A Single Layer

I haven't been to a Walmart in several years. They weird me out and make me very angry with human beings. Those long aisles of cheap toys and garden rakes spell destruction and abuse. A world gone awry, globalism at its most careless and unimaginative. Well, I went yesterday. I needed to buy some crafty things for work, and since it's not my money, I had to do it the cheapest way possible. Ugh. Let me tell you how not to walk into Walmart. First, do not listen to Radiohead's 'Sit Down. Stand Up.' while you drive there and park. 'Walk into the jaws of hell...' is not a line you want playing in your head as you trudge slow motion through the hottest day of summer over the asphalt and into those doors. Also, bring a map if you can. Because circling around the perimeter of the store, dodging impulse displays and mothers with rolly carts, staring down the vast aisles of disposable kitchenware in search of puff balls and glitter paint... it can be disorienting if ...

at the library: Impossible , by Nancy Werlin, got some amazing reviews and is now available in paperback. Something about a girl who has to complete three impossible tasks or die. Sounds like my kind of book... at the bookstore: The Greater Trumps , by Charles Williams, because I'm pretty sure I loaned my copy and never got it back. Kind of important to own a book if you're going to be making people read it in a book club. I have the same problem with The Man Who Was Thursday , only I couldn't find it on the shelf. Yes, Chesterton starts with a 'C'. I swear it was there three days ago... free! from the publisher!: There's more than one reason I love Aqua di Gio. AJ handed me Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver yesterday. If the writing was bad, this book might give Stephenie Meyer a run for her money. But it's not, so I'll just have to hand-sell this thing as best I can. Werewolves? Star-crossed love? Sound familiar? And the cover's pretty, too.

today i learned that elephants are the only creatures with four knees. wow. thanks for that, emily.

- Mary Oliver (thank you Amanda. I told you all it would come eventually.) For a long time I was not even in this world, yet every summer every rose opened in perfect sweetness and lived in gracious repose, in its own exotic fragrance, in its huge willingness to give something, from its small self, to the entirety of the world. I think of them, thousands upon thousands, in many lands, whenever summer came to them, rising out of the patience of patience, to leaf and bud and look up into the blue sky or, with thanks, into the rain that would feed their thirsty roots latched into the earth - sandy or hard, Vermont or Arabia, what did it matter, the answer was simply to rise in joyfulness, all their days. Have I found any better teaching? Not ever, not yet. Last week I saw my first Botticelli and almost fainted, and if I could I would paint like that but am shelved somewhere below, with a few songs about roses: teachers, also, of the ways toward thanks, and praise.

thanks to tara . anyone want a roadtrip to new york?

A lot is going on lately. Not that my postings reflect that, but so it is. I'm very possibly starting a book club with my church through their life group program. It will only last a few months, but I can't shake the notion we should do something life-shattering, like read Till We Have Faces and The Greater Trumps . I've no idea how people outside a course in Modern Mythology will take such literature. And I've never been in a book club, though I've talked about having one for ages. I'm an arrogant reader, though, and my shelves of unread books are legion, so I can't stomach the notion of joining a book club in which I am not a principle selector of the literature. I've tried to get over this arrogance for a while now, and I just can't manage it. It seems too impractical to overcome it. Meanwhile, I've had something 'social' going on every day for the last week, and more to come for the next several days. I don't think I have a real d...

- Charles Williams For there, in so far as place mattered at all, was the place of the Principle that had held them together - something that, he hoped, was stronger than the lion and subtler than the serpent and more lovely than butterflies, something perhaps that held even the Ideas in their places and made a tender mockery even of the Angelicals.

I know I have a million favorites, but here's another.

Thirst, by Mary Oliver, newly discovered by me, and bound to make a reappearance on this blog. Sooner rather than later. Lotta Prints , a scrumptious book of practical crafts for my favorite entrepreneur . The Juniper Tree and other Grimmtastic tales, replete with illustrations from our favorite Maurice Sendak (whom we love not only because his name's Maurice, but also because he knows and loves the wild thing in us all)

I'll try to be more considerate. How 'bout I break one of my rules and talk a bit about work? Sort of.... Last night, I went hunting for a storytime in Fullerton with one of my coworkers who's soon to be doing a storytime of her own once a week. It was a research trip. We had faulty directions from one of our managers, but the fault began with us not paying attention to our exit. A couple streets were missing from the directive and signs were also misleading, the result being that we had to make four phone calls to different people during the drive and arrived twenty-five minutes late. Only to find that there was no storytime to begin with. Grr... Lesson learned: call in advance, get directions beforehand from reliable source (i.e. a map), and allot significant extra time for the journey. Our attempt to go incognito failed as well, since two of the managers recognized me immediately. They were really excited to see us though, thrilled to give us over an hour's worth of ...

emily posted this for me. :) i love signs!!

- Christina Georgina Rossetti (Before 1891) Our Master lies asleep and is at rest: His Heart has ceased to bleed, His Eye to weep: The sun ashamed has dropt down in the west: Our Master lies asleep. Now we are they who weep, and trembling keep Vigil, with wrung heart in a sighing breast, While slow time creeps, and slow the shadows creep. Renew Thy youth, as eagle from the nest; O Master, who hast sown, arise to reap:— No cock-crow yet, no flush on eastern crest: Our Master lies asleep.

'Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks.' - Phillips Brooks

A red helicopter is buzzing over the bay. After weeks of fog and smog, Catalina is finally searing its way across the horizon. There's a breeze and sun, convertibles cruising the boulevard, a yacht on the water, crows. The neighbors are walking by, slower than yesterday. They dress in bright, bold colors, and he always wears a hat. For all the busyness of this place, it feels more neighborly than our house on Silktree ever did. Car alarms go off every night around eleven, but there's no one screaming bloody murder at their granchild across the street or punk kids throwing rocks in the pool from next door (or blowing out your air conditioner with a pellet gun, or letting their ferocious dog out to attack innocent bystanders). It's easy to be overcome by the illusion of self-importance. Especially when you have an account on facebook, a twitter page, and a blog. Lately, I've toyed with the idea of dropping them all. Like when I quit going to New Life and started going to ...

- Carl Sandburg There is a place where love begins and a place where love ends. There is a touch of two hands that foils all dictionaries. There is a look of eyes fierce as a big Bethlehem open-house furnace or a little green-eyed acetylene torch. There are single careless bywords portentous as the big bend in the Mississippi River. Hands, eyes, bywords - out of these love makes battle-grounds and workshops. There is a pair of shoes love wears and the coming is a mystery. There is a warning love sends and the cost of it is never written till long afterward. There are explanations of love in all languages and not one found wiser than this: There is a place where love begins and a place where love ends - and love asks nothing.

saw this sign back when my grandpa was visiting. every time i see a sign that makes me laugh - or 'found art' or... anything noticeable and unexpected, i make amanda take a picture. this one actually made it onto my computer! i like the earnest entreaty followed by a glib raise of the eyebrow that this implies.