know your onion!

sometimes i feel like an onion. i don't know how to describe this feeling except, well, there's the center of the onion that formed when i was a very little girl, and then every year there's a new layer, until i'm 23 and i'm quite the well-developed onion. but that part at the center, and all of those layers thereafter, are still very much me. sometimes i am the center of my onion, a little girl , and sometimes i am the newest layer, a 23-year old, but more often i am somewhere in between, leaving me to feel very, very 15.

it's hard, sometimes, to look and act 23 but feel six or 15. there are a lot of discrepancies, as i'm sure you can imagine, between appropriate feelings for a 15-year old and someone who is completely finished with college and has been "on her own" for the past year-and-a-half.

things this weekend that made me feel six:
- my dog ate an article of my clothing (tantrum)
- i ate chicken-fil-a (truly enjoying fast food)

things this weekend that made me feel 15:
- a series of events ended up with me home alone on saturday night (self-indulgent loneliness)
- crying in mccoys in front of the waitress (unexplained crying)
- afraid of the waiter at lulus (intimidated by people who seem cooler than me)

things this weekend that made me feel 23:
-cleaned my house for five hours on saturday (deriving joy from chores)
-spent loads of money on nothing very exciting (sensible spending)



do you ever feel like an onion?

last night i helped with a surprise.

katie and nick never get to see each other. but they're, you know, in like. so it's hard. i can understand. when nick e-mailed me to ask would i please help him surprise katie, well, what was i supposed to say? of course yes. i think the only people on earth who wouldn't want to help with that surprise are recent divorcees and dictators. too busy oppressing people! (although, chavez probably knows how to have a good time).

so we came up with a secret plan. kate and i would eat dinner (at lulus, where i wish i lived. i wish i had my bedroom right in the center of lulus, and those hipster waiters would bring me red curry in bed.) and then we'd "meet up with people" at murays. for ice cream. and cookies.

the whole time i was nervous i would accidentally give up the surprise. like when you're sitting on the balcony at church, and you think, "i may jump over this balcony." and you know you wont, but you could. i was relieved when we finally made it to murays. i didn't give up the surprise!

katie and nick were so happy. you know that one youtube where the guys raise the lion cub, then release him into the wild, then go back a year later and find him again. the lion is so excited, he runs to them, jumps on them hugs them, then goes and gets his wife and introduces her to his old friends. it was exactly like that, except katie didn't go back and get her wife.

pieces of our mythology

the first time ak and i ever hung out (went out?), he called me for directions. well are you driving? i asked. "yes, i have a green jeep."

i'm sure there was more to our conversation, but that detail inexplicably sticks with me. i think about it probably once a week, actually. (little treasures like bits of memories and people's names tend to get trapped in my mind and roll around, i guess, like semi-precious stones in a rock tumbler. someday i'll take them out and they'll be shiny and smooth.)

several minutes later (he was running a little late, even way back then, and to tell the truth, he still is most of the time) i looked out the sixth story window of my apartment onto the street below. i saw a cute stranger parking a green jeep. my heart jumped. i felt wonderfully ill.

sometimes, i still do.

i get a terrible headache about once a month. i can feel them coming on: my shoulder starts to tense up, and then my neck, and then on the third day i'm hit with a full-blown pain parade. Weird vision, stabbing in my temple, general discomfort around the back of my head. today the pain was making me nauseous, nauseous, nauseous, and then suddenly, hungry. like, ravenous. like, i had to eat immediately or suffer certain death.

i dashed to the kitchen to warm up my lunch. as luck would have it this was my day to be visited by the fridge stealer (why me?), because all of my food was gone. the bread that i use to make toast: gone (!). the frozen pizzas i keep for emergencies: gone (!!). oh, mysterious fridge stealer, you make life interesting. i never know when i might be forced to forage for food outside the safe walls of my office.

a sandwich sounds good, i thought. i had the brilliant idea to have one made at the local grocery store deli rather than hitting up subway or jimmy johns. seems like a cheaper and fresher way to acquire a sandwich, right?

except. my sandwich was literally one thin slice of meat and one piece of cheese on white bread. not a sub. on white wonder bread. i had to beg for a piece of lettuce. and it cost. four. dollars. and. seven. teen. cents. no chips, no drink, just sandwich.

the guy who rang me up told me to "have a five-star day." i don't want a five-star day. i want a five-star sandwich.

tomorrow, i'll remember to pack.

(the sandwich in question.)

jim the bread man has a curly white mullet. he drives a big red astro van with the bench seats taken out. he is mysteriously related to the amish.
jim the bread man has a deal worked out with white hen and price chopper. a few times a week he goes and picks up groceries that are nearing the end of their shelf life. then he brings them over to my office and lets us pick out anything we want.
sometimes sandra sees jim the bread man driving up the road. she tells me that he's coming and i race upstairs to wait for him.
thanks jim, for all of the yummy food!

today is the first day of fall. can you feel it? i don't think i can, not yet.
ak and i went to chicago this weekend, but i didn't take one (!) picture. just imagine that it was beautiful.
let's go apple picking.

well first, there's this:

yesterday couldn't have been any better. it was just the sunshine, my little man and me.

i had grapefruit.

he had grass.

i worked. he played.

we're in love.

we have finally come up for air after what seemed like days and weeks of rain. i know we didn't receive even a fourth of the worst of it, and believe me, i am grateful. but still. people who say they'll take the rain must be truly crazy. give me a sunbeam every day of the week.



we made do with the rainy days, even if it meant letting the dogs wrestle in the middle of the living room, muddy paw prints everywhere and a leaky, smelly basement. event if it meant a daily commute complete with rivers and waterfalls.


sunday the clouds parted just enough so that we could take olly on a walk. we were quite pleased to find he has no need for remedial sitting lessons.

and my dream of owning a giant, finger-painted portrait of my dog have come true. ak thinks the $200 price tag is a bit steep, but i say there is no limit to the amount of money i'm willing to spend in order to prove my devotion.

it turns out i'm not very good about simple-blogging, am i?

and anyway, i was recently challenged with the idea that the more beauty is celebrated, the more beauty the celebrator has. so i decided to use this blog to celebrate the things in my life that are beautiful, and hopefully the more i celebrate them, the more beautiful my life will become. it is a way to view life as art, something that can be cultivated and executed and edited for beauty. life as art. art as life. beauty. i like that.

i'm not very good at painting, sketching, sculpting or photography. but i can live, so i guess i can still make art. i'll try. and you'll get to see how it works.

here's something beautiful: the vineyard alan and i visted in rocheport, missiouri. it's a place where rows of grapes grow on vines on top of a bluff, over looking the missiouri river. we cycled about seventy miles to get there, and we arrived sweaty and tired. we walked right up to those vines and plucked off a few ripe grapes. they were tangy and full of seeds, but they tasted wonderful...
and it was pretty good in liquid form, too. maybe you can see the river in the background of this picture. we were above it, on a patio built out over the bluff. for a moment, we were in switzerland or italy. the moment passed, we hopped back on our bikes and rode 60 miles home. (but the grapes made the whole trip worth while.)

Olly had to stay with Mark and Kathy while we were on our trip. don't worry. he came home with new treats and a toy. what more could a little boy need?