mood: thinking|drinking: good
Etsy is a truly magical place. If you haven’t been yet, you should go to there.
And if you wonder why, well… take a gander at just a few of my favorite things. It’s a lovely way to spend a Wednesday afternoon.
http://www.etsy.com/etsy_mini.jsnew EtsyNameSpace.Mini(5312482, ‘favorites’,’gallery’,5,2).renderIframe();
You could even do it on a Thursday, if you like.
-Lo, self-proclaimed etsy aficionado
Mood: Ready for the day to end
Drinking: I’ve emptied the bottle
My list of favorite poets is very, very short. Back in high school, we dutifully covered the Maya Angelous and the Emily Dickinsons and I was mildly intrigued by Robert Frost and his two roads in a yellow woods somewhere.
But, all in all I found poetry to be either cloying and claustrophic or ridiculous and arrogant, and I wasn’t rushing out to stock my shelves with anybody’s chapbook. And then I was ambushed by Bukowski and Blackman, and suddenly my shelves started filling up.
Recently I’ve become increasingly enamoured of e.e.cummings. It all started when the lovely S quoted this line: “nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands.”
The line is so shockingly beautiful that I found myself mumbling it under my breath at all hours. So I went out and bought myself the $33 volume of e.e. cummings’ complete poems, 1904-1962, so I could touch the page and read the words whenever I wanted.
If I ever write a line half as lovely, I can die happy…
“somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands”
-Lo, who loves the rain and all its tiny hands
Mood: SO over 2004
Drinking: Tea
It’s just another day, really. Turn the calendar, add another year. Yeah, yeah yeah.
I refuse to make any resolutions. Nope. Nada. Huh-uh. If I feel like eating french fries in 2005, I most definitely will. I will also continue to bite my nails and drop the F-bomb and dress the Ler in ridiculous costumes. I will continue to criticize perfect strangers and screen my phone calls and scowl at random children.
If I happen to get nicer, thinner or smarter along the way, well, then, yay for me. But I’m not going to waste my time writing up a ridiculous list to beat myself about the head with later.
I’m not gonna do any countdowns, either. No end-of-the-year top 10s of pop songs or celebrity mishaps or big news events. That’s what TV is for.
I will make one small concession to the New Year tradition, though. Here’s the last list you’ll get from me this year. I’ll call it “Favorite Moments with My Favorite People”. And I’ll even use their real names for once. Here you go, in no particular order:
*Motorcycling with BRUCE.
*Snuggling with the LER.
*Answering the phone and hearing JO say “What are you doing, bitch?”
*Flying down the 5 with CARLY on our way to surprise Jo.
*Sitting on the steps of our new house while BRUCE has his evening smoke.
*Lunch with SARAH, followed by a movie and shopping spree.
*Seeing Yosemite with the WITMER parents.
*Playing phone tag with CHRISSY, complete with diddle messages.
*Random web sites of the day from GRAEME.
*Slinking around Bar Sin with DAMNIT & STAR. Just like old times. Sort of.
*A trip to black sands beach with EO, MICHAEL, ROY, JAN, MISHA & BRUCE.
*A super-long email from KATHEE, just sitting there in my inbox.
*Sharing lunch with COLL & wee little JAKE, before they left me for Texas.
*Watching DENNIS greet LeeLoo with a kiss at Ft. Funston.
*Holding up score cards with MISHA at the Starry Plough Poetry Slam. (We were 2 of the randomly selected judges, and I was the mean judge.)
*Watching our straight-from-the-studio-secret-copy of House of Flying Daggers with the BROWNS.
*SukoThai with JAN.
*Hearing KATIE’s voice on my voicemail on my birthday.
*Watching LEELOO and NELSON do the tango on the hardwood floor.
*Doing Melrose with TRIN & JESSE.
*Wedding dress shopping with JO.
*Yarn shopping at Article Pract with MEREDITH.
*Seeing the MOMMA & the POPPA walking toward me through the airport on Christmas Day.
*Watching ANNA’s face when she saw the Golden Gate for the first time.
*Walking the Ler with SHEL.
*Meeting KATENESS online. Well, we met in real life a long time ago, but not really.
*Reading poetry to SARAH over the phone.
*Welcoming CARLY to San Francisco.
*Getting the Book Crossing addiction from MARGARET.
*Watching CHRIS mix a margarita.
*Sitting for PATTI’S photos.
*Hearing ROY run up and down the back stairs. And up and down again.
*Laying around a cozy cabin at Tahoe with the usual suspects.
*Gossiping with CARLY.
*Visiting Yoda with JO. (Yoda would be a canine, not a small green Jedi-thinger.)
*Bed shopping with BRUCE.
*Walking the beach with LER.
That’s just a few of the moments that made this a very good year. OK. Drop the ball. Toss the confetti. Toot the little paper horn. Countdown and kiss and clink your bubbly glasses and all that jazz.
Happy 2005, Internet. I’m going away now.
-Lo, who did make a list of resolutions once that contained the item “Be nicer to people.” And we all see how well that worked out.
LaDonnaWitmer 