Take omens from the flight of birds

Hello, it's 2023! 2022 wasn't my favorite! But it brought many sweet and beautiful things, as well as some crappy ones. What a lovely holiday celebration we had with the whole family in North Carolina, with (mostly) lucky travel and very lucky health and some of my most favorite humans (and dogs) all in one place together.

Items from the year so far:

• A game I play sometimes is Floater or Fruit Fly? (It's January, so it's usually a floater.)
• I met someone this week who...how to put this...if I learned they were a serial killer, it wouldn't totally surprise me? 
• I've been doing Adriene's 30 days of yoga every day this year*
• I'm ridiculously delighted with the etymology of inauguration!! 

Okay, on to the important stuff, the internets archaeology:

Why is no one talking about Libby's black jumpsuit?

Best bolster.

In other words, what to do with a whistlepig?

TIL

I can't stop thinking about Fishtopher.

#même

*hellloooo, it's January 5

Joy

I like this show (even though I don't particularly like the people on the first episode), and I am smitten with Marie Kondo herself. I fear, though, that none of my underwear will spark joy and I'll be left underwear-less.

It's all about the peaceful music.

.

Joy is not made to be a crumb*

• I spilled turmeric on my sweater (turmeric-ginger oatmeal, to be specific, on a new sweater Mark's mom just gave me for an early Christmas gift, to be specific) and then went down a YouTube rabbit hole, into a world where Indian woman clean turmeric stains out of white garments. Also, I successfully removed the turmeric, although it took about 72 hours for the sweater to dry.
• I thought today about how I always feel bad for the people on passing city buses who see me through the dining room window, happily eating oatmeal in my cozy, warm house. And then I thought, some of those people on those early morning buses are perfectly happy to be there. Maybe it's the first day of a new job they're thrilled about. Maybe they're getting to campus early to see someone they have a crush on. Maybe they're reading the final pages of an excellent book that's ending in a thrilling, satisfying way. 

*Don’t Hesitate 

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, 
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty 
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about 
to be. We are not wise, and not very often 
kind. And much can never be redeemed. 
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this 
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes 
something happens better than all the riches 
or power in the world. It could be anything, 
but very likely you notice it in the instant 
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the 
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid 
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb. 

Mary Oliver

Before I forget

I have been slightly better about writing down my dreams immediately upon waking over the last couple of weeks. I still have stretches of several mornings in a row in which I remember nothing, or I remember vividly for the two minutes it takes me to pee and walk downstairs, where my mind goes blank. Still, it's better to walk downstairs, open my laptop, and type up whatever I can recall, instead of scribbling in a bedside notebook, because 1) it would probably wake Mark up (he typically sleeps another half hour or so after I get up) and 2) my fingers are slow and painstaking when it comes to handwriting, even when I'm fully awake.* My typing fingers can go like crazy, though.**

Just now, I was reading the word "formaldehyde" in an essay by David Sedaris at the exact same moment that a woman on NPR said the word "formaldehyde." This happens to me all the time (oop, Ari Shapiro just said it again, formaldehyde, just as I was typing that!). You say coincidence, I say..? 

I was reading a Twitter thread with comments that was all about the outfits people like to wear on planes, and it was so soothing. Here it is! Ahh, it is lovely to read everyone's cozy favorites. Even though I'm famous for my hatred and terror of flying, it made me want to assemble the perfect airplane ensemble. Soft pants with pockets. Joggers? I found some fleecy lined ones with pockets. A tunic of some sort, either a luxe sweatshirt or super soft cashmere. A blanket scarf. Fancy compression socks. A travel pillow, noise-cancelling headphones, and big sunglasses. 

Plus, you know. My magic talismans for not crashing, and plenty of Xanax.



*They've forgotten how? But also they have a new ache/stiffness. 
**Not to brag, but I have the typing fingers of a 30 year old.

It's Me

It's me, walking briskly around the neighborhood in my bright white size 9 Converse low-top Chucks with a leash in my hand. Dressed in what I've decided is my budget-Eileen Fisher-knockoff outfit (linenish black pants I bought at Old Navy and washed and dried so they became slightly less clownish and the perfect length rather than dragging on the ground. Only minimally linty and dog-haired at the moment. Pockets stuffed with poop bags™. Oh, note to self: HANG TO DRY FROM HERE ON OUT. Also a lovely sleeveless cotton/linen orange top that Mark bought me). 

As Gus and I passed our next-door neighbor's house, we spotted the whistle pig who divides his time between our yard and hers penned in a Hav A Heart trap, looking for all the world like a cartoon groundhog, pushing up with his little arms against its metal lid. There was a huge slab of granite on top of the trap. Poor little guy! Just the other day I saw him hustling busily across my back yard. I could imagine him wearing a little outfit of some kind. (Maybe I should refer to him/her as them. But I have mentally gendered him already, so.)

48

It feels like almost-fall. Sun and cool breeze and chilly nights, and dogs with extra amounts of energy during the day, who curl up beside us at night.

It might be too soon to say for sure, but I may have found a pair of jeans that doesn't stretch out and leave me with a saggy butt by day two. I will go ahead and recommend them, because I'm feeling optimistic after two hiking-in-the-woods, dog-chasing, bending-to-plant-mums-in-pots days of wear. They are Levi's 712s, FYI.

I Want a Dog Named Laika

I don't need a dog named Laika, because I've got a whole lot of dog in Mr Gus. HOWEVER, I do sometimes dream of a little sister for Gus* who would love me best.

I am thinking of taking a Book of Faces hiatus, just a week or so. It has more to do with politics and the news than anything else right now. I think it would be good for my mental health to avoid social media and even lighten my consumption of NPR for a spell.

(I keep thinking about the above idea and NOT DOING IT, which is in keeping with my adult onset, Internets-related ADD, but oh well. As my dad would say, "Squirrel?")

In other news, I should've been a kindergarten teacher because I want all the clothes with little animal prints, like this and this and this. And I prove to myself daily what a little old lady I'm becoming. E.g. I just ordered some new reading glasses online and I am pretty much beside myself with excitement.



*I've said this before, but I'm pretty sure Gus thinks of me as "that nice lady who lives with Master and me."

Hello, Friend.

Undergarments:

I had great success ordering a very inexpensive bra online a few months ago. But now I am trying to get two more bras the same way (I am constantly short on them, because I wash them lazily and also they get weird and stretched out and uncomfortable over time), and I keep striking out. I currently have a heap of bras that I have to take to UPS and send back.


Kinder, gentler:

I refuse, with all this Donald Trump stuff. I refuse. I just can't think about it anymore, I need cute animal videos and gentle BBC shows and flowers and hot cups of tea. Mark and I have as a result been binge-watching all of Downton Abbey lately. And making avocado toast and poaching eggs and dusting things. And so on.


Worry:

I do. February was hard on many people I care about. I try to take my worry every morning to an island and leave it there, and I am generally fairly successful. And I have an innate optimism that just inevitably comes out like an annoying cheerleader, no matter what.


Linkz:

I have found you a site at which you can find the answer to this one very important question before you watch a movie: DOES THE DOG DIE?

Who wouldn't want to take a Handmaid's Tale walking tour of Cambridge, Mass?

The story of #YayHamlet. And more #YayHamlet, connections between Shakespeare and Hamilton. And finally, I really want a #YayHamlet t-shirt!

Cheer yourself up with these raccoon Gifs!

Online Shopping for Those With a Limited Attention Span

My brain is clearly fried from the internets and my cellular device, etc, because at times I bounce from window to window, thinking, "What was I going to look for? Oh trail running shoes, but then also a new smoke detector, oh and they just said on Marketplace there's a pumpkin shortage, so pumpkin too, cases of canned pumpkin..." And then I get distracted on the (evil)Amazon page for pumpkin by one marketed to pets called (ahem) "Nummy Tum Tum," and adjacent to that, this adorable can of cat food:

Doesn't this look like it was illustrated by a 1970s children's book illustrator?

Cutest. Cat food can. Ever. And then I forget why I had all those windows open, and I wander off.