who am i?

so i'm sitting at work waiting to give this oral exam. and i want to be mad cause the lady isn't showing up, but the truth is, i got here late so it's probably my fault.
the basic class is doing a listening exercise that goes something like this:
"i have class at 5pm. i was born in 1980. who am i?"
i'm assuming they are looking at some kind of chart or something. but i just keep hearing "who am i?" and i thought it was funny.

so, i'm a sucker for the sensational. kind of like how i was telling allison and her mom that i really like pre-teen romance novels. you know, the kind where the"steamy" parts go a little something like this: "the kiss was serious. serious like my hair." (no lie. it's in a book. maybe that milk carton book or the sequel? i don't know. i read too muvh as a kid.) so of course when my news reader tells me i can see the loch ness monster, you know i'm gonna click. and i did. and it's pretty cool, i guess. (although, i must admit, i was slightly disappointed.)

in a manner of speaking i don't understand

it's funny how the most unexpected things can have such a profound effect.


a couple of my sister's friends came over tonight. i wasn't expecting it to be much fun for me, but i ended up really very glad that they came and oddly invigorated.

i just found a photo album that my sister seems to have inadvertently stolen from my parents' house.
it's full of pictures of me when i was 11 and we lived in saudi arabia.
i feel like i have uncovered some lost record of my life.
i don't know why this is such a solemn thing to me, but it is.

we like the newness of all

jord likes this picture.
mostly cause i look dumb, but it is pretty funny. and kind of impressive that he could take the picture at just the right instant.
how would you feel if all the cheese came off your pizza right as you were ready to eat it? (thanks for your sympathy, liz.)



thoughts about my trip:
i like the ocean. there are lots of nice natural wonders all over the place, but there's just something extra wonderful about a seaside town. i admit, the southeast is the best, with the gulf stream heating the atlantic to a nice, comfortable bath temperature, but gloucester was lovely. we also drove through manchester-by-the-sea, round the tip of cape ann and some other place jord said but i can't remember.
heavenly.

i like old things. i like that boston likes old things.
i like old houses and architecture. little houses by some standards, but ideal by mine.
i like old cemeteries. they are very fascinating.
i like "european" cities.
i like getting lost. i like walking a lot, except when i have to walk home cause i've given up exploring because i'm too tired to walk anymore.
i like not having to drive everywhere.

i like getting treats on a whim.
i like things that stay open late.
i like knowing my way around and finding secret passageways.
i like shopping, but i don't have money.

i like spiral staircases and stone-walled basements.
i like boston terriers. especially those that say hi to us every day as we come and go.

i like living in places much better than visiting them. even though this often entails a few more inconveniences. (notably to my over-generous hosts)


i don't like traveling alone.

i don't like going back to real life and responsibilities.

we gathered in spring

i don't smoke!
don't listen to jo.

it's the turmeric, i swear. it could happen to anyone. nicotine isn't the only thing that turns your fingers yellow. trust me.

freedom for all luncheon crackers!

so i've designated joey as the designated poster on the picture of the day and that frees me up to do a little of my own posting.
i'm afraid there is only one topic of any interest: boston.

boston finally shook off the rain and we took today to venture forth. we started backwards and made our way to "the prud'" and the christian science temple square, but the big church and the glass globe is closed on mondays. cause it's open on the weekend. if that makes sense.
from there we went up to downtown crossing but it was too cold to find the good books. so we started looking for lunch which took us to our plan for the day: the freedom trail.
the freedom trail.
see, boston isn't just like your town. boston has special sidewalks for adventures. they call it "the freedom trail" and it takes you all over the city and it never gets lost. it shows you all kinds of houses and churches and hills. and cemeteries. not just regular old cemeteries, either. REALLY old cemeteries. with the stand up kind of headstones and creepy carving on them. i decided that i like cemeteries. is that morbid?

boston also has ferries that are buses and solar powered trash cans.
that's pretty cool, eh?

the only snag we hit in following the red brick road was when we went to see the uss constitution. old ironsides must be open on the weekends too, cause it was closed, but not just regular old closed, it was swarming with uniforms and really big rubber stampers. i decided i have a horrible fear of uniformed personnel. (is that morbid?) but i liked the big stampers. then all the people came off the boat and it was a graduation. we decided to go on a spy mission and even acquired a few enemy spies who followed us around all the way to the aquarium. we then did some sneaky spy maneuvers and ditched them.

then we went to the green briar and listened to the irish fiddling, but we couldn't hear their accents.

hey! i'm not the only one who thinks lawns are a waste of space!!

i read this blog.

i'm pretty well in love with the idea of planting a victory garden. and we all know i'm in favor of turning front lawns into veggie gardens.



check it out. and if one day i hail from san fran, you'll know why.

i never remember my dreams

and i think we may begin to see why.

i just had a very oddly disturbing dream. the kind that makes you have to stand up and shake yourself before you realize it was a dream and none of it was real or even plausible.

it is a dark dream. dark in color, i mean. a grey/purply blue. like a dickens novel, or, like a bbc film adaptation of a dickens novel. or like a rainstorm.
it's characterized by a slightly panicked feeling and a strong sense of purpose. but what purpose? nadie sabe.
my earliest consciousness of the dream is sitting in my car in the dark at my parents' house. my phone rings and i can't hear well but it's the girl who has kindly agreed to sublet my room for the summer. i can't quite understand what she's saying, but because she offers to pay for may, i assume she's asking me to come get the last of the furniture i have left in the room. i sit back down in the car and try to clear things (although no one else is around and it's very silent outside things seem calmer and quieter within the car. oh. and i guess i got out of the car to talk to her at some point.)
i say "what exactly is it you're asking? because i'm technically in boston so i can't come get my stuff until the end of the month." at this point i become aware that i say "technically" because i'm not in boston. i'm in salt lake. we've come back for a day to get my mother and sister (even though my sister lives in colorado springs) but i really can't come get the furniture because i'm in the car because we are packing (or unloading? what exactly the business with the car is is never clear in the dream.) with excessive franticness to get there on time. somewhere in here i also realize that i'm not even in salt lake because i'm in the driveway of my old montvale house in durham. it's a hot night and maybe a little rain? i'm walking around and while i'm on the phone i see a toe in the back of my car (which is now a hatchback like my sister's new car) i think it is odd that someone is sleeping in my car and think nothing more about it. then i see these enormous birds (i think they're birds. i decide one, at least, is an owl) walking around like totoro. so i run into the house (the girl has stopped talking when i told her i can't come get the stuff and i can't tell if she doesn't know what to say or if the phone died or if she hung up. not my usual self, i just leave the phone in the car.) and tell everyone to come out and see these big scary, creepy birds walking around in the dark (the back part of the driveway, by the woodpile, where we used to park the lincoln.) the fam is doing something (probably playing games) and are taking a long time, but for some reason it's very important that we all go back outside. (i only go far enough in to see that the house is nothing like any of the houses i've ever lived in, but there's a big fireplace with a fire and wood floors and it looks like a nice place to go hang out in, so i'm anxious to finish whatever the beans it is i'm doing outside and get in with the fam) so, impatient with my family who doesn't understand the significance of actually seeing a totoro, i run back, but then i'm scared because they are quite obviously big birds, but not owls and i don't want them to come too close with those big beaks and talons. the chronology gets mixed here, but then maria and my mom come out but there are all these people coming out from the university (which is apparently up on the hill by our house and connected by a little chain-link gate.) it looks like it was a gymnastics or a dance thing cause there are a lot of girls with lots of sparkly make-up and their parents. i explain to my mom and maria (but we were separated by the crowd in our driveway for a minute) that the crowd must have scared them away. and i'm reminding my sister that she never came out the back door of my apartment. and this sad because it's so much more convenient to everything, even though it's less picturesque. (this dream -ha ha pun!- apartment is also for some reason on the top floor with a fire escape out back but it really is, for some reason, so much more convenient than the fancy front door everyone comes in. it's not like an apartment building, though, where you come in the bottom and come up, it's very much like a house with a front door except that my apartment is on the top floor. go figure.) so then we're walking on a trail or an over grown road or something (not like a horror movie, but like an old english country road. like at the beginning of rebecca...) and i bring up the toe in my car and i guess other things have made me suspicious. my mom won't say anything. maria just laughs like they're planning a surprise for me and tells me not to ask and says she doesn't know what i'm talking about. i get angry and want to know what happened and what they won't tell me. my mom says the only important thing for me to do is to make sure when i park the car, that i stay 50 ft. away from it at all times. this tips me off that there is a dead body in the car and my job is to stay safely ignorant and blow up the car and the evidence. (i'm mostly sad to be losing my car, but no worries, i'm duly shocked and horrified to discover that my mother is a calm, cool killer.) my mom says "i guess whoever had the car before us didn't take that good of care of it." i'm confused and feel like i should remind my mother that you can see right in to the "trunk" of my car because it's a hatchback, but maria and my mom are both angry and keep telling me to stop talking. now i'm driving the car and i realize that maybe they just don't want to have this discussion in front of the creepy guy standing in front of us on the trail. so i ask if they want to get in, but then i start backing away down the road. they follow, but then i don't stop at the house and they get annoyed because somehow i've knocked a shopping cart with a trailer loose and it's rolling away. so, eager to pacify, i get out and chase down the cart (i'm very fast. who knew?) and bring it back. then i try to decide how i should deal with getting my car and the cart all the long way back up to the house and determine that the best thing is to put all of my things in the cart. so i start gathering up my things out of the car. there shouldn't be very many, i think, because i've been emptying it, but still it takes a while. and the time it takes me to do this worries my mother, but i think maybe it would be easiest to just blow up the car where it is now and no one will be hurt. then i think that since it's in our driveway they will obviously come to our door and i wonder what my mom wants me to do because, obviously, i'm on my mother's side even though it looks like she may be responsible for the body in the back of my car.


then i wake up and force myself to get up and go talk to liz. it's about 12:30 in our lazy afternoon. it's rainy in boston and very nicely very warm. we've been watching bleak house while liz practices and jord gets new tires on the car. my parents fly in tonight and maria next week.
i'm kind of disturbed. i must say.

but you don't have to say.
really. you don't.

today is not saturday. and today is me

i'm in boston. i'm taking it easy, but i'm planning on staying in touch. but it might be hit and miss. here are some pictures.










i went to the boston public library. it's very fancy.




i have two sisters with me at all times. this is jen and liz on my left.














the tragedy of the trip. the tragedy of procrastination, hesitation and living on credit.


arcade fire plays tonight and i don't have a ticket.
















this is jord's favorite church in cambridge. why is it on its side?


ok. so i'm dumb.

oh well.
hasta.

more pictures!!

kai made the baby peas a playground.
it's very nice.



but it might be just a little big for them right now...

more baby pictures!!

they're getting so big!




(this one's flandro jr.)

plagues of egypt

or school spirit?

he gets to fly a kite...

you can't see it, somehow he has a stealth kite that my cell-phone camera can't pick up, but there, outside my work, is a little child flying a kite. i'm so jealous! (he's the one sitting on the grass. he's kind of an expert; he doesn't even have to run around and look dumb, and the kite is still flies!)

whose idea was this?

um, why is my birthday the coldest day of the week?
why do we have to put up with snow on my newly planted and already very nerve-wracking garden?
my goodness.

in other news, john vanderslice was, for the second year in a row, rather fun.
and viv and i are something quite in love with st. vincent.

happy birthday to me and can we have just a little bit of sunshine and warmth, please?

failure is always the best way to learn

can i talk to you about something that's really bothering me? i don't know who else to talk to.
i hate theoretical knowledge. it's so hard when you're finally called upon to put it into action. and what about when you can't tell if you need to act?
see, i'm really excited about my garden. i'm passionate by nature so any project i undertake, especially one of this magnitude and financial investment, will engender my full capacity for enthusiasm, but gardens are particularly close to my heart.
this garden is also particularly important because it's not just mine or mine and my family's.
i may not be the only one investing in this here project, but i have been placed, admittedly by my own assertions and wishes, as the resident expert. (overlooking the all too problematic detail that i am not the resident of the property which houses my garden.)

now, i do know something about what i'm doing. i have been gardening in some way or another for my whole life.
i have been gardening independently and in a role of some authority for a surprising number of years (i'm not one to be upset by upcoming birthdays marking the passing of time, but my goodness, i am rather older than i expected.)
i have taken a course in horticulture; i have worked in a plant nursery and on a landscaping crew for two summers.
i have never had any major gardening failures. (set backs, less than successes, sure, but no failures.)

i need to talk to someone cause my peas aren't coming up yet and i think i killed them somehow. and we bought some plants and i planted them yesterday.
i was/am way excited. i added the compost, double digged and thoroughly worked the ground a number of times. turning the dry soil with a shovel, all seemed really well. fingering through it, i was less sure; i don't really know, but the texture wasn't...ideal.
no matter.
we knew it was clay soil so we bought some peat moss. the neighbors suggested it and i know it as a remedy for clay soil too. it was the right thing to do, right?
i had already worked the soil and the only times i've ever used peat moss is a couple of times when my mom has just put in a spoonful as we plant. so that's what i did. and i planted my first strawberry. it looked good. i was way happy. then i poured some water on and i knew why they call it clay soil. my garden at home is anything but clay. it's great dirt. we work hard on it every year and we've lived here for coming up on 12 years. i suppose i'm just spoiled, but i've never seen anything like what happens to this dirt when wet. it scared me. i added some more peat moss as a top dressing and continued planting, adding more peat moss to each hole, getting more and more nervous about the state of my soil.
i am particularly nervous about the little corsican mint i stuck into the crannies at the edges of the brick path. that soil i hadn't worked and that's where the dirt to mud to cement problem seems the worst.
now. there is still quite a bit of planting to be done and i can add bunches of peat moss to the whole bed if i really feel that it is necessary, but here's the other thing: (actually there are two)
1- peat moss is quite acidic. i've never been a soil tester, but maybe we should? i was reading a little about broccoli cause i've never grown it and it says if it fails to produce heads it means it needs potash. so i ask my father if potash is by any miracle an acid. "no!" shouted both my parents in unison. "it's quite alkali...base." (putting it into terms my simplistic understanding of chemistry can understand.) so i now i have to worry that in order to solve my drainage and aeration problems i have just caused a production problem for my little baby broccoli.
2- peat moss does the trick for loosening up clay soil. anyone will tell you that. but let me tell you, i've sat in on my share of sales meetings and i know that one of the main things i'm supposed to tell people to make them buy the whatever way too expensive gardener and bloom whatever mix is that over time peat moss actually gets compacted and makes the problem worse!

so now what do i do?
what if nothing grows? so much money wasted.
but if we try to solve the problem it's so expensive.
and everyone is all hyped up cause all i do is talk about the garden and what if i fail?!!
oh so sad and humbling. (not to mention the fact that actually no one but me is hyped up by any stretch of the imagination.)
not that i'm prideful, but i just really want this to be good. and i'm really scared that it won't work.

and i just transplanted some of my chives tonight and i'm a little nervous that they might just keel over from transplant shock. and what if the other half i left at home gets shocked too and dies? i was pretty harsh with the shovel, just hacking it in half in a second and chucking it into a bucket. not that my mom uses the chives all the time, but there's never an ok time to kill a plant unthinkingly.



and kind of the worst thing is, i know that even if everything does die and i turn out to be a horrible gardener without my mother's magic soil, i know no one will be mad and no one will blame me.

bandits

did you ever want to be overrun by bandits;
to hand over all of your things and start over new?
while we were out hunting for food
our house was being robbed
I caught an apple and she caught a fox
so I caught a rabbit but she caught an ox

so upon our return, we found everything gone
which for us was no loss
and we started over
with a rabbit and an ox

so they came down from the north
carrying all they owned
with a basket full of food and clothes
they were stopped by a weekend raid
traveling the woods one day
they tried to put up a fight, but lost.
so we asked for them to stay
with us on their way
to have a drink and rest
and regain their strength

did you ever want to run around with bandits;
to see many places and hide in ditches?
it's not always easy, it's not always easy
when the winter comes and the greenery goes
we will make some shelter
when the winter comes and the greenery goes
we will make some shelter

-midlake

it was in my head.

baby pictures!!!

they're a little shy.

yo yo yo it's april

two funny stories:
1- my sister called me yesterday. (i have 3 sisters. oldest, maria, lives in colorado springs. next, liz, lives in boston. younger, jen, lives in the sl of the c. this was liz calling.)
i was driving home from work and was pleasantly surprised.
"so mom tells me that maria is flying out for your graduation?" she begins with a slightly, ever so slightly, accusatory tone.
"yes..." i respond, wondering if she is offended that we're not flying her out. (hey. $44 is a good deal. if it was $44 from boston to slc, we'd fly her out too.)
"you're graduating?!!"

2-i don't like the union. unfortunately, i often eat breakfast there. this morning i was lucky and got what i came for: a chocolate chocolate donut sans sprinkles.
i sat down and the cute little lady who often smiles, clears my trash for me and always brings a second chair to my table for one, paused today after adding the chair. she set down her newspaper and at first i thought she was offering me some reading material.
then she pointed to the first letter and said "m. a. k. i. n. g. how you say?" and so i told her. we progressed through the entire headline ("making the 'mos' of your money" i've never hated puns so badly in all my life.) confusing "mos" with "mouth" and "of" with "up".
i'm certain i didn't make things clear to her, but i was kind of honored that she would ask me.

why don't you find out for yourself?

you know how life never happens how you expect? i hate that.
like for example: holi.
i've never missed a holi since i've known it existed. for me it's one of those things that takes precedence over everything else.
this year was set to be ideal.
it was late in the month, we'd been having a warm spell, and it was spring break so i was rested.
nothing like last year when i was frantically moving the entire day and was so tired i almost didn't want to go.
this year a number of people were going to come for the first time.
and i was going with them, to show them the ropes.
i was excited. beaming. busting.

but i didn't go to holi this year. the unthinkable happened: i missed it. and not only did i miss it, i was there to witness for my own self that i had indeed missed it. and not only that, i had to watch, powerlessly, just how annoying the provo-ites can be.

(it was due to a combination of any number of factors and the reason is truly irrelevant.)



you know how life never happens how you expect? i love that.
like for example: my garden.
i love gardens. i love taking care of them. i used to work at millcreek gardens. larene put me in charge of vegetables. almost immediately. that ought to tell you how much i love gardening.
i used to plan my garden over thanksgiving; my old garden barely tilled under, i could hardly wait for the next year.
this year i had decided to not even try. i moved from home and there's no garden plot where i live. i tried small pots last year. it was a miserable failure.
i don't know how to take care of pots; i'm much better in the real earth. and i'm even busier than i was last year.
i was sad. frustrated. resigned.

but i don't have to be gardenless this year. the unthinkable happened: someone offered to let me use their garden and THEY MEANT IT! and not only did they mean it, they're more than willing to help. and not only do they help, they get almost as excited about it as me. (i said almost. no one can get as excited as me about such a silly thing.) and not only that, i get to see how wonderful real friends can be.

notice

i want to say that today i have lived in my house for exactly one year.

this is momentous because ever since i went to spain i have felt like a transient.
most of my nomadic ways were by my own free will and choice, but it is nonetheless draining to have to carry your life with you wherever you go, to be wary of putting things in cupboards because it will be that much work to pack it up again.

i have lived in one place for a year and have no intention of moving for at least a little while, so i thought it worthy of note.

who do you want to blame?

do you know those days when you just think "i'm a fool for being alive"?
i have more of those than i think is my fair share.
which, liza, is why i have a happy blog. cause otherwise all i would think about is how somehow, just when i'd discovered all the tips and tricks i needed to finally master my one great photographic ambition, the entire bottle of liquid light got exposed.

i should've had a good day today, but it's nearing 11pm and i just am not happy.
i can't really say why.
i didn't necessarily have plans so it's not that i didn't get to do them.
i did work on my project AND do homework so it's not that i'm lazy.
i got to talk to rennie and kathryn, which is sadly rare.
cam sent me a happy birthday text.
(by the bye, i think it is so super awesome that cam, out of all people, would remember my birthday)
i ate good food (my dad is perfecting his sandwich repertoire and tonight i sampled the latest reincarnation of the tuna melt, which i love. jalapenos. who knew?)
and i finally learned how to operate tivo (which may solve all of my "i hate tv/turn off the idiot box/candy everybody wants/what show's that? oh sorry, i work nights. and mornings and days." problems)

all in all, i would have to classify today as a good day and myself as an absolute brat for being in a sad mood right now.

i think i'm going to bed.