Daily

08.09.08

Bees in the herb bed
Daily, Sketchbook (3)

This little sketch is for Leigh’s moleskine, in ~~this month’s~~ the much over due addition to the Moly_x_9 Moleskine exchange: BEES, one of my favorite things about the garden. There’s nothing like stark sunshine on your head, walking through the dry garden in summer, listening to the drone of the honeybees circulate among the tufts of lavender and rosemary.

We’re going to raise bees, ourselves. I’m building the courage to implore of the neighbors what they think of this idea. My only fear is that they might tend to fly into the pool next door, frequently filled with children, and reduce laughter and splashing to aggravated shrieks and screams!

Does anyone out there have advice on this matter?
08.06.08

Wanna bet they’re boys, too?
Daily (2)
08.04.08

Tomorrow’s Forecast: 95% chance of You’re So Screwed
Daily, Photos, Seeing, Self Portrait Tuesday (7)

It is midnight, and I can’t sleep.
Two quiet kittens sit, huddled on the stoop, waiting for me to open the door.
It appears somebody left them.
And it appears the cats have already taken us.
Tomorrow, the children will find them.
And then?

Shit.
08.03.08

ozone and ice cream
Daily, Ford (2)

You’re standing on a grassy knoll and cool, salty air tempers the burning sunshine on your shoulders, and there you watch him. He concentrates on the spool, watching it spin in his hands, forgetting the climbing kite for the reeling tension between his fingers, still sticky with dried ice cream. His hair, like golden straw, smells of ozone and the grub of a week’s play, speckled with sand and grass seed. If you hover above him a bit longer: the smack of sunscreen on your nose, the same kind you wore as a child: the one in the brown plastic bottle with the knobby sides. Coppertone. And the distant smell of funnel cake, the tang of grilled meat, kettle corn gobbiness, crystallized salt on your bare, browning arms. There is nothing but us, and the kite, spinning skywards, poised like a gull.
08.01.08

Big Basin Redwoods
Daily, Exploring, Photos, Seeing, Self Portrait Tuesday (1)

For your play-by-play, check out Alis’ blog post. I’m still busy carving Bionicle parts with Ford out of foam rubber balls and tending hot glue gun boo boos. At 10:54pm. Hey, it’s still summer, and this kid is CREATING!
06.29.08

ladybugzes
Daily, Nature, Painting, Sketchbook (3)

The other night, on our way down the bike trail, a ladybug landed on my arm and it hitched the whole 9 miles to the brewery. I made sure it stayed safe because there’s no insect cuter and I’m all for public transit.

With it in mind, I got to work last night at my desk. It’s a great group; I love this nature journal exchange we’ve got going on at Moly_x_9.

I’m mailing Scoach’s Moleskine journal tomorrow an it’s headed for Hawaii.
06.26.08

date nite
Daily, Damon, Exploring, Making, Self Portrait Tuesday (7)

He’ll call me around 6 from Streetlight Records in San Jose, telling me he’s found the vinyl he was looking for. The night is young and it’s ours, only us, but I run through the house in a delightful frenzy kissing the boys in one room, only to meet them across the house seconds later to kiss them again there. I always worry they will fall asleep without brushing their teeth. Or fall into the bathtub. Or involuntarily kill each other…those last minutes are restless. But once I’m on the road, it’s all good.

In fifteen minutes I’ve woven a peaceful thread around pedestrian traffic along the creek trail. My muscles are warm and loose and my soul is finally free. I sit at an outdoor table and order a pint of ale under palm trees and tall buildings. A crow flies directly across the peach evening sky. The smoke lingers, still without a smell; affecting no one, it exhumes the sun, a giant apricot, into its velvet folds and I sit there squinting in my chair with a foam moustache. Damon rides up alongside the table, golden with sweat and grinning. All eyes are upon him as he leans his bike next to mine against that palm tree. It’s hard not to swell with affection for this man.

We stay for another round, then bolt through traffic on into San Jose, where we stay a while eating red beans and rice, cajun shrimp and Turbodog to the beat of a blues trio. And then another round.

The trail, at night, is dark as pitch and it’s easy to spill over a catfight. So we slip out of the void and back onto the street, where we glide past rows of underlit palms and pawn shops and good folk waving us on. It’s a righteous pass through the soul of any city, un-tucked for the night but singing itself to sleep. There are no pretenses, just us laughing down the street half-drunk and whizzing off and on curbs because we can and because we should.
06.11.08

It’s not just a marathon.
Daily, Running (6)

There are some things we do because it seems possible, and then there are things we take on because we like the challenge, and then there are things that seem dreadfully hopeless and guaranteed to fail us yet we attempt these feats because to succeed makes us better than we were before.

I’ve kept it quiet until now but I’d better put it out there now like undies on the clothesline: I’m running the Nike Women’s Marathon this fall and I’m going to running the entire 26.2 miles in honor of all the people in this world who are battling blood cancers. As a runner for Team in Training I’m standing here with my hands in my pockets, terrified, asking for you to make a tremendous difference to people who have, without discrimination, been diagnosed and are battling leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma. These are diseases that know no race, no religion, no commonality besides being HUMAN. And I’ve wept through too many cases already not to push through my insecurities and ask for your help.

And, as with all efforts, every. little. bit. helps. I’ve been told that, at the rate we’re going with research, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society predict that we will have a cure for blood diseases by 2012. You can help make this happen.

Please go visit my TNT fundraising page and read more about what every dollar will afford to a person who is undergoing treatment. It will clarify the ambiguities of your donation.

Also, leave me a comment if you know someone who is either diagnosed with, in remission from or who has died from a blood cancer. I would like to mention that person to the world and honor him or her in my efforts.
06.05.08

indoor track & field
Daily, Ford, Home (1)

I have a lot of Dad in my makeup but I was never a track star. And then there were my grandfathers, who ran on athletic scholarship against the likes of Jessie Owens. But I ran without much mojo one season in grade school before deciding to just stick to ballet and pirouette clearly within the boundaries of my own security.

Last August we visited home and Dad hung with the boys quite a bit. It was raining most of the time and I came home one day, sopping wet, to find them watching the decathlon and practicing the high jump onto the sofa. Dad had them both in perfect form, something I couldn’t have taught, and they boys were totally into it, spring-loading themselves in playful arcs across the living room. It was awesome.

I can’t tell you how to perform the proper pole vault, but Ford had his own method and was in the zone already when I arrived on the scene yesterday. I gave him a few pointers but decided ultimately to just let him figure out what worked best for him. I sat on the floor and watched him in my amazement, deciding that, at least in spirit, we may have another hopeful athlete in the family.
06.03.08

Reliving fossils
Daily, Home (2)

You can’t relocate a basket of forgotten plastic dinosaurs in this house without a notice by the boys. I spent Sunday rearranging half the house in anticipation of Dwight’s return next week. Gone are the piles of books, the boys walking upon bookpiles, the books stacked upon every available surface. Now, we have bookshelves insulating the walls, thick with knowledge and already collecting dust. But now you can see the dinosaurs. And here they are, living the plastic dinosaur dream, moments before asteroid touchdown.

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