Shiny Things

This is in France. I am not in France. But this is what I mean when I say that I felt as though I was floating inside a Monet. If I had let go of the Earth while gazing into this morning's sky, I would have ended up here. (The image is  The Cliff, Étretat, Sunset,  held by the North Caroline Museum  of Art,which is pleasantly ironic seeing as how I am *in* North Carolina.) OK, this caption has gone on long enough.  I'm trying not to lament that I have finally gotten my groove now that it is nearly time to leave the beach. I spent the first several nights here up late, mostly to spend time with my sister, who is a night person, including the night Z and I both stayed up so my sister could bleach streaks into Z's hair. These are vacation things. These are good. But I not a night person any more. The morning holds much more mystery and allure for me. Waking late, often second only to my sister, has been disorienting and slightly dissatisfying to me. Yesterday I managed ...

Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea!* It was the afternoon of the second full day on Topsail. We had had plenty of beach time, plenty of World Cup viewing, plenty of deck sitting, reading, idle shopping, late night conversations and so on. I was boogie boarding in the surf with Z&O and David. The tide was almost high. The waves were getting bigger. It went in cycles: several big, gentle surges, followed by a couple small breaks, and then the ocean would pull back and back building up energy for a series of three or four tall curls. We would race each other to catch the wave, usually hitting it too early, lifted by the surge but left behind as the racing edge swept ahead. Every once in a while timing it just right, balancing just on the crest, born aloft by foam, speeding towards the beach. "Did you see how far I got?!" we would yell at each other. And sometimes trying to grab it too late, watching, watching as the wave reared up and the lip started to c...

Mr. Noodles, the gorilla in question (actually, I think he's a chimpanzee, but I'm not in charge of him.) There's nothing like an afternoon in the sunshine watching your daughter play soccer with her stuffed gorilla on the sidelines dressed up as the team mascot in a spare uniform to make you know it is really spring, even if the wind is cold enough that your hands ache for an hour afterwards. Reading: Chapters for writers group. I'm happy to say it was the first time in a while that reading someone else's pages has made me eager to get back to mine. Writing: Nope. Dinner: At writer's group, cheese and salami and Lebanese green beans. When I got home, the salad and corn and part of a corn dog that was waiting for me. I probably could have made do with only one of these, but they were both so lovingly prepared. Soundtrack: In the kitchen, dancing with Z's arms wrapped around me, her cheek pressed into my back between my shoulder blades, to "CC Rider...

You should make plans  to come see my play. (/selfpromotion) For the first time in a long time, I am actively part of putting on a play, a play I wrote, and it is very, very gratifying. There's other stuff I've written in the past whatever length of time that I've handed over and not been a big part of putting on stage, and that's fine too, but I'm reconnecting to why I loved theater in the first place. The collaborative building of art is a grand thing, and Talespinner does it particularly well. Rehearsals kick off with presentations by all the creative and acting company members on their take, whatever it may be, of the script. So much great stuff flying around, and as the writer it is so satisfying to hear people really getting what I was doing when I wrote it. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes. Reading: I got a book of Japanese children's stories illustrated by Yoshisuke Kurosaki to show at presentations. When I was writing the script, I went l...

When I got home from jury duty, I took an evening constitutional. It's part of my new "move your body every day" campaign and a celebration of the bright sunshine. It's been a long winter. I haven't been out in my neighborhood much in many months. I love my neighborhood. I love the houses. I love the flower beds - the kempt and the unkempt - which are just now beginning to intimate greenness and growth. I love the big, tall maple trees. I love that these are the streets on which my children have learned to ride bikes. More than any place else in my life, this neighborhood is home. And most of all I love the people here. Old people, young people, artists, working class folks, young doctors, retirees, pinko lawyers. Families with young children, people who have spent their whole lives here. Straight people, gay people. All colors and religions. Even a Republican. Some of us know each other well-ish. Many keep more to themselves. Both are good. This is a truly divers...

In a college drawing class I had to draw all the wrinkles and creases in a pillow without lifting my hand and without looking at the page.  Like "scheme" in the sense of plan or system, and ordering drinks "for the interval," the term "lie-in" is a great Britishism I think Americans should adopt. Sure, we all sleep in on weekends, at least the adolescents among us, but we don't have a term for it. "Sleeping in" is an action. A "lie-in" is an event. So, we had one this morning, a lie-in, and a good one at that. A long lazy morning for everyone in the house. O eventually woke and came in to cozy up in our bed. Z slept and slept and then spent some quite alone time in her room. The cats even got frustrated with us we were all so lazy. David eventually got up to make breakfast, O and I stayed in bed to read and write. Z watched a tv show. It was just as it should be. Reading: A friend's poetry manuscript, to give feedback. Writing:...

Also went to see Miyazki's The Wind Rises . I always appreciate the way he observes plants.  I was looking for a tighter still of wildflowers, which he does particularly well - in Wind  there  is even a careful study of plaintain weeds - but this will suffice for now. It's been a busy few days here in Magpieland. I keep trying to write a post that sums it all up, and I keep hating it. Let's try this: Thursday was the thirteenth birthday of the son we never had. Calvin would be a teenager now. We always go to the cemetery. This year we took 13 orange daisies, a blue pinwheel, a Lego cop, and a small bag of Doritos. I was really happy on Friday night to see Ali Garrigan sing the Jesus out of songs she had cowritten with Dennis Yurich in Titus . On Saturday, partly to prove to a friend that our family has "narrative to spare," we went with her and her son to see the family shorts program at the film festival then stayed an got in on standby to the totally delightful ...