From Geraldine Brooks' Year of Wonders:
"His whole life was confined by these things."
"I put my face to their necks and breathed the yeasty scent of them. God warns us not to love any earthly thing above Himself, and yet He sets in a mother's heart such a fierce passion for her babes that I do not comprehend how He can test us so."
"It was a voice full of light and dark. Light not only as it glimmers, but also as it glares. Dark not only as it brings cold and fear, but also as it gives rest and shade."
(What is dogeared?)
***Please combat the recidivism of youth offenders in Illinois by voting at http://www.refresheverything.com/TabulaRasa for my nonprofit to win $250K from Pepsi to build a transitional living center for teens leaving jail!***
8.14.2010
8.12.2010
A gift that heaven gives
Every year, dozens of spiders hang out on outside my office window, 44 floors up. It's amazing. It always makes me think of Charlotte's babies flying away, calling "Goodbye, goodbye!" to Wilbur as he yelled for them to come back. ***Please combat the recidivsm of youth offenders in Illinois by voting at http://www.refresheverything.com/TabulaRasa for my nonprofit to win $250K from Pepsi to build a transitional living center for teens leaving jail!***
8.11.2010
thither would I hie
Top 3 things I want to say in my "all personnel - all offices" farewell email if and when I leave my firm:
1. I am moving to a yurt in Montana, where I will be embarking on a new career as a deputy sheriff.
2. I am leaving to work on my forthcoming expose, Law Firm Confidential.
3. Please contact me if you need local counsel in Kauai.
***Please combat the recidivsm of youth offenders in Illinois by voting at http://www.refresheverything.com/TabulaRasa for my nonprofit to win $250K from Pepsi to build a transitional living center for teens leaving jail!***
1. I am moving to a yurt in Montana, where I will be embarking on a new career as a deputy sheriff.
2. I am leaving to work on my forthcoming expose, Law Firm Confidential.
3. Please contact me if you need local counsel in Kauai.
***Please combat the recidivsm of youth offenders in Illinois by voting at http://www.refresheverything.com/TabulaRasa for my nonprofit to win $250K from Pepsi to build a transitional living center for teens leaving jail!***
8.09.2010
Not mad, but mated
Trent and I just got back from a week in Hawaii and this is how good it was: I forgot my blackberry there. I think it was the best vacation I've ever had. I reconnected with old friends, made new friends (which almost never happens given the antisocial tendencies my husband and I share), spent invaluable time with my husband sans Nugget, drank in inexpressibly gorgeous nature at every turn--from rainbows to sea turtles to lava rock strewn beaches to canyons to waterfalls and on and on. And, most importantly, I did not do any work at all. None. Which may be a first for me since I started my current job: a real, uninterrupted vacation. I attribute it to the magic of Kauai. I want to go back, immediately. Nugget can come this time. But I think I'll leave the blackberry here, just in case.
I got a little tired of people asking me whether it was hard to be away from Nugget. Of course I missed him, but it really was not hard. What's hard is nurturing my relationship with my husband while raising a toddler and working insane hours. Taking a vacation together without him was as much for him as for us -- he needs his parents to be have a strong relationship so we can be a loving family for him. Not that I said any of that to anyone. Maybe I should have.
I got my baby fix there from a scrumptious pair of six-month-old twin boys that belonged to my friend's sister. They were the most consistently happy babies I have ever seen. They may have been drugged. Or on the payroll of the Society for the Advancement of Reproduction, dancing us all down the path to procreation with their siren song of sweetsmelling, chubby-thighed contentment and then WHAM here comes your own newborn with a nasty case of colic. Babies. They are tricky little devils. But I'm onto them.
***Please combat the recidivsm of youth offenders in Illinois by voting at http://www.refresheverything.com/TabulaRasa for my nonprofit to win $250K from Pepsi to build a transitional living center for teens leaving jail!***
I got a little tired of people asking me whether it was hard to be away from Nugget. Of course I missed him, but it really was not hard. What's hard is nurturing my relationship with my husband while raising a toddler and working insane hours. Taking a vacation together without him was as much for him as for us -- he needs his parents to be have a strong relationship so we can be a loving family for him. Not that I said any of that to anyone. Maybe I should have.
I got my baby fix there from a scrumptious pair of six-month-old twin boys that belonged to my friend's sister. They were the most consistently happy babies I have ever seen. They may have been drugged. Or on the payroll of the Society for the Advancement of Reproduction, dancing us all down the path to procreation with their siren song of sweetsmelling, chubby-thighed contentment and then WHAM here comes your own newborn with a nasty case of colic. Babies. They are tricky little devils. But I'm onto them.
***Please combat the recidivsm of youth offenders in Illinois by voting at http://www.refresheverything.com/TabulaRasa for my nonprofit to win $250K from Pepsi to build a transitional living center for teens leaving jail!***
8.08.2010
sound and fury
Yesterday at the beach Nugget pointed behind me and said "broken." (Actually it sounded more like 'bwoten" but I knew what he meant.) I looked and saw a man sitting under a tree, with nothing broken apparent around him.
"What's broken?" I asked Nugget.
"Man."
"The man is broken?"
"Man. Broken."
"That's sad," Trent said.
"Broken man sad." Nugget repeated for the next several hours.
Encouraged by this evidence that children possess unique psychic abilities, presumably because they were between lives so recently, I started questioning Nugget about whether he remembered meeting Jesus. The only response I got sounded like "hmmmm." Which probably indicates that Nugget was under orders not to share his knowledge of the universe with nosy parents. Trent's response to my questions was more articulate: "you're scaring me."
I'm so excited that Nugget has reached the age when he says amazing things. Finally, it's his turn to entertain us. I may actually get around to blogging once in a while now that he's feeding me material.
Which reminds me of an incident both Trent and I meant to blog about several months ago but neither of us ever got around to. (Reasons not to marry your perfect match.) Trent and Nugget came on a business trip to San Francisco with me (note to my employer: but I didn't charge any of their expenses to the client and I worked very hard). After I finished working very hard, we wandered around the Haight and got coffee at a little cafe with sidewalk tables next to a large mural painted on the wall. The mural looked like a rainbow from far away but up close you could see that each band of color was formed by a throng of creatures, a different creature for each color. It appeared to depict evolution -- the first band was amoeba-like organisms, then fish, amphibians, through to humans, and finally what I took to be angels taking flight. Two drunk/high hobo/hippie types (I think the Haight Tourist Authority was paying them to be there) stood in front of the mural discussing it with great reverence. One said the different bands of the rainbow represented stages of life, and that the angels--which he called ghosts--symbolized death. "Shhh," said the other one, indicating Nugget playing nearby. "Don't let the kid hear." As if death were a naughty word that must not be spoken before the children.
Earlier we had heard this delightful pair discussing Cherokees. Specifically, they were discussing whether Cherokees exist. "No man," one insisted, "Cherokees aren't real. They're like Eskimos." Whereupon further argument ensued. Terrible and yet so awesome.
"What's broken?" I asked Nugget.
"Man."
"The man is broken?"
"Man. Broken."
"That's sad," Trent said.
"Broken man sad." Nugget repeated for the next several hours.
Encouraged by this evidence that children possess unique psychic abilities, presumably because they were between lives so recently, I started questioning Nugget about whether he remembered meeting Jesus. The only response I got sounded like "hmmmm." Which probably indicates that Nugget was under orders not to share his knowledge of the universe with nosy parents. Trent's response to my questions was more articulate: "you're scaring me."
I'm so excited that Nugget has reached the age when he says amazing things. Finally, it's his turn to entertain us. I may actually get around to blogging once in a while now that he's feeding me material.
Which reminds me of an incident both Trent and I meant to blog about several months ago but neither of us ever got around to. (Reasons not to marry your perfect match.) Trent and Nugget came on a business trip to San Francisco with me (note to my employer: but I didn't charge any of their expenses to the client and I worked very hard). After I finished working very hard, we wandered around the Haight and got coffee at a little cafe with sidewalk tables next to a large mural painted on the wall. The mural looked like a rainbow from far away but up close you could see that each band of color was formed by a throng of creatures, a different creature for each color. It appeared to depict evolution -- the first band was amoeba-like organisms, then fish, amphibians, through to humans, and finally what I took to be angels taking flight. Two drunk/high hobo/hippie types (I think the Haight Tourist Authority was paying them to be there) stood in front of the mural discussing it with great reverence. One said the different bands of the rainbow represented stages of life, and that the angels--which he called ghosts--symbolized death. "Shhh," said the other one, indicating Nugget playing nearby. "Don't let the kid hear." As if death were a naughty word that must not be spoken before the children.
Earlier we had heard this delightful pair discussing Cherokees. Specifically, they were discussing whether Cherokees exist. "No man," one insisted, "Cherokees aren't real. They're like Eskimos." Whereupon further argument ensued. Terrible and yet so awesome.
5.05.2010
Dogeared
Kelly Link's "The Faery Handbag," in Magic for Beginners:
If clothes are good, or even if they're bad in an interesting way, The Garment District is where they go when they die. You can tell that they're dead, because of the way they smell. When you buy them, and wash them, and start wearing them again, and they start to smell like you, they reincarnate.
...
The funeral parlor had made her up with blue eyeshadow, and blue eyeliner. She looked like she was going to be a news anchor on Fox television, instead of dead. It was creepy and made me even sadder than I already was.
...
I'll explain why, but you have to be patient. It's hard work telling everything in the right order.
4.22.2010
I am no great Nebuchadnezzar
3 random things is all I have time for:
1. My firm's dinner buffet (yes, we have a dinner buffet) is serving what they call a chopped salad. It contains: romaine, grilled chicken, bacon, tomatoes (so far so good), tortilla strips, and macaroni.
2. The word "Obama" is apparently now a talisman that can be used to ward off douchebags.
3. Today I am thinking about how being a nice person requires time, and it is much harder to be a nice person when time is the thing you lack most. (And yes, I value being nice.)
1. My firm's dinner buffet (yes, we have a dinner buffet) is serving what they call a chopped salad. It contains: romaine, grilled chicken, bacon, tomatoes (so far so good), tortilla strips, and macaroni.
2. The word "Obama" is apparently now a talisman that can be used to ward off douchebags.
3. Today I am thinking about how being a nice person requires time, and it is much harder to be a nice person when time is the thing you lack most. (And yes, I value being nice.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
