Happy Birthday, Ti-Jean

It's Jack Kerouac's birthday today, in 1922 (his parents were French Canadian, so "Ti Jean" was the family nickname for him).

I blame Kerouac (and Salinger) for nurturing my hippie tendencies--open any page of The Dharma Bums at an impressionable age, read about hitchhiking and backpacking and mountain climbing, and then throw in something like this? No surprise there.

There were now early spring mornings with the happy dogs, me forgetting the Path of Buddhism and just being glad; looking around at new little birds not yet summer fat; the dogs yawning and almost swallowing my Dharma; the grass waving, hens chuckling. Spring nights, practicing Dhyana under the cloudy moon, I'd see the truth: "Here, this, is It. The world as it is, is Heaven, I'm looking for a Heaven outside what there is, it's only this poor pitiful world that's Heaven."

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I'm going to see this little guy tonight:
Yes, he's sitting in a pot, and he looks so unsure about it, he needs a hug from his auntie.

2. How about a little MST3K for Friday? I feel like Gypsy all the time when I deal with people:

No Thaw

The 2-4 inches of snow we got Monday night disappeared by Wednesday. It made me think of the part in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe where spring comes to Narnia in about four hours:

And now the snow was really melting in earnest and patches of green grass were beginning to appear in every direction...Every moment the patches of green grew bigger and the patches of snow grew smaller. Every moment more and more of the trees shook off their robes of snow. [...]

"This is no thaw," said the Dwarf [to the White Witch], suddenly stopping. "This is spring. What are we to do? Your winter has been destroyed, I tell you! This is Aslan's doing."

Birthdays

It's the sixth "birthday" of this blog today, which took me by surprise. (I have big plans in the works to give the blog a facelift and get a new portfolio site up, and I wanted to have it done by the blog birthday. Obviously, I thought it was later in the month.) But 1,565 posts, 3 jobs, several relationships, and one cat later, here we are.

It's also the birthday of my oldest friend, who I think has been reading for all six years and has helped with the technical end of things for the same amount of time. Happy birthday, Amber!

Tuesday Project Roundup: Cat Lady Goals

I cut out the next sewing project Sunday and it's another attempt at a leopard-print dress in knit fabric. You may recall I tried the same thing last spring, but I am undaunted: I will look like Toby in a wrinkle free, easy-to-wear style!


I'm not working so late these days and the time changes on Sunday, so I'm feeling cautiously hopeful I may get this one done in under two months.

"Morning Poem"

Oh Mary Oliver, you are a hippie poet extraordinaire. I love how you put this: "there is still/ somewhere deep within you/ a beast shouting that the earth/ is exactly what it wanted".

Morning Poem

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead--
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging--

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted--

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. If being creative makes me distrustful, as yesterday's science news said, what can I blame on this study of personality changes and the single-celled parasite--found in cat poop!--that causes toxoplasmosis? "How Your Cat is Making You Crazy"

2. My nephew has discovered the piano. If you listen carefully to the video my brother posted, you can hear Skyler tell the piano "hi" before he plays it.

3. This llama has something to tell you:


More delightful drawings here.

Come To The Dark Side

As you know, I'm working on trusting the universe in my personal life, and I've been thinking about being creative in the context of my work. Now I have an article that unites the two: "The Dark Side of Creativity," which presents research that shows us being creative apparently isn't all right brain and Steve Jobs quotes--and maybe it's the reason I have a hard time taking good things at face value:

Consider this: being distrustful means being more likely to distrust surface appearances and have a desire to work out what is really going on. In other words distrust breeds a sort of 'what-if' mindset: exactly the sort of mindset associated with creativity.

Distrust may also breed flexibility in thinking. Instead of taking things at face value, people with suspicious minds try to see things from different angles. That's yet another marker of creativity.

I like it. I'm not neurotic; I'm creative.

Grammar Wednesday #3

Are we ready for more grammar? This one is a pet peeve of mine, so hopefully my tip can spread throughout the world and end the egregious practice of using "everyday" when we really mean "every day."

What's the difference? "Everyday" is an adjective, i.e., it can describe things. "Every day" is a another way of saying "each day." It's a phrase. But because it's one thing to know this and another thing to use them well, here are my tips:

Check to see if "everyday" is correct:
Try to substitute an adjective (such as "normal" or "blue") for "everyday" and see if it works.
"It was an everyday occurrence" = "It was a normal [or blue] occurrence."
"These are my everyday pants." = "These are my normal [or blue] pants."

Check to see if "every day" is correct:
Try to substitute a day of the week with "every day".
"I come here every day." = "I come here Tuesday."
"Every day, I get the blues." = "Tuesday, I get the blues."

Now that we know this, we can apply it in any situation. Is the phrase "Lunch specials are available everyday" correct? Well, are lunch specials available blue? I hope not.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Done and Mostly Done

Check it out--the yogi legwarmers are done:

I can give them to the teacher at class next week. I hope she likes them!

And the dress I was making out of the fancy Liberty of London fabric I got over the new year just needs some hand sewing and a hem:

The pattern is the basic shift from the Built By Wendy Dresses book (again), modified this time to have a round neck and bell-ish sleeves. I wanted to copy something like this, but I'm wondering if the sleeves get a little too "1970's Sleeping Beauty" when combined with a print that includes owls, horses, bunnies, deer, and roses.

I guess we'll see if I start singing "Once Upon a Dream" while wearing my little forest friends.

Courage

Here's some Rilke to get your inner hippie on board for the week. (My new thing is trying to trust the universe, so of course I liked this):

We have no reason to mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors, they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abysses belong to us; if there are dangers at hand, we must try to love them.

How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples--the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses. Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are waiting for us, beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. This has been making the rounds lately, but I like it. Sadly, that last one isn't currently true. (Click for larger.)

2. It would have been the 57th birthday of Steve Jobs today. Here he is on creativity:
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people...The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.

(from Wired, February 1996)

Better Than A Space Picture

Can you even stand the cute?

In the words of Napoleon Dynamite, "There's more where that came from."

Happy Birthday, Edna

It's the birthday of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay today. You have to love a woman who wrote sonnets and built an artists' colony.


IV

I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year,
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favorite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And vows were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far,–
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.

(From from A Few Figs from Thistles (1922).

It's Tuesday (That Feels Like Monday)

Sit on a dining chair and turn your back on it.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. For cat lovers and font lovers: 20 Cats as Fonts. Including:




2. Comic Sans Cat looks like I feel after this week.

3. I continue to cope with hippie songs. Any song where you can sing "Om" is a good one:

The Universe Loves You

The little space within the heart is as great as the vast universe. The heavens and the earth are there, and the sun and the moon and the stars. Fire and lightning and winds are there, and all that now is and all that is not. --The Upanishads

(Image from the Heart and Soul nebulae via Bad Astronomy; quote via my inner hippie. )

Grammar Wednesday #2

Today's tip is courtesy of my lifelong friend Amber, and is dear to my heart after all the years I spent working in social stationery:

How do you remember which spelling of "stationery/stationary" is the correct one in a given situation?

• Stationery that means paper you write on and send in the mail has an E in it, for ENVELOPE. Envelopes go in the mail!
• Stationary that means standing still and not moving is the other one. (You can also remember it with an A for stAnding still.)
  

Tuesday Project Roundup: I'm Glad I Knit

I'm glad I knit because yarn is much easier to buy than anti-anxiety meds, and nearly as effective. (I don't travel well, if you couldn't tell.) Look what I got (nearly) done on the business trip yesterday:

These are the legwarmers for my yoga teacher. I think I will knit the fold over cuff, as discussed before--probably because I just. kept. knitting. on the plane and the ribbing got a little long anyway.

Guess Where I Am Today?

One-day business trips, you are brutal. But at least this destination gives me a catchy tune to have stuck in my head.

Friday Unrelated Information2.

1. Have you seen Better Book Titles yet? It redesigns book covers "to give you the meat of the story in one condensed image"--one hilarious condensed image, that is:





So many more here.

2. Happy birthday to Marxist/alienist playwright/composer Bertolt Brecht today. I don't know about you, but I'm going to be singing "Show me the way to the next whisky bar" when this week is finally over tonight.

Bad Days

Sometimes all you can do is accept that the bad day wins, get takeout, make a drink, and listen to Bob Dylan (who I find soothing; your mileage may vary). My inner hippie really loves "Mr. Tambourine Man," because my inner poet thinks the lyrics are so pretty:

Then take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves:
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

That last line is like a tagline for bad days! Also, be sure to watch the video soon if you find Bob soothing; I found it on a Turkish (?) site and it may not be up long.

Something To Consider

Does anyone else do this? Build up events so they seem to "mean" more than they really do? I didn't even clearly know I did it (just wondered why I felt disappointed so much) until I encountered this part of The Hours years ago. So let's revisit the helpful quote for the third time on this blog:

It had seemed like the beginning of happiness, and Clarissa is still sometimes shocked, more than 30 years later, to realize it was happiness; that the entire experience lay in a kiss and a walk, the anticipation of dinner and a book.

[...] What lives undimmed in Clarissa's mind more than three decades later is a kiss at dusk on a patch of dead grass, and a walk around a pond while the mosquitoes droned in the darkening air. There is still that singular perfection, and it's perfect in part because it seemed, at the time, so clearly to promise more. Now she knows: That was the moment, right then. There has been no other.

"It was happiness...that was the moment, right then. There has been no other." Michael Cunningham, you simultaneously destroy me and make my life so much better.

Tuesday Project Roundup: The Longest Project Of All

This week will mark the one-year anniversary of my being in the house. Since it's really the biggest and longest-term project I'll undertake, why not look at the progress made through the year?*

Still under construction.


Moved in, with cat head.


With an Eames chair and real window coverings.


And with a coffee table and Arco-esque lamp. Things are getting fancy...


And here's the orange sofa and grown-up art over the fireplace.

And on the other side of the room, there are curtains and fabric art I made (and more than two people can dine in comfort).

Hooray for home decorating!


*No, I haven't finished any sewing this week. Can you tell?

Mountain Things

What does Millcreek Canyon look like on a hike in February? Oh, you know, some mountains, some trees, a waterfall, some snow:





It's my inner hippie's happy place.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. If you ever wanted to branch out from "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," here's a list of pangrams--even some in other languages!

2. This was on kottke.org this week, but I find it hilarious: Fake pronunciation guides. They're eight seconds of pure awesome.




Celebrate the weekend with a glass of chimpoopisto!

3+2 Things: Book Report

So it's February 2--how about that goal of reading a book a month? I picked Brideshead Revisited as the first one, as I knew the Granada series from the 80s well but had never read the novel all the way through.

However, it's slow going: Because I know the plot from the TV series, I'm tempted to skip ahead, and I keep hearing Jeremy Irons in my head as I read. I'm also out of the habit of reading, I think; I tend to open my laptop instead of a book lately.

But I'm pushing through--can't get too behind on the year of book already!

A Grammar Tip

I have a few tricks I use to keep things straight mentally (and to help explain my copy edits at work), but I've never shared them with anyone. Are you interested? Shall we see if this makes sense and start a Wednesday grammar tip series? Let's try.

Today's tip is about getting the possessive version of "its"--that is, the one WITHOUT the apostrophe--right. My tip? See if you can substitute "his" for "its".

So, for example, take this sentence:
"The chair was missing one of its legs."
Using our trick, we can pretend we live in a cartoon universe and say,
"Mr. Chair was missing one of HIS legs."
Yes, this makes sense! DO NOT add an apostrophe to that "its" in the original sentence.

Another example:
"Paris is famous for its lights, its food, and its wine."
Let's use our trick again and substitute "his":
"Bob Paris is famous for HIS lights, HIS food, and HIS wine."
Yes! Resist the urge to add an apostrophe to "its" as it is used here.

You can also reverse this if you see an "it's" with an apostrophe and you're not sure it is correct:
Does changing "It's going to snow tonight." to "HIS going to snow tonight" work?
No, that makes no sense. Therefore, this apostrophe is OK.

So remember: If you can substitute "his" for "its" in the sentence you're worried about, that "its" does NOT need an apostrophe.

Tuesday Project Roundup: More Fabric

I don't have anything finished to show today, but how about pictures of my latest fabric wants?

This past weekend, I started working with the grey fairy-tale print Liberty of London I bought myself over Christmas--my first time using any really "nice" fabric in over a year. So of course I now want ALL my fabric to be Liberty, and of course Liberty has obliged me by coming out with new spring prints:

Becci C--can't you see this as a tunic with contrast bands around the neck?

And here's Gilliam A, which is telling me it wants to be some sort of ladylike tie-neck blouse.

(Hey, my budget and I can dream, right?)

It's Monday

Lay on it like it's clean laundry and pretend it's still the weekend.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Let's just say, hypothetically, that you are going on a date for the first time in 4.5 years. What do you do? How do you act? Fortunately, Mystery Science Theater 3000 has found us this educational film, "What to Do On a Date."


"How about a weenie roast?" "Nick, NO!"

2. Related but not as funny, this essay about a first dance could have been written by me, down to the dress I was so convinced I had to have and the inevitable disappointment:
I cried because I’d believed with all my being that once I put on eyeshadow and a turquoise dress, I’d turn into a heroine of any of the slumber-party movies I’d watched. [...] I cried because at that moment, in a gymnasium decorated with crepe paper so that the gifted kids could feel not just smart but glamorous, I began to understand that not everything would come easy to me, and that some forms of failure could be intangible, inexpressible, and nonetheless undeniable. I cried because I wanted to be seen, and because nobody was ready or willing to see me.

3. And unrelated: Happy birthday to our friend W.A. Mozart.

Music History

In late winter I always revisit Russian music, and lately it's been Shostakovich. How about the finale to his Fifth Symphony to get your blood going this morning?


He wrote this after managing to get on Stalin's bad side with an opera and after pulling his Fourth Symphony to not further anger the dictator. The party was pleased with the Fifth (which the composer subtitled "A Soviet Artist's Practical Creative Reply to Just Criticism"), but, as Shostakovich later wrote:

I think it is clear to everyone what happens in the Fifth. The rejoicing is forced, created under threat... It's as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, "Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing,'' and you rise, shaky, and go marching off, muttering, "Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.''...You have to be a complete oaf not to hear that.

More music history here. Happy Thursday, comrades!

Things That Made Me Happy Yesterday

1. Cat pictures:


(from my "Happy" Pinterest board, of course); and
2. This quote from M.F.K. Fisher:

A well-made dry Martini of Gibson, correctly chilled and nicely served, has been more often my true friend than any two-legged creature.

(from the final essay in An Alphabet for Gourmets. It's so true.)

Also: Happy birthday to Virginia Woolf today!

Tuesday Project Roundup: Namaste!

Around Christmas, I was talking to my yoga teacher and it came out that I knit. And she asked, "Can you make me some legwarmers?"

Because I feel the same way about my yoga teacher as I did about a few early grade school teachers ("You're so pretty! And so calm! And you're good at so many things I'm not!"), I said of course I would ("Teacher asked me to do a special project! Yay!").


I'm using this pattern but left off the foldover cuff, as you can see. I left it off because I wasn't sure I'd have enough yarn for it, but now I'm pretty certain I will. So do I go back to the first one and add it? I don't know if the drawstring would be fiddly during yoga or if it would help with the fit.

Maybe the legwarmer needs to live its way into the answer....

(And no, that joke still hasn't gotten old. If you couldn't tell.)

"And your heart felt good"

I was up Millcreek in the snow yesterday, climbing through the forest, and thought of the last chapter of A Moveable Feast where Papa talks about spending the winter in Austria, skiing and climbing through the forest:

No one could afford a broken leg. There were no ski patrols. Anything you ran down from, you had to climb up. That gave you legs that were fit to run down with.

[...] But climbing was fun and no one minded it in those days. You set a certain pace well under the speed at which you could climb, and it was easy and your heart felt good and you were proud of the weight of your rucksack. Part of the climb up to the Madlener-Haus was steep and very tough. But the second time you made that climb it was easier, and finally you made it easily with double the weight you had carried at first.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. A dear friend suffered a terrible loss this week, so putting up funny links or MST3K quotes doesn't feel right today. Instead, I will tell you to travel safely and hug your loved ones and try to make your part of the world more full of light.

2. I'll also give you a space picture, since that's how I cope:
(Click the image to see it bigger--every speck of light you see is a galaxy.)

This was the last image featured on The Atlantic's space Advent calendar. As the caption there said:
This Hubble image is one of several, including the Ultra Deep Field, which peer into seemingly empty space, leaving the camera shutter open for hours, and reveal that billions of galaxies made up of billions of stars fill our skies in every direction as far as we can possibly see, separated by almost unimaginable distance and time, yet still reachable, visible as an image of their long-ago selves.

Together We Sit

This is from last week, when it was sunny, but it will be sunny again.

WWPMD?

Sometimes you just need to read some Raymond Chandler at the end of a workday and have Phil Marlowe give you some perspective. Marlowe would have no patience for hippie platitudes or Rilke quotes, but even he knows that it's important to be a good human. Or at least try to be:

I stepped out into the night air that nobody had yet found out how to option. But a lot of people were probably trying. They’d get around to it.

I drove on to the Oxnard cut-off and turned back along the ocean. The big eight-wheelers and sixteen-wheelers were streaming north, all hung over with orange lights. On the right the great fat solid Pacific trudging into shore like a scrubwoman going home. No moon, no fuss, hardly a sound of the surf. No smell. None of the harsh wild smell of the sea. A California ocean. California, the department-store state. The most of everything and the best of nothing. Here we go again. You’re not human tonight, Marlowe.

All right. Why should I be?...Who am I cutting my throat for this time? ...All I know is that something isn’t what it seems and the old tired but always reliable hunch tells me that if the hand is played the way it is dealt the wrong person is going to lose the pot. Is that my business? Well, what is my business? Do I know? Did I ever know? Let’s not go into that. You’re not human tonight, Marlowe. Maybe I never was or ever will be...Maybe we all get like this in the cold half-lit world where always the wrong thing happens and never the right.

Now, wait a minute...You’ve got the wrong attitude, Marlowe. You’re not human tonight.

(This is from Chapter 13 of The Little Sister; read the whole chapter here)

Tuesday Project Roundup: Not Photographing Well

The latest project is a gray wool flannel dress, since it's too early to be thinking about spring sewing. The flannel had been hanging around in my stash for a year or two, waiting to see what it would be (even fabric can live its way into the answer!) and I/it finally decided on a tailored plain dress.


I used this boatneck version of the shift dress from my trusty Built by Wendy Dresses book and lined it to boot. I'm very happy with how it turned out, but I could not get a decent picture of it last night. When I'm not talking pictures, I promise it hangs evenly on my shoulders, and I don't think it looks quite so much like a gray sack in real life.

At least, that's what I'm telling myself.

It Is

This will make you happy--David Attenborough recites lyrics to "It's a Wonderful World" set to nature images.


An excellent way to start the week.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. The latest issue of O Magazine is all about poetry, and it includes an interview with Mary Oliver (our favorite). It's a big deal because she doesn't give interviews and is in her 80s. It's also a delight. Some quotes:
There were times over the years when life was not easy, but if you're working a few hours a day and you've got a good book to read, and you can go outside to the beach and dig for clams, you're okay.
and:
It's hard to meet a stranger—you give of yourself—and if I did that, I'd want to do it well.

(I'm stealing that one as an excuse not to meet people or go to social events.)

2. My inner hippie wants to use Khalil Gibran as a career planner. Let's talk her out of that, shall we?
Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

I Think Of Space

I realize it's only been a week, but just Tuesday I was thinking, "Being kind and non-judgmental and happy is going so well!"

Then, of course, yesterday happened. So today I am re-grouping and thinking about space. This is Dr. Neil Tyson telling us we're all connected, much more eloquently than I did:



"We're all connected--to each other, biologically; to the earth, chemically; and to the rest of the universe, atomically...It's not that we're better than the universe; we're a part of the universe. We're in the universe and the universe is within us."

Let that thought get you through the rest of the week.

Book List Recommendations

I've been thinking about the 12 books I want to read for the 3+2 Things and have come to the conclusion that I don't read new things because I can't make a decision. So maybe you have some recommendations?

I thought I'd try to split my list about 50/50 between holes in my classics and new stuff. Let's see where we stand:

CLASSICS
I have four for sure:

• Brave New World
• 1984
• A Passage to India
• Brideshead Revisited

What should the last two be? I'm thinking more along the lines of John Updike than Joseph Conrad. I've avoided dystopian stuff, but what about Vonnegut? Or The Handmaid's Tale?

NEW STUFF
As for new stuff, I know I want to read

• something by Jeffrey Eugenides
• something by David Foster Wallace
• and something by Jonathan Safran Foer
  

However, after those three I'm at a loss. Do I pick the National Book Award winners from the last few years (The Corrections)? Do I read what's popular (The Hunger Games trilogy)? I'll take any recommendations you have.

And I'd I'd better get to the library soon.

Tuesday Project Roundup: A House Project

After taking down Christmas decor the house seemed barren, so my new goal is to add more decor and accessories. I started with the office and added bulletin boards on each side of the desk:

This is another fabric-covered Homasote board, just like the one in the sewing room. Since I had leftover Homasote board on hand, this project only required one yard of fabric and the loan of my dad's staple gun again. Here's a close up:


I'm really happy with the result (but anything turquoise and orange has a 99.9% chance of maing me happy.) There's certainly more decor in the room than there was this time a year ago:

The Ultimate Sunday Night Conversation

My friend was talking about a store meeting he gave and described his staff's reaction (ranging from support to "reverence" to frustration to anger, apparently) and announced,

"I'm the Kim Jong Il of social stationers."

I'm pretty sure I don't need to call him ever again because I don't think he's ever going to top that line.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Stephen Hawking is turning 70 soon and so is giving interviews. In one with the New Scientist, he was asked, "What do you think most about during the day?" and answered, "Women. They are a complete mystery."

I know it's just a soundbite, and I know we're supposed to think he's being a charming old man, but I have to think of Carl Sagan making the argument to include women in The Explorers Club:
But we presumably are adults, with a special responsibility for interacting with all humans on this planet.

Maybe we can think of each other as human adults first, and then genders second? You've done way more complicated things, Dr. Hawking.


2. I bet you were just thinking, "How come there isn't a Tumblr for Mystery Science Theater ephemera?" Well, there is. And it's called F** Yeah MST3K. And it's full of gems like this:

Advantage: His

My brother has started a blog for the new year, and he has a secret weapon: Daily pictures of Skyler. Go check it out and get your fix of baby cuteness and antics (and tractors). It's called Living with the Bubbs.
See what I mean?

A Poem For The End Of The Holidays

We've taken down all the Christmas things but there's still a lot of winter to get through. William Carlos Williams will give us some insight and remind us of the birds outside:

At the winter's midnight
we went to the trees, the coarse
holly, the basalm and
the hemlock for their green

At the thick of the dark
the moment of the cold's
deepest plunge we brought branches
cut from the green trees

to fill our need, and over
doorways, about paper Christmas
bells covered with tinfoil
and fastened by red ribbons

we stuck the green prongs
in the windows hung
woven wreaths and above pictures
the living green. On the

mantle we built a green forest
and among those hemlock
sprays put a herd of small
white deer as if they

were walking there. All this!
and it seemed gentle and good
to us. Their time past,
relief! The room bare. We

stuffed the dead grate
with them upon the half burnt out
log's smoldering eye, opening
red and closing under them

and we stood there looking down.
Green is a solace
a promise of peace, a fort
against the cold (though we

did not say so) a challenge
above the snow's
hard shell. Green (we might
have said) that, where

small birds hide and dodge
and lift their plaintive
rallying cries, blocks for them
and knocks down

the unseeing bullets of
the storm. Green spruce boughs
pulled down by a weight of
snow--Transformed!

(from "Burning the Christmas Greens," 1944, discovered here.)

32

Today is my birthday, which means it's time for new goals for this age. (It also means I'm just a decade away from being the age that's the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.)

Instead of 3 definite goals + 1 optional goal, this year I have 3 that are quantitative and 2 that are qualitative--so 3+2 again, except the "+2" things aren't optional, just difficult to put a metric to. Here they are:

1. Take a fiction writing class
I always picture myself writing fiction on my ranch in the distant future, but I haven't written anything since college. I know myself well enough to know I need a deadline to actually produce something, so taking a class will hopefully get me going.

2. Write 3 short stories
These can be very short stories, and they can be part of what I have to do for class, but this goal will theoretically give me the deadline I need to keep writing.

3. Read a new book a month
For someone who likes to read as much as I do, I don't read new things. I have Sherlock Holmes, M.F.K. Fisher, Hemingway, and Salinger just about memorized, but I've missed out on most of the new books from the last 15 years and still have holes in my classics (1984, Brave New World, any Updike, etc. ). So this goal will help address that a little. (I'm still picking my 12 books, so stay tuned.)

and the +2:

+1. Be happier in my work
This is qualitative for now because I don't know what it's going to take for me to be happier. Just an attitude adjustment? Some internal changes at my current job? A different ad gig? A radical career shift? I've been pondering this for a while now, but I'm still "living my way into the answer." (Damn, that is a useful quote--I'm not lost; I'm deep.)

+2. Less judgement, more compassion
I've never felt particularly kindly towards my fellow man, but as I get older I don't need my hard little heart to become even harder. You can give yoga or the Buddha credit for this one, but I like to give it a scientific spin, too: We're all made of the same atoms from the same universe. And we're all here on this tiny planet all together. And that's all we've got. So let's all be a little kinder to each other, starting with myself.

Or, as my boyfriend Carl Sagan says:
Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.

We will see how well I can put the last two Things into practice when I go back to work tomorrow...but for today, I'm going to climb a mountain.

Happy New Year From My Inner Hippie

(My holiday cards this year.)

Related: Woody Guthrie's "New Year's Rulin's" from 1942. I like how "help win war - beat Fascism" is at spot 27.

Unrelated: Happy birthday to Isaac Asimov today, and yesterday to E.M. Forster and my buddy J.D. Salinger.