the silence of a falling star lights up a purple sky

A couple of weekends ago M and I stayed with friends in Blue Hill, and it was such an idyllic day-and-a-half that it's been fueling our longstanding folie à deux about moving up there. Zillow is my most pernicious online habit. We have proed and conned it many times, and there are far more pros to staying where we are (walkability, closer to everyone we love, etc etc etc). But I do adore that peninsula with all my heart!

Down under the Deer Isle Bridge

I swam here in the clear, cold water, looking up at that pretty green suspension bridge from below. It was supposedly "where the teens hang out," but there was nary a scrap of trash to be seen, and only one demure graffiti scrawl. The next day Anna showed us another deserted beach, and I went for a second crisp, salty swim.

Inside the barn at Tinder Hearth

M and I went here for breakfast (to go, because they don't allow dogs, their only flaw); we took our breakfast sandwich, cinnamon roll, coffee, and Clover to Caterpillar Hill, our favorite scenic lookout over blueberry fields and forests down to the reach and the bay, dotted with islands, and the Camden hills in the distance. Later, we went back to Tinder Hearth with Matt and Anna for pizza night, which was almost a mystical experience. Pizza: sublime. Setting: huge vegetable and flower garden illuminated by a crackling fire pit and trailing fairy lights, picnic tables with candles flickering in the dusk. Absolutely perfect produce in the beds, artichokes exploding in purple blossoms, lettuces like illustrations in a glossy cookbook. Towering yellow oxeye sunflowers, marigolds everywhere. "Why don't the deer eat the vegetables?" we asked one server, who smiled and shrugged. An enchanted place. Oh, and I forgot to mention the sundae we shared at the end, with soft serve and chai caramel and local plums and cinnamon whipped cream.

And then walking to the car afterward I looked up at the sky — moonless — and saw more stars than I've seen in years. The Milky Way was so obvious (like it was saying "I've been right here this whole time!"), the sky was just thick with stars, there was so much depth to it. It's like when you can see enough of the horizon over the ocean that you imagine you can see a hint  of the earth's curve. I could just feel that we were standing on a planet, in a universe. Stunning night sky, I counted two satellites and one shooting star. And I kind of yearned to live somewhere with so much sky, so much silence, and so many places where you can just pull your car over and jump in the ocean. 

You want to run — I'll run with you

Be cunning, and full of tricks

First a note to any remaining loyal reader(s): it was brought to my attention that you can make a comment here, but then it seems to vanish into the ether. "Do you moderate comments?" my brother Adam asked me, after leaving one on my most recent post. "Um," I thought to myself. And then I checked and yes, I do, although I seem to have neglected my moderating duties for the last...eight years? Oh readers and former readers who are not reading this: I'm so sorry, I wasn't ignoring you, I was just blissfully blogging into the dark. If you leave me a comment now, in 2026, I will (theoretically) see it!

News of the yard: we've expanded from our resident one butterfly, one bunny, and one hummingbird. Now there are two bunnies, occasionally adjacent to each other, kind of playful, hopping in concert, big and little, the big one seeming subtly irritated with the small one. When it's business as usual, they just inhale clover and dandelion, packing it away for the colder months, little eating machines with shiny black eyes and twitchy soft ears. Clover occasionally has a staring contest with one of them, but she doesn't chase them.*

A dream in which I worked at Whole Foods and was answering a customer's question about when we would be getting a fancy new locally made jam. I told her there would be an event that very evening, and then they would start rolling it out. And then I said, because in my dreams I am a standup comedian: "But very carefully, because most of it is in glass jars."

*best girl.

In a dream I possessed it

What a year, huh? What a month, what a time to be alive. 

In dog news, Clover is not immune to the generalized national anxiety disorder and was so disconcerted by 1) the sound of melting snow sliding off the roof and 2) the fact that Mark and I were away from home at the same time and probably 3) news* on the radio, left on to "keep her company," that she nibbled through the handles of the tote bag that hangs on the basement doorknob and holds dishtowels and cloth napkins destined for the laundry. It was the first illicit chewing she's done since she was a wee pup and shredded an entire New Yorker, cover-to-cover, into confetti. At first we panicked, misconstruing how the handles had connected to the tote bag and estimating there were about six missing inches of handle. Luckily, we didn't see "intestinal obstruction" etc etc online and immediately whisk her off to the emergency vet, but instead looked again at the tote bag, correctly lined the handles up and realized she'd only detatched them from the bag, without actually ingesting any fabric. 

She's sometimes a nervous wreck, but zooms, gleeful, through the backyard paths dug in the snow (more coming this week, but there's ~ 9 inches out there now). A person can walk the paths like a labyrinth too, if a person doesn't worry about the neighbors thinking they're crazy!

In bird news, I've noticed several robin gangs recently, hundreds of them in enormous rounds** swooping from tree to tree, down to the ground, back up together to gobble withered, frozen February berries, ravenous and noisy. 

In dream news, I dreamt I was talking with Oona about her dream of taking a cross-country road trip. "It's actually," I told her gently, "a pretty great reason to get a driver's license." She agreed. David added, "Plus, cars are great!" And then, I told a dream joke: I said, "Although your mileage may vary."

Fun fact: William Burroughs' parents paid him an allowance until he was 50.

Blast from the past.

RIP David Lynch.

5 Early Signs.

*BBC News because it sounds less real when it's in a British accent.

**A round of robins, or a breast of robins, or a blush of robins, take your pick.

I have walked out in rain—and back in rain

Related: I have been one acquainted with the ice. A surprise (TO ME) ice storm brought down a spectacular number of large branches into our yard, many of which fell upon and adjacent to the Honda of Nine Lives. It made for exciting photo opportunities but didn't cause any real damage. And our friend Geo came over immediately with his chainsaw and safety gear, so now our yard is full of logs that we'll eventually have to deal with. Pine and willow, pine and willow everywhere.

The ice was beautiful for days, sparkling in the trees and glittering down in shattered, shining pieces. Clover did. Not. Like it. There was crackling and popping like the whole world was full of strange brittle wind chimes. Now we've moved into the soggy phase. The birds are huge fans of the impromptu hiding spots around the yard, little bird fortresses of branch and pine needle, and even though the feeders are almost empty, they're thronged with the little brown ones.

I haven't collected much for you lately, but here are a few artifacts to tide you over:

Huh.

(Said in hiccup voice)

NOT ON YOUR TINTYPE, BUDDY.

All things go

I've got to be honest, I have had recurring thoughts lately of shutting down this blorg. I'm not sure why, aside from a general feeling that the internets have become something I want to use only in a very methodical, efficient way and then turn my attention away from entirely. And if I come here and post a rabbit each month, methodically? Well, that's pretty boring, number one. I was going to say number two, I'm running out of locations for my monthly rabbit photo shoot, but that's ridiculous. THE WORLD IS MY RABBIT RABBIT OYSTER.

Maybe I'll start a newsletter? is a thought I've had on and off for three or four years. I have actually signed up for and then deleted several different newslettering platforms over the years. 

Maybe Google will eliminate Blogger is a thought I've had on and off for at least 15 years. Also, Why on earth hasn't Google eliminated Blogger, no one but me uses it anymore.

I realized today that I started this thing almost 19 years ago, and so I decided I should keep going at least until my big 20th anniversary, assuming Google doesn't pull the plug in the next 16 months. To wit:

This month in animals:

CROWS. Holly and I made a pledge to become old ladies who are friends with crows, and to that end I am continuing to foster my relationship with the crows in my yard and on my regular dog walking routes. Yesterday in the grocery store parking lot I stuck my hand in my pocket and pulled out peanuts, a penny (lucky: found on the ground), and a couple of rocks. I am a 12-year-old pretending to have a bank account and a driver's license and two grown children.

BEARS.

BEARS. Langlais Sculpture Preserve. 

CLOVER. Clover in boots, Clover in a jacket. Clover in Mark's arms, because we didn't put her boots on and her paws hurt from the salted sidewalks.

I'm Virginia, adoring and worrying over you (you're Pinka, her beloved spaniel).

And we'll not complain if it never stops at all

Minimalism in all things except reading glasses. And by that, I don't mean bejeweled frames, I mean that I apparently need a dozen pairs — in my bag, my coat pocket, in the car, in the kitchen*, bathroom**, down in the printing area, on my desk, beside my bed. Plus backups. Or maybe it's time for progressive lenses.

Okay, apparently it's going to rain for 40 days and 40 nights four days. Yesterday I divided some plants, planted some flower seeds, cleaned up some garden beds. I filled ten leaf bags with willow branches, pine needles, weeds, errant day lilies, and some leaves, then hauled them through the house*** and into the garage to keep them dry until my yard waste pickup day (Thursday). Then I'll haul them back out and put them on the curb. I've hardly made a dent in the collection of brush that expands through the year, mostly willow branches that blow down in every storm, piled behind the old playhouse (That's okay — the birds love it!). Speaking of the birds, Mark helped me move the bird feeders farther away from the pine tree in the corner of our back yard, since several squirrels recently tested their acrobatic abilities and discovered they could leap through the air from tree to feeder and suck the bird seed into their greedy mouths while hanging upside down. I don't think they can make it that far now, though I'm eager to see them try.

Can't believe the only thing I wrote in the entire month of April was this half-assed post about reading glasses and puttering in my yard , but would you get a load of these feet??

*reading recipes and labels

**tweezing and deciphering medicine bottles

***garage door — long story

Do you want to make dreams, but not enough any time?

Tis the month when I normally post something every single day/whether or not I've got somethin' to say*

But not this November! I have just been taking notes, on scraps of paper, on electronic scraps of electronic paper, and in me own head. Things like

• My own typos that are cracking me up: Security breeches
• Things found on the internets that are cracking me up: Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo
• I angrily returned a pair of sunglasses because they were crooked. It turns out my face is crooked (all the sunglasses, including the replacement pair, sit askew on my face. I guess I inherited my dad's uneven ears after all!)
• On our way to the park with Clover in the morning, we watched a gaggle of geese cross the street in a line as meandering and leisurely as a group of middle school kids, while cars waited in both directions. Thirty seconds later, the geese were aloft, honking and flying low over our heads (I covered mine with my arms) en route to the pond. Walked across the street, then flew across the park.

And then, of course, there's the usual gleaning of the internets:

Trending.

Who can blame them, really?

Synonyms for fuddled.

Never enough any time.

Of moste pleasaunte taste.

*poet/know it

The morns are meeker than they were

Small things:

The older man in Whole Foods wearing a bright red t shirt with F R I D A Y in white (it was Friday).

Oceanside brunch, huge waves, a bright butterfly hiding its wings when it landed.

Clover, early at the empty Deering Oaks playground, loves to play hide and seek on the woodchips, ducking around the climbing structures like a little kid.

Clover, greeting a man on the beach she clearly thought was Mark (who was in Chicago), then returning, utterly defeated. Her tail so low after that it was dragging in the sand. Maybe she forgot about him remembered, and then felt heartbroken? She didn't enjoy the walk after that, kept looking over her shoulder for where we'd entered the beach, turned and trotted back the way we'd come the minute I said, "Oh, okay, want to go back to the car?"

The last days of summer, brilliant with goldenrod and sparkling with surprise asters. Cold enough at night to shut the windows and dig out the comforter. Clover curling up with me on the chilly nights, against my leg (it's like a weighted blanket to feel a dog on my legs, my favorite thing ever).

Not really listening to the BBC narrate the Queen's funeral procession, but catching phrases here and there, the best of which was "at least 40 corgis."

Ladybug-by-the-sea

Rabbit rabbit!

 

By the pricking of my thumbs

Woke to frozen pipes* in the bathroom, after not even the coldest night this week. I took Clover for a long walk in the cold to a completely deserted park. Back in our driveway, she paused and looked up at the branches of an evergreen tree — I looked, expecting to see a squirrel, but it was a small woodpecker. A female (black and white without red all over). Now I'm not sure if it was a downy or hairy woodpecker, not recalling how long its bill was or even if it was "small" or "medium" sized. I didn't hear it pecking, but Clover clearly did. It made me miss Gus, the way he would watch birds all the time: how do they do that?

In the back yard, I saw a nuthatch, a bird whose name I always grasp for, skipping over "titmouse" before I get there. I don't know, I guess it doesn't evoke nuts or hatching — it's the upside-down, gray and blue guy with the pointy bill (they always stand upside-down on the trunk of the willow tree). I tried to draw one:

It kept coming out looking like a narwhal. 

They say Wordle is is the sourdough starter of 2022 and that's fine with me!

The Tragedy of Macbeth was stark and stunning. Wow, what a bleak play. It's not my very favorite, but I still remember** Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow after being told to memorize it in ninth grade English class, and there are so many great lines. 

*It's a work in progress, but we've unfroze em before and we'll do it again!

**I will be quoting this in my dotage, no doubt, driving my caretakers crazy. Ditto The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. 

You want it to be one way

It's snowing, gorgeous fluffy snow, plenty of it, and unlike past years when I've been sad that the wintery weather held off until after Christmas, this time we got both: actually perfect Christmas Day snow, and this lovely melancholy January storm.

Clover wears her boots proudly, after an initial comedy routine of about 30 seconds, in which her feet and legs look like they're being controlled by an inept puppeteer. It's like an extra treat we get every time we put them on her, a moment of hilarity. (Without the boots, she limps sadly over salted sidewalks and stops every five minutes to clean snowballs from her fancy feet.) 

Okay, I should be writing some things so there will be actual money in my next paycheck, but I had to quickly link to this Tilda Swinton profile because:

"My ambition was always about having a house by the sea and some dogs."

And

She’s smiling, and says she’s got a surprise. We head off towards her car, Swinton marching ahead imperiously. In the car there are four springer spaniels in the back and a fifth, the eldest, Rosy, is in the front passenger seat.

We went to a January 6 vigil for democracy last night which was a little bit lackluster. Or maybe that was just me. There were a few guys with a flag that said FUCK BIDEN and fuck you for voting for him. One guy had a megaphone, but the crowd was large enough that it could drown him out pretty easily. The speaker said, "Don't engage!" and although the group was mostly middle-aged and older, I imagined a shared feeling among us all, the holding back of an impulse to surround those jerks and tear them limb from limb like in a Shirley Jackson story.

Elmo and a regular-ass rock

This is why I need to write stuff first thing in the morning. This is my brain in the afternoon.

It's on sale BUT WHAT IS IT

On the last day of the world I would want to plant a tree

Saturday is my traditional sleep-in day, but I woke at 6:00 with my head full of dreams, and got up to write them down. For weeks I haven't really remembered them, just the fuzziest outline and sometimes one detail (the night before I wrote in my dream journal "A flimsy tray, a shoddy paint job when viewed up close."). Last night's was one of those satisfying dreams that went on and on, involved flooding and long conversations and an Eastern European city and twins and adventures.

Gray November beach with Clover, early — one of my favorite kinds of beach. She played with many dogs, even big, bouncy puppies, and was only ready to leave when she heard a distant scary sound (blasting? Morning fireworks?).

I wish you could see how sleepy the sky is already now, at 4:15 pm, how tired the branches of the trees are in my neighborhood, still shedding gold and brown leaves. The only thing that's missing is crows! Where did they go?

 

You are the air of the now and gone

I'm inordinately annoyed that last week's recycling was never picked up, despite the Lodging of Complaints. Not only that, they Closed the Issue, claiming the recycling had been collected. I marched right out to double check that no, it had not, and Lodged another Complaint.

(Tomorrow is recycling day, and unless they skip us two weeks in a row, this is truly No Big Deal.)

Much more important: Mark is home after nine days caring for his sister after her cancer treatment. It was really lonely around here without him. The only plus side* was the way Clover shifted her allegiance to me (her second-favorite person in the world). When we picked him up at the airport last night, I imagined the inside of her brain this way: "Wait. Wait, is that... It's that guy! I totally forgot about him, he's my favorite person!" I can make myself cry by imagining her seeing her mother or Gus again.**

Candles, hot tea, November leaves, gray sky. 

*actually, it was also fun reading tons of books, watching bad TV, and eating sardines on crackers for dinner.

**granted, I can make myself cry by watching a Folgers commercial.

Everything present is made out of the past

It's November, and you know what that means! I attempt to write a blog post every day and don't...quite. Maybe I'll get it this year: hooray for low-stakes challenges!

Thought: Public art in the roundabout like something out of the George Saunders story The Semplica-Girl Diaries. Pay $18/hr for humans to stand there? 

Thought: Mark Zuckerberg's plastic Lego hair. Also his plastic Lego soul.

Habit: Everyday, watching the middle schoolers walk in groups, or alone, I smile at the ones who walk alone.

Internetty: Hello, it's me, age 54, googling "can you take a dog on a cruise?" 

Vicarious excitement: An Amazing Race to the airport (Zoë on the bus, bound for Israel, Mark in the car with...her vaccine card).

Remembering: Just a couple of weeks ago, on our mini-Anniversary-getaway-weekend, Mark and I ate dinner outside at a fish shack, and a man who worked there pointed at Clover and said, "Wait! Wasn't that dog here for lunch?" (I guess she has a doppelgänger in the Lincolnville area!)

Animals:

• An enormous brown hawk, swooping down low, so close to my head it made me say "Whoa!"
• A busy animal hurrying into a shrub, disguising itself as a cute, tiny squirrel: in retrospect, obviously a rat.
• So many dogs, always.
• Mice, a-pooping in my kitchen cabinet.

Reading: Proust could declutter his apartment all he liked, but he couldn’t stop people from serving him madeleines.

Isn't it your dream to be wholly invisible someday?

Both brothers were here, it was like a dream! The weather was mild, the walks were long and meandering, the soft serve was soft and sweet and flavored with fresh peaches. David finally won Clover over after nearly five years (she is a little heartbreaker). My brothers! My heart!

And now my parents are roadtripping up from Cackalacky for a visit, hooray!

I'm going to try to turn my attention back to bloggery, away from online time sucks, like Twitter where I get mad at people and compose angry tweets and delete them.

Actually mostly they are getting it. I just like this person's illustration.

Roundabout: paved.

Pandemic: continuing apace.

Brain: lacking focus.

Stomach: generally not terrible.

You're the turmeric in my oatmeal, you're the goat milk in my tea

 Wonderful:

A murder of crows at the city golf course, and rediscovering that "city golf course" is a misleading descriptor for acres of public city land, rolling hills and evergreen stands beside a lazy river. It helped that we had it all to ourselves, before cross country skiers and walkers and skaters arrived. The crows have been spurning my back yard for months (or years), and I've missed that low, strange sound of a hundred of them gathered to discuss the weather.

Mark described the groaning sound Clover makes when we arrive at one of her favorite places or pull up in our driveway as sounding like Marge Simpson, and YES.

This peanut sauce on anything.

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us

I accidentally left my phone at home on this morning's beach walk, always a good thing after the initial panic (long ago, before my first iPhone, I imagined a world where all of us would have smart phones that weren't accessories, but required devices, like a remote control that was necessary for us to function. Like when you lose the TV remote and can't remember how to make it do anything using just the buttons on it?).

Always a good thing, but not pictured:

• A snowy owl, a huge lady* that looked like this, perched atop of the chimney of a beach house, basking in the sun.
• Five horses, with riders, strolling down the beach. Not strolling — what do horses do that's slower than a trot? That. Clover was investigating their presence, sniffing their hoof prints in the sand, long before we finally saw them. She was so good, sitting reverently as she watched them go by.
• Also, why are horses allowed to poop at will on the beach and no one scoops? Is horse poop, like cow poop, more quickly composted and less...bad...than dog poop? I could Google this, obviously, but choose not to.
• That feeling when you turn back after walking miles along the beach, and the spot you came from never seems to get any closer, and at some point you realize it's fine, what could be a lovelier purgatory than walking forever on a beach with the sun shining and brisk wind and your best dog and best person beside you?
• That feeling when you get back to the rocky spot you passed an hour earlier and realize the tide's come in too high and you're going to have to retrace your steps for a mile, exit the beach, and follow the road back to your car. BUT THEN you see the snowy owl again, moved to another sunny spot, and you run into the annual Christmas bird count folks* too. And everyone's waving Happy New Year from yards away.

And we made it to 2021, which is something! Clover rang in the New Year from the basement, where for some mysterious reason she skittered off around 10:30pm. When I got up I thought she had come back to bed in the night and was still there with Mark. She scared the crap out of me emerging from the dark when I was getting cat food out of the pantry.

*these experts told us she was a lady.

This year

I have zero cause for complaint. I'm extremely superstitious about mentioning this, but my loved ones are safe and healthy.

But here I go: this is the year in which a predicted snowstorm is likely to cancel Isaac and Edna's scheduled COVID-19 test tomorrow. They also have a test today, but they will have to wait longer for its results, and they're waiting in a generously donated—but very cold—space. This is the year that is keeping most of my beloveds, including my sweetest girl, far away.

Lucky: to have a kid who could drive here, to have a friend who would offer his empty house for isolating. To have enough money to feed ourselves and also buy out the frozen section of Trader Joe's for said kid's quarantine. To have a warm puppy and a warm catfriend and lights on a perfect little tree and batteries for window candles and a tube of almond paste for macaroons in the meantime. To have a car WITH HEATED SEATS and a beach ten minutes away, to walk in the cold wrapped in a warm coat. 

Things I observed recently:

• Crows congregating in a circle, something happening in the middle, but what? 
• A man wearing bright yellow trousers smoking a pipe over his lowered mask. 
• A sweet pit bull in a sweater gazing up earnestly at me, a loving, begging face. 
• Clover at a loss, looking like she forgot something, searching for Mark across the beach, on a day we'd gone without him.
• A police car running a red light, no lights or sirens on, just coasting slowly, brazenly through it.
• One lone bird trapped inside Trader Joe's (I keep thinking and worrying about this bird, days later).

I have been living closer to the ocean than I thought

I have gotten the bare minimum of work done this week, at least since Tuesday. It's been easier to accomplish physical things (printing a few t-shirts, cutting mask pieces for sewing, scrubbing a moldy line of grout in the shower, dusting the lightbulbs, running around like a maniac in the back yard with Clover, etc) than the careful arrangement of words in a document or thoughtful sentences explaining terms like "regionalism" and "cryptographer." I.e. my brain isn't working all that well. 

How about you?

The other day on the beach, Clover watched a group of dogs play, maybe waiting to be invited to join, or maybe just watching. It was this funny cartoon bunch of fancy dogs, like the start of a joke: a Borzoi, two Silken Windhounds, and a Bedlington Terrier walk into a bar...

This morning Clover got skunked in her very own back yard. Now our house smells like Nag Champa with a skunky undertone. Some things in this house are very, very clean, and others are extremely dirty right now (I'm looking at you, dining room rug). I am down to the last of my "election night" snacks, a bag of chocolate covered peanut butter pretzels. My magical thinking says if I could bring myself to eat them, the major networks would declare Biden the winner. We've all got to do our part, I guess.

Look at the pictures and the cutlery

I woke so early this morning, to the sound of what I initially thought was workers dumping truckloads of rocks repeatedly onto the street outside, but was actually just the noise each car made as it flew through the intersection over the temporary plates covering the holes in the pavement. Flew through the intersection, I should add, because as of yesterday it's suddenly without a single traffic light (it went from six to zero). Most of the streets are closed off, but still it's very strange and dark out there.

A kind of symmetry: as I fell asleep last night, I was startled back awake by the shattering of glass (a glass shade on one of the bathroom lights, knocked gently-but-not-gently-enough by Isaac).

This morning I walked Clover in the neighborhood, while Mark recovered from a migraine, and we were invited to play in a dog friend's yard (by the dog's human companion, that is). Clover spent much of the playdate sitting at my side looking sad, and later I realized she'd been stung by a bee (I think) on her face. Now one side is swollen, so she looks like two types of dog, depending on which way she's facing. She allowed me to hold an ice pack on her face for a very long time (best girl).

I have spent too many internetminutes googling "immigrating to Canada" lately. By the way.

Okay, Tuesday, what else have you got in store for me?