MY ANTONIA.

Although I admired scholarship so much in Cleric, I was not deceived about myself; I knew that I should never be a scholar, I could never lose myself for long among impersonal things. Mental excitement was apt to send me with a rush back to my own naked land and the figures scattered upon it. While I was in the very act of yearning toward the new forms that Cleric brought up before me, my mind plunged away from me, and I suddenly found myself thinking of the places and people of my own infinitesimal past. They stood out strengthened and simplified now, like the image of the plough against the sun. They were all I had for an answer to the new appeal. I begrudged the room that Jake and Otto and Russian Peter took up in my memory, which I wanted to crowd with other things. But whenever my consciousness was quickened, all those early friends were quickened within it, and in some strange way they accompanied me through all my new experiences. They were so much alive in me that I scarcely stopped to wonder whether they were alive anywhere else, or how.

She laughed her mellow, easy laugh, that was either very artless or very comprehending, one never quite knew which.

I liked to watch a play with Lena; everything was wonderful to her, and everything was true. It was like going to revival tent with some one who was always being converted.

You'll always remember me when you think about old times won't you? And I guess everybody thinks about old times, even the happiest people.






Walker Evans - roadside stand in Birmingham AL



























Dorothea Lange

from one year ago

resurfaced due to a series of conversations.

concerning a car stuck in the ice.
It is stephen and joan. She is driving.
But she has a guest. and a bad front tire. It would have been very difficult without his contribution.

but you say that you're in there alone.
and that ice.
and that tire!
and what of the brakes? They've not been so hot recently... so what if you get going and are incapable of stopping?

do not worry about this now.

right now, your wheels are spinning and you must get a push.
I know you are in there alone, so there is no one to get out and push.

one time, there was a car of us. We were four. One would not have been enough, but four! four got the job done. We were strangers and his wheels were spinning. He took the help.

But what if you are in an unfriendly neighborhood and there are not four to come off the street and push?

You are stuck in the ice.... trying to go uphill to no avail.

well. check your inventory. kitty litter? sand? icemelt?
can you back up to get a running start?
can you possibly put it in neutral and run?
this takes a lot of strength and you have been so tired.

please remember that this modern age which has caused so much trouble with cars and ice also contains cell phones.

I will find three others. and we will come push. For unknown, reasons, I have been blessed with a heavy car and thick tires.

------

I now have a little Kia.  I think she'll make it through the winter, though.

LAUNDRY DAY.

Someone once told me that, more often than not, the easy way is hard enough.  He, on a separate occasion, accused me of biting his fern.

another one said to me, "I see you fretting over there, Sarah.  Be brave." Later, she would put a large red circle in the corner of the painting I was fretting over to prove a point I've now forgotten.

I'm waiting for the dryer to buzz so that I can go to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow morning and have another dayfull.  Right now, though, the shaking of it and the train on its tracks are harmonizing in a low, unobtrusive tone.  And then the train whistles, and it always sounds so urgent and unnoticed, except by the farther away train in reply; the way it enters my windows seems like whale song.

How do they sound where you are sitting?

"BAD NEWS.

Well I have tried them all, spent countless dollars and time until I found the one that works and this ONE IS IT.  Simply cal my Infoline to hear what I am talking about.  I sure hope to hear from you.

877+347+1551"

loveliest piece of spam I've gotten in a while.

Where are my glasses?  We all do small circles and pick up a few items, looking underneath them.  AH FUCK!  busted.  Woah woah woah.  slow down.  you've got to bend them back slowly!  They don't need more than three people to fit a lens back into a frame, so amid the co-motion, without saying goodnight, I slowly go down the spiral stairs.

This was a series of events taken out of some other time and rearranged, only vaguely resembling their original contexts.

Making bread is good for the soul,

unless it's too cold in your house for the dough to rise properly.

But even then, there's still the process of slowly convincing a substance which likes asking the proud question, "do I really need that flour, anyway!?" that it could take just a little more.

what am I doing with my life? 

(is it healthy to ask this question about once a day?)

MORNINGS.

...several cups of coffee later, listening to a great DJ on KJHK, and following a rediscovery of the illustrated elements of style, I found this:

"Well, Susan, this is a fine mess you are in."

also, never forget

 

well.  it's no longer morning.

2009:

THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF ASTRONOMY.

Also, Twain's been dead for nearly 100 years.  Let's publish something.

SPECIFICATIONS OF THE EARTH (according to Schott)

equatorial radius: 6378.1 km

polar radius: 6356.8 km

volume: 259,875,300,000 m^3

Mass: 5.974 x 10^27 g

Age: c.4,500,000,000 years

surface gravity: 990 cm/s^2

Escape velocity: 11.18 km/s

Planet Year: 365.256 days

core temperature: 4500 deg. C (est)

Water:Land ratio: 71%:29% (est)

Driving west in the evening feels like going home.

I made the living room windows into drums all afternoon.

check out Pete Seeger's ice cream parlor chair.