26 Nov 2009 | 1 comment

she told me it took a long time

She told me it took a long time. She told me it took a long time before she stopped seeing him everywhere he wasn’t. She told me it took a long time to unlearn the cringing, to unfurl during the phone ringing. She told me it took almost as long as they were together to be comfortably apart, not to expect the other shoe to drop, his other shoe, when his feet weren’t even near. She told me it took a long time, not that she expected it to be short. Once you are terrorized in a certain way, she said, your body exists only within boundaries of panic. For long, hollow years later, she would be flooded with adrenaline from a glimpse of the color of his hair. Fight or flight, but of course she did neither. She told me it took a long time to allow herself...

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Posted on 24 Nov 2009 | 1 comment

on breaking a twitter app

Disclaimer: If you have no interest in iPhone apps, Twitter, or my opinion on software, you will want to skip this entry. Long ago I used Twitteriffic for iPhone, and was perfectly happy with it. I only defected to Tweetie because the iPhone app offered Ping.fm integration, allowing me to utilize Ping.fm to update multiple networks all at once, and not only status updates, but blogging, micro-blogging, and photo uploads. The fact that Tweetie offered Ping.fm integration was big for me: I could read tweets and also update multiple services, all from one nice UI. Then Tweetie became seriously unstable, crashing more often than not, and around the same time Courtney told me about Birdfeed, an app developed by a good friend of hers. Birdfeed’s UI was far...

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Posted on 23 Nov 2009 | 6 comments

asking the question

We have a question about the menu: what is chow-chow? A table of four library professionals, we are practiced in knowing how to find an answer quickly. The woman who seated us walks by, so we ask her. She responds, “Your server will be right with you.” A different woman approaches the table and asks if we would like iced tap water or bottled water. We agree to the tap water, then ask the water-giver our question: what is chow-chow? She responds, “Your server will be right with you.” Our server arrives, and we jump to ask the question: what is chow-chow? She says it is like cole slaw, except for– and then mumbles something I cannot hear. The dish with the chow-chow was my second choice, so I avoid asking any follow-up questions...

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Posted on 22 Nov 2009 | 2 comments

becoming a ghost

I dreamed that I was a ghost. I didn’t die; I faded away, bit by bit. I dreamed that one night when FunkyPlaid returned home from work, he had trouble hearing me. A few nights later, he accused me of hiding from him, as he could see my clothing and shoes lying about but didn’t see me. All this time I was standing right in front of him, yelling and waving my arms. In no time at all, I was not even a memory. I tried to pick up a lamp to throw it, because then I was sure he would know I was still there. My hand dispersed like fog as soon as it neared the solid object. I resigned myself to more yelling, but had lost the ability to make sound. I stood in the doorway of our bedroom and watched him sleep as I silently screamed. I woke up wailing...

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Posted on 20 Nov 2009 | Comments Off

thank you

I tweeted earlier today that I know “what makes the world a better place: saying ‘thank you’ when someone does something nice for you, no matter who that person is.” As a civil servant, politeness is something I think about multiple times each day. It is easy to think about it in the negative case, but today was different: I was warmed by the number of people who took a moment to thank me for helping them. I also tried to thank other people, and tried to be courteous even when I wasn’t feeling courteous. There is a trap in judging whether or not a person is “worth” receiving thanks. I used to try to figure out if someone was acting out of sincere caring — and therefore worth my sincere thanks — or if that...

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Posted on 18 Nov 2009 | 3 comments

intrepid

intrepid

intrepid Originally uploaded by cygnoir I am a good walker but not a good hiker, not yet. Now that I have proper hiking shoes, I have incentive to improve. I also have a terrific hiking partner who never fails to keep my spirits up, especially when I feel like I am going to keel over and never stand up again. I felt that way on our Multnomah Falls hike in October. The pouring rain was the least of my concerns. I started to beat myself up, too, which never helped anything. Just then, FunkyPlaid took a moment to stop me and talk with me, and listened while I barfed out some stupid excuses, and then hugged me. And we kept walking, and we finished the hike to stand right next to the second-tallest year-round waterfall in the United...

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Posted on 17 Nov 2009 | Comments Off