with happiness, now that Jen Lemen is back in my viritual world!

And can I just say, that after telling me I was ridiculous for adding a part-time teenager to our home, Jen has been besiged by an influx of kids in her own domestic domain.

Yes. I am laughing my ass off.

Quick! Before the day is done, go to Jen’s delightful new site for art, inspiration, and a few good reads.

8.6.06

The beach is crowded, although it is a little cold and very grey. It is the first time I have heard this west coast surf in several–four?–years. I remember the last time was in Santa Cruz, when Eden was small enough to wear her cherry pajamas. This week, we passed those pajama’s down to our neighbor Luna, who turned three on Wednesday. Eden is eight now. Five years then.

The waves roll in evenly, the seventh of each series breaking frothy and white – large enough to be seen over the sand’s soft rise. The family behind me is of Middle Eastern origin. They speak to each other in their own singsong tones. Only once do I hear an English … {read more…}

6.17.06

I am giggling with delight that Paul and the girls will be here soon. I spent the morning in my pajamas, watching The Hunt for Red October and IQ (the only remaining available movies) while I finished the last pages for the LuLu journal. The final page – seafoam origami paper with temporary tattoo mermaids and seashells from magazines – gave me fits. I transferred one mermaid image twice, and then decided to scrap it all together in lieu of the origami background, which was also a transfer but took forever to reveal. I think I rubbed my fingerprints off in places trying to get the ink to release from the paper!

While I rubbed away the paper like … {read more…}

8.16.06

My body is still warm from the bed, which is so soft and heavy with quilts that it holds me like a cupped hand. I have taken in as much sleep as I can absorb. It is nearly nine and the quiet of a solitary house surrounds me – there’s only just the hum of the refrigerator for company.

Before I came here I had begun to notice the jangling noise of city life: voices on the dark sidewalk after we’d already to bed; the Blue Angels searing past the back porch during three days of practice and a weekend of festival maneuvers; the constant low hum of traffic punctuated by the brakes of a metro bus or the impatient … {read more…}

8.12.06

Be Glad, Be Glad, Be Glad

The Jolly Roger is flapping outside my window as I awake. I’ve slept solidly in a bunk bed with a red coverlet and a one-armed sock monkey as my bunkmate. My extra blanket is yellow with bright tassels all around. The curtains are old grass skirts stretched wide across the windows, and though there is an entire bookshelf full of vintage wind-up clocks, I don’t know the time.

We are both ecstatic to be here. Jen is dying to throw herself into the sea, naked and raw, in devotion to a life of art. She scurries about – ebullient, buying a kite, meeting the ranger at the tide pools, making plans to roll down the … {read more…}

Last night at Monkfish Abbey, Lindell discovered the Holy Grail.

What Eden has been doing this Summer….

A nice shot of the Wolfpup.

Don’t you think Lindell should give me this hat?

We’re having a party. Actually, I’m reluctant to call it a party ‘cuz that implies that I will actually be hosting something, when really I’m just sitting around drinking beer. The thing is, we live three blocks from the biggest fireworks show in the city. If we ever decide not to have a party we’ll have to board up all the windows and leave town. Even then people would probably show up just to sit on the lawn and see the view. Right now I can see a huge barge sitting out in Lake Union, stuffed full of top-shelf pyrotechnics. In typical American over-the-topness there’s also a giant inflatable Statue of Liberty … {read more…}

Years ago, back in college, I bought Paul a hand-crafted teapot in Santa Cruz, CA. It was an incredible splurge at the time, and I agonized over whether to buy two matching mugs (I did). This is what happens when–full of Namaste tea for a toxin cleanse I’m doing–the handle breaks, the teapot falls, and the tea ball tumbles down the basement steps.

Eden started sobbing, because this was Daddy’s special teapot. But after we cleaned it up she said, “At least you can use it in a mosaic.”

If you don’t read Gin Straight from the Cat Dish you really should start. Miss is always funny and poignant, and sometimes makes me want to cry a little — or long to be as insightful and cool as she is — or both. I highly recommend it.

Two week ago I had a dream about Anne Lamott. In my dream she was mousy and kind of boring looking, with a dull brown hairdo (no dreads.) I think that in dreamland I got Mary Oliver’s hairstyle mixed up with Anne’s. Any how, in my dream Anne was doing Q&A at a reading, and everyone was raising their hands and jumping up and down holding her books over thier heads in hope of gaining an autograph. I thought all the questions were really insipid, and was patiently waiting in the back row for Anne to acknowledge me so I could ask her my obviously brilliant and insightful question.

Being short and in the back row, this never … {read more…}