Day 49 of Project 365: wedding purse
Post-shower dresser scrambling prompted the rediscovery of this amazing creation, my wedding purse. My mom made this by hand, which still stuns me. I was fortunate to inherit a little of her capability in this realm, but nothing to this degree. While visiting Gargunnock House with friends over Christmas, I got into a little chat with some fellow crafters, and in it I described one of the earliest Mom-projects I can remember. She sewed these adorable Christmas ornaments that were puffy stars and bells and trees with little sculpted faces in the middle of them. My description doesn’t do it justice, and I don’t have any of our ornaments here so I can’t take a photo. It made me happy and proud and also intensely nostalgic for home at Christmas all...
Read MoreIt was not the quesadilla.
It was not the quesadilla, the sloppy concoction of flat and goo. No, she decided, it was most certainly not the quesadilla itself, but the idea of the quesadilla, the meta-dilla that offended her. Even now, even hours after lunch, six washings with perfumed soap, six applications of scented lotion, and in between all that an hour at the firing range. Lavender? No. Gunpowder? No. Only the crass grease and onion stink. Lovers, too, were like this. Long after they should have gone, they persisted with deserted panties, apostrophes of basin-beached hair. Now email and its hungrier cousins encroached on every absence. The heart grew annoyed, not fonder. She longed for the gentleness of memory in all of this rotting truth.
Read MoreAlways with me.
At dinner tonight, we got to talking. We talked about so many things, but one I wanted to write about before it slipped through the old brain-sieve. I am listening right now to a song that makes me think of someone I have not seen in years, someone I loved desperately with my then-heart. If I saw him again, I likely would have a flash of feeling, that electric eel around the collar one, remembering what it was like. Then I would have that certain relief of not having to love him anymore, of not having to succumb to muscle memory. The love is under glass in a museum I no longer visit. Sometimes I walk past the museum, and I can hear this song playing inside.
Read Moresage 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...
Read Moreslate and stove
Today’s blockbuster prompt is from Davmoo: “Please write 100 words on …your favorite childhood memory.” The wood stove in our living room was surrounded by pieces of slate. Old radiators kept the corners of the other rooms warm, but the wood stove, the old general, boomed forth waves of heat well into winter nights. Cats curled up to it as close as they dared. My parents each tended the fire in such an unassuming way while working on their other projects, another grownup ability that I found quietly glamorous. During nights spent around the stove, I would write and draw on the slate pieces with chalk while the three of us listened to albums of classical music. To this day, whenever I hear Satie’s Gymnopédies, I feel safe. [Want to...
Read Morevintage
I spotted a vintage Pelikan 100 in the wild — the reference desk, really — on Monday. It was burgundy with a bright gold “beak” clip and its owner let me write with it. It was filled with Private Reserve Chocolat, an excellent choice for this smooth writer. I let the patron write with my Lamy 2000, which is the new hotness of my collection and the Pelikan’s opposite in form and character; while the Pelikan reminded me of an antique Bentley, my Lamy is more of an Audi TT. It was a random treat in the middle of a dull day. Now I am flipping through Fountain Pens Past and Present and it smells just like my high school yearbooks used to smell. That combined with the smell of freshly-baking bread is making me homesick for Chicago, but only...
Read Morephotos I did not take
Last night the moon slipped slate-blue behind silver clouds, and although I could see it from the overstuffed leather recliner I did not fumble for a camera. I watched it, and it looked full, though my astigmatism makes me a poor judge of such things. Past midnight, sometime over the weekend, we were sitting with snacks, twin bowls of cereal, savoring the wee hours with no early alarm the next morning. Just outside our bedroom, my cat walked past his cat very, very slowly, and then carefully put her paw out to touch the very tip of his cat’s tail. We lost it; my mouth happened to be full of cereal. I wanted to take a photo of the moment I started thinking of my cat and his cat as our cats, but instead I cleaned the cereal off my face. Someone in the...
Read Morenostalgic
It is gray inside the building today, which reminds me of December, which in turn reminds me of last December and my last job. Our big project was just about to launch. The launch had been pushed back, and the new launch date conflicted with my holiday vacation. The team changed the launch date again so I could be present. I felt very lucky to be so cherished. I also felt overwhelmed and disenchanted and other things. To think that I have not once visited a website I used to visit hundreds of times a week. In the moment, we tend to think that our little importances, good or bad, will extend forward indefinitely. But the moment after this one, and this one, and this one, always proves that wrong. I miss certain aspects of every remembered moment of my life, be...
Read MoreNestcam
The cam was last on Friday, May 4.
Hello What
I am Halsted, a/k/a cygnoir, and I do stuff with words.
My favourite things to do with words are keeping this diary, writing stories, and organising information.
subscribe to updates:
· mobile edition ·
Scribbling
2,322/4,000 words
1,987/4,000 words
3,593/4,000 words
Reading
Listening
- Done Processing
Gridlock
1 days, 3 hours and 33 minutes ago - Atomontage
Gridlock
1 days, 3 hours and 40 minutes ago - Re/Module
Gridlock
1 days, 3 hours and 44 minutes ago
Plugging
