Out of Town

I've gone to the West Texas town of El Paso...

And will return Thanksgiving. To eat.

More on all of that later.

Reading too much? Staying up late at night? Here's your warning.

So here are some problems associated with with reading too much, too late at night:
1. Getting up in the morning.
But, honestly? This is always a problem.
2. Referring to oneself in the third person.
"It's time to go to work," she thought idly, as she hit the alarm button for the third time.
3. Narrating life as it happens, even after eliminating the third person.
I answered the phone with as much enthusiasm as I could muster, seeing as it was Monday morning.
4. Using ridiculous words and phrases in normal conversation.
"Oh, I do apologize. I'm feeling rather addlepated this morning."

I'm working on it. I think I need to read something instructive tonight, something non-fiction. I think I'll read more of Eden's Outcasts tonight. Not likely to make me any more normal, but maybe likely to help me sleep. It is a good book. But scholarly.

Yawn

Unpaved Paradise

Roxie and I were here for a couple of hours today.

On the way home, I heard about these dome houses on NPR's Studio 360. Why don't we all live in these? They look quite nice, and they are cheap, and good for the environment. Mom, I know you read this. You should have one of these in your backyard as a guest home. On the Cal-Earth website (linked above), they have the plans. No? I can see the West Texas winds blowing over those domed roofs...

I also went to a "Fall Festival" and bought some Christmas gifts. And some Paper White Narcissus bulbs. I'm going to try and not kill the bulbs, but I'm not guaranteeing anything. This is what I plan to do with them. I've been promised that it's very easy. We shall see.

And now Rick Steves is talking about tracing Odysseus's steps while I knit.

I hate to be a total nut, but I agree with the Southern California woman on Studio 360: "Everything is beautiful. The world is beautiful."

Let us celebrate Earth's beauty and build dome homes and grow flowers and knit our own clothing.

Word of the Day

Addlepated--having a muddled or confused mind; foolish, silly, or illogical.

I found this word in that romance novel. HA! I learned something from it, after all.

If You Need Me, Look in Some Words

Currently, I am inhabiting poems by Mary Oliver. I've known this one for a while, but I fell into it again today.

"The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

--from New and Selected Poems, 1992, Beacon Press, Boston, MA


If you're reading this, you should go find another poem and read it, and then tell me about it. The world needs more of us living in poems.

Oh, How I Identify

As I head off to work this morning, to a drawer full of dark chocolates and a refrigerator of Dr. Pepper, I feel like this:

Why I Need to Learn to Spin

This is why.

Seriously, how cool is that? The only runic inscription of its time, on a spindle--a mark of ownership!

This is what I like about knitting. Even if it is just a hobby to me, once it was very important. I feel linked to others when I am knitting, others going back so far into the distance...to runic inscriptions.

I will spin someday. I will, I will.

(Because I need another hobby. I'm going to be single forever.)

(Oh, and thanks to knittyBlog's "What's What Wednesday" for finding this article...lots of interesting stuff there.)