It's Like My Car Has A House, Too

I got home last night and you know what I did? I went out into my garage and got my car cleaned up from moving. It was great. Toby thought so, too. I think he's plotting how to drive it so he can do this:

Tuesday Project Roundup: A Deocorating Equation

These 2 items:

plus 1 bedskirt from IKEA add up to this:


That total, when combined with 2 lamps from Home Goods, 1 new headboard, and 1 more IKEA "Rast" chest finished by one's father, gets you a new total of:


100% FANCY. Oh yeah!

Yesterday Was A Great Day

Why? Lowes delivered a new washer and dryer and my dad did a custom installation for them.* Then I did five loads of laundry WITHOUT LEAVING MY HOUSE.
I used the "Bulky" setting, I used the "Handwash" setting, I used the "Steam Refresh" feature on my dryer, and I felt as if I'd finally arrived in Grown-Up Land.

Not only are they full of features, they are Toby-approved, too:

Yes, yesterday was a great day.



*Dad, I didn't realize it would be that tricky or that washers were THAT heavy. Thank you!!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I'm getting a washer and dryer delivered this weekend! I still don't quite believe that in just 48 hours I'll be able to do laundry IN MY OWN HOME.

2. Happy birthday to my buddy Wallace Stegner!

3. LOOK AT THIS T-SHIRT. And you can print it in custom colors! I'm buying one.

Not Quite An Imaginary Boyfriend

I heard a James McMurtry song Sunday on KRCL that just hit me--I had known of his name before but hadn't really heard any of his songs. It's called "Hurricane Party" and the refrain is "There's no one to talk to when the lines go down," plus it talks about "one great love." Thoughtful, lonely lyrics! Clever guitar! I was hooked. Have a listen:



Although I learned he plays a club in Austin most Wednesdays and I briefly planned an Imaginary Trip, complete with Imaginary Cute Outfits I'd Sew, I think he may a little too close to a hippy to be a true Imaginary Boyfriend. (A couple of years ago I took a vow: No more hippies, EVER.)* But he can be my Imaginary World-Weary-and-Older-Let's-Have-Some-Bourbon-and-Compare-Scars Friend.


*The way he sings "The Lights of Cheyenne" kind of makes me want to recant that vow. But I hold firm! Because I value steady jobs and shampoo!

Crossing A Line?

I'm almost ready to hang art on the walls in the house, but I have one problem: Ninety-nine percent of my art is prints of Japanese woodblocks. I don't want the place to start looking like the Asian Art Museum of San Fransicso, so I'm considering an abstract painting for above the fireplace. Or more accurately, I'm considering plagiarizing someone else's art and making my own abstract painting for above the fireplace.

I am in love with a couple of sold paintings from Michelle Armas--I think her use of color is right up my alley and if I had a couple of thousand dollars to spend on art, I totally would spend it on her art. But I could also buy a canvas and some acrylics and not exactly COPY her, but maybe make my own abstract painting in the style of Michelle Armas.

The sold one that I love, "Rosalia."

Another sold one, "Wise Math."

What do you think? Do I enter a gray area of taking someone's intellectual property? Would mine just look amateurish, because there's a reason hers cost so much? I have her 2011 calendar, so I could always just wait for the year to be over and frame that. But prints of paintings just aren't as shiny as real paintings, with their real brushstrokes and gobs of paint.

(It's a first-world dilemma, that's for sure.)

Tuesday Project Roundup: A Day Off To Sew

I put my day off yesterday to good use: Cut out a new dress, made coffee cake, bought lamps and picture frames, assembled a flat-pack coffee table--and sewed a pillow to go on my newly-reupholstered chair.

And the long view:
Don't the chair and pillow combo just shout "FANCY!"? Gosh, it's nice to have the space to finally be fancy.

(We're not fancy all the time over here, though. There was a lot of this going on yesterday, in spite of all the productivity:)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I'm sure you've heard all about Watson the supercomputer this week. The only thing I have to say about it is, "Why didn't they name it Sherlock? He was the smart one!"

2. I have one more appliance decision to make, and that's on a washer and dryer. Good thing President's Day weekend is a time of appliance sales.

3. I am really enjoying an attached garage--and so is Toby. I was unloading a lot of stuff this week so the car was open, and he decided to jump in and explore. Now when I let him into the garage he sits outside the Focus and meows to get in. Crazy kitty.

How's The Memorization Coming?

Remember before all the house news that I wanted to memorize six poems this year? I gave myself two months for each one, and now that it's nearly the end of February I'd better step up the work on "The Poems of Our Climate." I have the first stanza down, but there are two more. Here's what I have memorized, just right for a snowy morning:


I
Clear water in a brilliant bowl,
Pink and white carnations. The light
In the room more like a snowy air,
Reflecting snow. A newly-fallen snow
At the end of winter when afternoons return.
Pink and white carnations - one desires
So much more than that. The day itself
Is simplified: a bowl of white,
Cold, a cold porcelain, low and round,
With nothing more than the carnations there.

Wind!

Remember last week when I put up the poem that said, "Hold on, dear house...against the wind's tearing force"? Well--hold on, dear house! It was pretty windy all night so there was a whole new set of house sounds to learn.

All this wind is supposed to bring snow. Technically, snow removal is part of the HOA dues I've paid but I don't have a contact number or any info about it. This will be fascinating...maybe it's time to yell at people on the phone again?

Tuesday Project Roundup: I Think Unpacking Counts As A Project

Obviously, I've been too busy moving to really make anything. But I only have two boxes left ot unpack, so I think I can count this as a project. Want to see how my stuff looks in the new house? (Answer: "sparse." But it works for now.)

I call this "View Over the Kitchen Counter with Toby Head."

Just behind that shot is the kitchen. Are you blinded by the glory of this fridge? Oh wait, that might just be the florescent lights. But the fridge IS pretty glorious.

I'm not taking a picture of the empty dining area, so that's pretty much the main floor. If you go up the stairs, there's the guest bath at the top of them:
Check out that mirror my dad hung so well. Fabric for the shower curtain is there on the counter.

Turn left from the guest bath and you get to the master bedroom. I'm only showing one end of it because the other end just has a lonely dresser. I need to get some more furniture in there because there's enough room for a seating area, too. This is the less-lonely end with the bed (and Toby's bed):
And I have a master bath--I have to share it with Toby, though:

And look at this medicine cabinet that my dad hung! It's mirrored inside. It, too, is glorious.


Turn right from the top of the stairs and you get to the two other bedrooms. I'm using one as an office:
I've discovered it's the wi-fi "hotspot" in the house.


And the other bedroom is the craft room! The red table needs to become a long white table and I need to make a new ironing board cover in this fabric. I also need to assemble the rolling chair in that box. And you can see I'm trying out fabric for the valance.

Whew! Lots of pictures. Lots of stuff that got moved in. And yet, even more stuff still to buy. But that's being a homeowner, right?

I'm In! And Someone Didn't Password Protect Their Internet!

I moved and am mostly unpacked and have internet right now, so I thought I'd better give a shout out to my family, who not only helped me move SO MANY HEAVY THINGS over the weekend but helped so much: My dad arranged the rental truck and hung mirrors and plumbed the water line for my new fridge; my mom vacuumed and cleaned both the new house and the old apartment, and my brother used his own truck and got to carry the heaviest things upstairs with my dad. My family is the best! So thank you, family.

One of the best things about this move is realizing I never have to move again if I don't want to. But if I do, I'll hire movers. Don't worry, family.

Going Dark For A While

I have house keys, I have garbage and recycling cans, I have 90% of the apartment packed up, I have utilities transferred, I have the move all planned out--but I don't have internet in the house yet.

Because it's new, there's no cable run. I have Comcast coming out for a "site survey," but...it's Comcast; I have no idea when that will happen. So I can't post here for the foreseeable future (which is going to feel strange because I've been posting every day since 2006). I think updating the Twitter during the workday might be a little more feasible than a full-blown post, but I'll check in when I can. Maybe I can even pirate a neighbor's network.

So stay tuned...the next time you hear from me I'll be in the new house!

And Now All The Drama Is Over

And now I can, you know, start living in the house I bought. Here's part of a poem about it:

Hold on, dear house,

‘gainst the long hours

of emptiness, against

the wind’s tearing force.

You are my mind

made particular,

my heart in its place.

(from Robert Creeley’s “This House”)

DO YOU SEE THE LIGHT?!

As you read this, I am on my way to CLOSE on my HOUSE that I bought by MYSELF.

Up until yesterday afternoon, I was fully prepared to have everything implode (and then this would have happened), but the closing costs stayed as estimated, the mortgage insurance didn't increase, and I ordered a cashiers check, the heavens opened, and I could only shout, like Elwood, "The house! The HOUSE!!"


Because YES! YES!! JESUS H. TAP DANCING CHRIST, I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!! I'M A HOMEOWNER!!

And god bless the United States of America!

Tuesday Project Roundup: I'm Going To Buy SOMETHING

Let me just start with a house update: I have a closing time set for tomorrow. This is a step farther than I got before, when I had a day but no time, but I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop and by god, if anyone tries anything funny with the final closing costs, I am walking. (If that happens, I'll just pretend that my construction deposit was for a vacation. A vacation that nearly gave me a stroke.)

But going to back to last week, when I was going to close and didn't, I was trying to sleep Friday and ended up on the Fashion Fabrics Club site, where they had some really great stuff for spring, and I thought, "Maybe I can't buy a house this weekend, but I CAN buy fabric." And I did.

I bought some big print sateen for a shift dress, inspired by a Lily Pulitzer dress:

I bought some big dots to make a skirt for that Cynthia Rowley bodice I abandoned in the summer (it should work out to be similar to this dress from Boden):

And I bought a Japanese print knit, because I will take anything in a Japanese print.

Now it just needs to be spring. And I just need to unpack my sewing room.

Is It A Good Day Or A Bad Day?

Today things will either go smoothly with the revised appraisal and my loan will be squared away--or I can finally yell at someone on the phone the way I've always wanted to. I really don't know which scenario to expect. I didn't expect any of the loan drama over the last month, so maybe I'd better expect the worst. Should I even expect....the Spanish Inquisition?!

Where Will The Football Go Next?

As it turns out, I am not closing today. Or Monday. I'm "probably closing next week." (The appraisal, which came back MONDAY, did not have enough comparables to satisfy the mortgage insurance company, a fact which the loan officer didn't notice until YESTERDAY.) I know I shouldn't be surprised by more drama and misinformation and mendacity* with this house purchase, but, like Charlie Brown, I keep expecting it to be different.

On the bright side, it was supposed to snow this weekend anyway and now I have some more time to pack. With the delay, I may even have a real mailbox installed and waiting! Stay tuned!


*My gay best friend and I are having a good time quoting Tennessee Williams lines about "mendacity" to each other: "Mendacity is the system that we live in!" "What's that smell? Didn't you notice a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room?" It's a good time.

Yes, It Is

I had the inevitable moving meltdown last night: I ran out of boxes again (and still have all my books and most of my dishes to pack); I learned that I may not close on Friday as planned, which would give me just Monday to not only get into the new house but to get out of the apartment and clean it; and as of right now I still don't have a mailbox at the new house--the builder insists that the postmaster isn't returning his calls, but until the postmaster comes to the site and orders a mailbox, I don't have a recognized address. Which means that I can't update any billing information or get utilities turned on.

However--this is all temporary. I hate moving (and uncertainty) with the fiery intensity of a thousand white-hot suns, but I will find more boxes, most of my bills are online anyway, and if I have the weekend to pack, I won't feel as rushed. I saw this image making the rounds on the lifestyle blogs, and you know what? Everything IS going to be amazing. I'm going to be a homeowner!

Moving Time

Oh yes, this week I am packing for a Saturday move.

Toby is helping, of course.

While I pack, I have the Semisonic "Closing Time" song in my head, but I'm making up new lyrics.


moving time,
pack up all the boxes
and stack them up in your house
moving time
time for Dad to rent a truck
and drive everything across town

I do like a line of the original lyrics, though: every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. Oh, the profundities of 90's pop.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Attack Of The Baby Tomatoes

Here's another veggie hat for another coworker's expected little girl. This one is a tomato, because I had red yarn leftover from the owl sweater and green yarn leftover from knitting for my impending nephew.
I'm still all over the place for sizing baby things--I was in a store looking at newborn sizes and they looked impossibly tiny. But I guess babies are, indeed, small. This hat is on the small side, just in case.

Happy Belated Birthday, Ed Abbey

Saturday would have been Edward Abbey's 84th birthday. (I think he's still waiting for someone to take out the Glen Canyon Dam.*) Here are two of my favorite quotes of his:

"Completely passive, acted upon but never acting, the desert lies there like the bare skeleton of Being, spare, sparse, austere, utterly worthless, inviting not love but contemplation."

and

"A drink a day keeps the shrink away."

Amen, brother.

*dear FBI, if you are monitoring the interwebs, I'm not a terrorist. That was just the plot point of The Monkey Wrench Gang.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. The latest report from people in the know tells me that I may be closing on the house as early as February 4th. That's next Friday. The Friday one week from today. Oh my god.

2. Look at this fabric that has flying squirrels and Sphinxes on it. What a shame I need to buy appliances instead of fabric.


3. Let's all think of this quote from Ayn Rand, because Ayn wouldn't panic at the thought of moving:
Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swaps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.

Sundays Are My Laundry Days, But I Like The Point Being Made

Etta James had a birthday on Tuesday and I've been listening to her album At Last a lot lately--especially this track, "A Sunday Kind of Love."



It makes even laundry days a little more soulful.

In Which I Go To Sundance And Get A New Imaginary Boyfriend

Despite being a native Utahan, I've never been to Sundance (I've never been downhill skiing, either). But a friend had an extra ticket this year, so last night I got to see The Ledge. It was a thriller/love story/exploration of faith and it was really good--but I liked the Q&A with the writer/director Matthew Chapman most of all.

You can get a taste of him in the video linked to above, but he was just so smart and insightful and logical, talking about how the world needs "mercy more than condemnation." Sigh--rational humanists do it for me every time.

Also, if you want to stick out at Sundance, just wear a color. Especially and orange coat.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Not What I Pictured, But Finished At Last

Here is the dress I'd been working on since December, using fabric I'd had since August. I used a pattern I'd made twice before, so I thought I knew what to expect, but I'm not 100% pleased with this, for undefined reasons.

Maybe because the fabric is some of the last fancy fabric I'll be working with for a long time (hello, mortgage) and I expected more from it? Maybe because the print isn't large enough to handle the big blank canvas of the dress? Or is it because the print is too busy for the plain silhouette?

On the hanger. It needs pockets, or a belt, or something...


On me. Still missing something. (Yes, we like to gather round the space heater here at Chez Kitty.)

I just don't know. I think I might take up the hem a few more inches and get some bright contrasting tights. Bright tights help everything.

It's Monday

I woke up feeling cynical, so here is a picture of Toby.


He was "helping" me sew last weekend and just climbed on top of the machine while I was pressing a seam. He usually sits on the machine when it's covered, which gives him a little more room--note the paw held up to tell me, "Mama, this is too small. Fix it."

(Don't worry, he couldn't have made the machine go, so he wasn't about to hurt himself.)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Sorry, I put up a broken link to my Twitter stream yesterday (I just assumed it would re-direct to the non-signed-in page but I guess Twitter doesn't do that). If you want to read 140-character inanities, here's the right link.

2. Speaking of Twitter, Laura Ingalls Wilder is on it, too.

3. And in space news, Voyager 1, launched in 1977 with the golden record of Earth sounds picked by Carl Sagan, has reached the very edge of our solar system and is almost in interstellar space--the first time anything from Earth will do so. (Thanks to my friend Jason for pointing this out.)

Eyes On The Prize

If you follow my Twitter stream you will know that there was more lender drama yesterday, which made me nearly inarticulate with fury (all-caps shouting of "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD" was about all I could manage). But I went to see the house last night and if I can ever get in, I will like living there.

Did I mention I have a basement? That comes already insulated?

And that I think I picked the best beige carpeting option from the six other beiges offered?

And that I have a place for a washer and a dryer? I think I will weep with joy when I do a load of laundry in my own house for the first time.


Until then, I just hope I don't weep.

All House, All The Time!

I didn't want to turn the blog into "househousehousehouse," but you know what? I'm buying a house! It's exciting! So I'm going to blog about it.

As of Monday, I had countertops:

And carpet pads:

And someone's jacket and hat:

As of today, I know I have carpet, and I think I'll have appliances. I alternate between excitement and dread--of the move, of last-minute impediments or expenses, of bouncing around in the big fancy new house like a rat in a can. It's mostly excitement, though.

(Pictures are from my parents, who have been up there more than I have. But I've been securing financing, and renewing my drivers license, and, you know, working so I can stay employed to make the mortgage payments.)

Tuesday Project Roundup: Incomplete and Uninspired

Guess what? I'm still not done with the corduroy dress I've been working on since December. I only had to blind-hem it last night but the thought of finishing and then taking a picture at ten o'clock didn't appeal to me.

But after the dress is wrapped up, I don't know what to make next--I don't think that's happened to me in a year or two. I'm sure it's because it looks like I'll be moving in TWO WEEKS (holy sh*t) and all my creative energies are getting channeled into decor, and picking curtain fabrics, and deciding between Kenmore and Whirlpool for a washer and dryer. (Any opinions?)

So I'm sorry, I know the project roundups have been a little lackluster. Just wait until my entire living space becomes a project.

Lines For Winter

If you have the day off, enjoy the thaw while it lasts--because I think more snow is on the way this week. Here's a poem about surviving winter:

Lines for Winter
by Mark Strand

Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself—
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon's gaze in the valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Look, I have kitchen cupboards!
They've made so much progress! I don't have a lender yet! Aaaaaaaaaaah!

2. I realized that my driver's license expired on my birthday (the 3rd). Today's the 14th. Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!

3. And finally, a new site that I love entitled "Things Real People Don't Say About Advertising." Here's a sample of what people don't say:

Morning Poem

I liked the beginning of the poem on the Writer's Almanac today ("An Early Start in Midwinter," by Robyn Sarah):

The freeze is on. At six a scattering
of sickly lights shine pale in kitchen windows.
Thermostats are adjusted. Furnaces
blast on with a whoosh. And day
rumbles up out of cellars to the tune
of bacon spitting in a greasy pan.

But maybe I only liked it because it mentions bacon, which I wish didn't come from pigs.

Speaking of mornings, it's getting so light now! Check out this video that's been making the rounds--it's a time lapse of a whole year, and watching the snow melt and the leaves come out makes me feel almost hopeful.

Someday, Palm Springs

If you've followed my lists for the last two years, you know that I can't even make it to Moab, four hours away--so going to my dream vacation spot, Palm Springs (which is much warmer than Moab in the winter), is really not going to happen.

Last fall I saw that fabric designer Heather Ross was hosting a weekend sewing workshop in Palm Springs January 21-23. "Hotel and meals and sewing machine all provided for $700?" I thought. "One of my favorite sewing bloggers teaching classes? I should do that!"

But then I saw that hotel rooms were based on double occupancy, and I got shy, and thought I should save money for the house, and I talked myself out of it. Little did I know that Palm Springs would sound REALLY NICE in our second week of sub-freezing highs. Oh, well. If it happens next year, maybe I can remember this post.

Tuesday Project Roundup: The December Scarf

For December, I knit a scarf. (Reviewing the 2010 projects, I realized that I made a tube scarf a year ago December, too. Is it a theme?) While I was making this one, I was thinking how nice the green would look over a certain orange coat that I wanted. And it does.
Yarn: Malabrigo merino, my first time using it. Nice!
Pattern: I kind of made it up. I was inspired by this one but ended up using a different stitch pattern to make it look lumpier.

(And yes, my new camera came with a tripod and not one but two self-timer features. I just haven't figured it out yet. Because I'm figuring out a MORTGAGE this week and anything else might make my head explode.)

My House, Let Me Show You It

I went over to my new house this weekend and let myself in to check it out. In all the confusion of which model to get, I had only visited "mine" once and was having a hard time visualizing the layout--and after dealing with an awful mortgage broker last week, I wasn't 100% convinced I needed to buy it at all, if it was going to be that difficult.

Well, I like my house. (And I'd better, because the construction deposit check has cleared.) There were birds in the trees outside and space for a garden and it was so! fancy! inside! Plus, it wasn't drafty. Incredible!

Here is the kitchen half of the main floor. I think the kitchen goes in this week, which means I can finally get that sink out of my car.

And here's looking down from the second floor (Toby is going to love these stairs.)

There's even a real entryway, with an actual coat closet!

So in dealing with brokers this week, I just have to remember that it will be worth it. And that there's no going back now.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I know that it's usually a bad idea to take scientific reports out of their complete context, but Out of Context Science pulls the funniest or strangest lines for your enjoyment.

2. I said I'd spare you the first-world problems of buying a house, but last night's quandary will give you an idea of what it's like in my head right now: I was wondering whether I wanted to upgrade to matching wooden hangers for my new closet. The pro? It would be a fancy matching closet. The con? Wooden hangers take up more space, so would all my clothes still fit? Oh, the dilemma!!

3. And after posting about color this week, I found this quote from Rushkin:
"The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color most."

Thinking

There's a lot on my mind lately: House, job, decor, money for decor, and last night I realized that I had better start planning the move, too. So to keep this from becoming a blog of first-world problems, here is a picture of Toby taken with the new camera I got for my birthday (!):
He is thinking, too--thinking of the stairs in the new place that he'll be able to run up and down.

Color!

Here's what Dorothy Draper* has to say about using color in decorating back in 1939:

Select the loveliest colors you can find--throw them together--and your own taste, resourcefulness and independence will carry you through. Above all, never be afraid of color. As I've said before, the day of drab, timid colors is past.

With that said, I am going with white walls in the new place for now. But look at the fabrics I'm considering:


*In this same book (Decorating Is Fun!), Dorothy Draper talks about painting ceilings in a complementary or contrasting shade, a practice that no one I know has ever heard of. As she says, "Just don't treat [the ceiling] like a stepchild."

Tuesday Project Roundup: House Projects

Even though I got a lot of sewing time in yesterday, I don't have anything finished for today. (I forget how long it takes to make actual sleeves with a cuff.) But I have started buying things for the new house. The first thing, of course, was fabric:
This will be a shower curtain for the second bathroom.

I also bought a kitchen sink. It's now in my car, waiting for the kitchen to go in. And wow, could I have bought a lot of fabric in exchange for one sink. I'm going to have to get used to buying home items, I guess.

Happy Birthday To Me

Yes, it is my birthday today! (And Tolkien's, too. I always have to point out that we share one.) 31 is not really a meaningful or special number, but it is still fun to celebrate--and to make a list of things to do this year.

Unlike 29 or 30, I'm scaling back a little for 31. The long lists of goals were getting to be overwhelming, so this year I'm doing 3+1 Things instead of 31 Things. And I'm really going to do them all this year.

Here are the 3 things:

1. Walk, bike, or do yoga once a week.
When I first got an office job, I made it a point to go out for a hike on Sundays. Now that I should have my own washer and dryer and won't have to do laundry at the parents on Sundays, I might start that again. (My new house will be closer to Millcreek Canyon and I want to get an annual pass there.) I also want to try biking to the grocery stores and downtown Sugarhouse. And I need to find a new yoga studio.

2. Learn more sewing techniques.
I tend to want to hurry and finish projects so I can wear them, but this year I want to take a little more time and learn some higher-end techniques, like stabilizing necklines, and underlining, and using a silk organza press cloth, and making bound buttonholes. I also want to learn how to use my serger, since I'll finally have a place to keep it out.

3. Memorize 6 poems.
I've always been bad at memorizing--music, words, anything. I can get pretty close but then I get stuck, or discover that I don't have it down as well as I thought. Sometime over the summer I realized that I had the Mark Strand poem in the Gallivan Center memorized (after visiting it for four years), and it was a revelation when I said it back from memory. I think all poems need to be memorized now, so I'm going to try to get some of my favorites down:

i. "The Poems of Our Climate," Wallace Stevens
ii. Final section (VI) from Ash Wednesday, T.S. Eliot
iii. "Meditation at Lagunitas," Robert Hass
iv. Section XVI from Dark Harbor, Mark Strand
v.. Sonnet 100 from 100 Love Sonnets, Pablo Neruda
vi. "Starlings in Winter," Mary Oliver


And here's the +1 thing. Because it's a +1, I'm calling it optional, just in case I don't get everything accomplished this year:

+1. Go on a date.
Given how quickly the time has passed between 27 (when I last went on a date) and 31, I think it may be wise to ask my friends to set me up a couple times this year. I'm not sure I want to actually get into a relationship--Toby and I have been just fine, thank you very much--but I also don't want to suddenly be 40 and realize that I haven't been on a date in 13 years. I intend to keep my hand in, so to speak.

I have the day off, so I can start on some of the 3 Things already--I'm going to sew and think about Wallace Stevens.