A Single Layer

Funny how every time I go to my blog, I'm disappointed to see it's not updated. Like there are two of me, one who is a blogger and one who is a browser. I feel your frustration, schizophrenically. At the moment, I am sitting in comfy my-morning-is-free attire eating oatmeal (the yummy flavored kind from a package) and drinking coffee from one of Mom's William-Sonoma mugs. They are beautiful mugs. They make coffee taste better - no joke. And I am browsing through Greek recipes, trying to figure out what to make for dinner tonight. I am cooking for friends. Haven't done this in quite a while. And I am listening to Greg Laswell , because it's hard to get tired of him. He makes for good morning music. Especially late-in-the-morning, I'm-up-but-still-considering music. And I really was going to say something significant in this here blog post. Maybe next time. Oh yes! I remember. Very significant. I carved a pumpkin last night, and let me tell you about genius!! I ha...

i guess i figured we hadn't had any pictures lately. no context for this one, but if you like it, find more here: http://community.livejournal.com/laceandflora/921436.html

I haven't really posted much lately about my actual life, and it seems overdue. Very overdue. I have already mentioned how I took the GRE last Saturday. I followed that up with an evening of book-snagging at the SCIBA Author's Feast. I was hungry, sore, and bone-tired by the end of it. But I did meet a lot of good writers, including the elusive Pseunonymous Bosch, the hilarious Dean Lorey, and the dignified, worldly-wise David Benioff. Oh yes, and Dean Koontz. It was good stuff. The next morning, I drove to Carmel. Didn't get there till the afternoon, of course, especially since I slept in a bit. My brother had called in the middle of the night, so I still didn't get more than six hours of sleep. With only five hours of sleep the night before, this was becoming a problem. I drove safely, however, and made it just in time to dig Kathy out of the sand and bury Chaeli in her place. I was there for about eighteen hours and slept about five. It was beautiful and cold and coz...

So I took the GRE subject test in English Literature this Saturday. Found my way to USC alright, got lost on campus, walked in ten minutes late, remembered that this is California - even the GRE starts half an hour after the posted time to accommodate our laxity - and proceeded to prove my literary worth after ZERO hours of study. Read a wide, self-satisfied grin right here. Actually, that's not exactly true. Tara and I read two or three poems on the floor of my bedroom a few days before. One of them is posted below, and was not remotely helpful - only personally inspiring. The other one was featured on question 23, or thereabouts. I know, I know - I'm not supposed to reveal the contents of the exam to a single soul. Like they're really going to rehash that one with that very number and everything. Whatever. Anyway, what I really should have done was asked Tara to write out little blurbs for each big-name in literary theory. Something catchy and rememberable. That would ha...

Love among the Ruins by Robert Browning Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles, Miles and miles On the solitary pastures where our sheep Half-asleep Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray or stop As they crop― Was the site once of a city great and gay, (So they say) Of our country’s very capital, its prince Ages since Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far Peace or war. Now,―the country does not even boast a tree, As you see, To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills From the hills Intersect and give a name to, (else they run Into one) Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires Up like fires O’er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall Bounding all, Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed, Twelve abreast. And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass Never was! Such a carpet as, this summer time, o’erspreads ...

watching the clouds across the sky soak up the spectrum of the setting sun, i cannot agree with you, milosz, that words have anything to do with these things. enough with naming. the clouds confound my vocabulary, dancing as they do in twos and threes toward the hills. the peninsula appears like a volcano denying itself, all things being sucked into its peak as quiet fire and smoke, a happily repentant pandora's box. i want no lover here on the beach to admire the scene with me. i want a gaggle of children, wide eyed and open mouthed. they would not distract but understand. they would see the panther and giraffe, the distant dragon lit with its own breath, tongues of fire, a beautiful woman, and at last a flock of giant storks, weaving and wending their way into the mouth of the mountain. i went to the beach to cry a little (or a lot), being unnaturally tired - nothing more. but this was more than me by far, and i forgot to tear until beneath the panoply above i saw two kayaks swim...

I have figured out why we grow palm trees at the beach. Because their narrow trunks and lack of low branches don't block the view! I am so clever...

Up before the crack of dawn to well-wish away my marathon-bikers, I follow these activities with hot chocolate and a curl-up in my dad's recliner. My cat is mad at me for a variety of reasons, namely for pinning her against the wall with the back of the hall door after she clawed up the oriental rug by the front door. So we are not on good terms at the moment. I am hoping she will forget both her misdeeds and mine - mine are so many more, and she is so well aware of them. Perhaps it is my hypocrisy that keeps her clawing up the rug. They learn by our example. Should I tell you what I'm reading? That seems to be the theme of this blog. American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I am not sure how well I'll do with finishing it. It's good, but it's more in the style of Pynchon than O'Connor, and I don't know how I'd do with Pynchon without a deadline. That's not true. Gravity's Rainbow has been sitting on my dresser for weeks, unopened, unread. There you go. I ...

out in the darkness a lighthouse flashes on the point. my heart goes out to it, battering toward it against my ribs like a startled bat. the lighthouse, my lover, all things indistinguishable. i hover three inches over the earth, all things refracted through my distraction seem surreal, unreal, being temporal. not that i grow any nearer heaven, only further withdrawn into my own imagination, now tired from lack of fruition. all things favored or feared, otherwise unacknowledged: the yellow mug, the severed limb, and the myriad of faces i religiously forget - these categories rule me. while under it all (or over, or choose your position, your preposition) this strange flotation making a mockery of my material - calling out from the earth like a mythic beast, teasing me with alternating delight and perturbation - should i enter a monastery or an institution? is this mysticism or delusion? (incidentally, i still sin like a Gomer, laugh with my mother, grow tired and hungry, forget the hou...

Dear Nathaniel, I am microwaving pie that Mom bought up in Oak Glen this week on her way home from the orthodontist. As I put it in the microwave, I was full of sadness that I was not in Oak Glen with her. Why did I not go? I was working. I want to see the trees turn. I want to wander slowly through autumnal gift shops. Under the water, you cannot sense the approach of the seasons. Even here it is difficult because, after all, it's California. But I can still sense it. After three seasons in Illinois and one in Scotland, it must be with me for good. Or at least for a while. Because I am all abuzz with eagerness for fall and winter, for turkeys and dried leaves and Santa. I should start cooking again this fall. Fall foods are my favorite. Baked squash dripping with melted butter and brown sugar, pumpkin soup... this year, if I have enough money, I will put together a holiday dinner for my friends. And we will drink Scandinavian mulled wine, which is the most wonderful thing I have e...