pattidigh

New addiction

Fage 2% Greek yogurt. Or, when feeling particularly decadent, Fage Total Classic Yogurt.

My, oh my.

I want him

Her little creatures are so fantastic. I want him. Must we always distinguish between want and need?

Confession

Okay, I admit it. There is some slight evidence to suggest that I talk about Johnny Depp a tad too much.

Tessie - April 2007

I want to go back to Berlin...

...so I can stay here.

[Thanks to Humanyms for introducing me to this wonderful art hotel]

Can't you see?

Did I ever mention that I wanted to be a rock and roll star?

Lyrics to U2 Window In The Skies

The shackles are undone
The bullets quit the gun
The heat thats in the sun
Will keep us when there’s none

The rule has been disproved
The stone has been moved
The grain is now a groove
All debts are removed, ooh

Oh can’t you see what our love has done
Oh can’t you see what our love has done
Oh can’t you see what our love has done
What it’s doing to me

Love makes strange enemies
Makes love when love may please
Soul in a strip tease
Hate brought to its knees

Sky over our head
Can reach it from our bed
If you let me in your heart
And out of my head

Oh can’t you see what our love has done
[ these lyrics found on http://www.completealbumlyrics.com ]

Oh can’t you see what our love has done
Oh can’t you see what our love has done
What it’s doing to me

Oh oh oh hhhhhhhhhhh
Oh oh oh hhhhhhhhhhh
Please don’t ever let me out of here

I’ve got no shame
oh no oh no

Oh can’t you see what love has done
Oh can’t you see
Oh can’t you see what love has done
What it’s doing to me

Oh I know I hurt you and I made you cry
Did everything but murder but you and I
But love left a window in the skies
And to love I rhapsodize

Oh can’t you see what love has done to every broken heart
Oh can’t you see what love has done for every heart that cries
Love left a window in the skies
And to love I rhapsodize

Oh can’t you see

A hat tip to Shonnie for turning me on to this video.

New addiction

Yum, mango chutney

Completely addictive. Hot. Mango. Chutney. Yum.

Practice

"I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit. To practice means to perform, in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired." - Martha Graham

Aging

Emma and Tess

"Your children are either the center of your life or they're not, and the rest is commentary." - Calvin Trillin

They are.

Officially Tired Of It

"Complete disruption" of anterior talofibular ligament, anterior tibiofibular ligament, calcaneofibular ligament, tibiotalar ligament, and fracture of the talus joint. It happened on November 2nd, three months ago. I'm officially tired of it now. My self portrait in hotel room with crutches. Whine.

Friends

“This guy’s walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can’t get out. A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, ‘Hey you. Can you help me out?’ The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, ‘Father, I’m down in this hole can you help me out?’ The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a friend walks by, ‘Hey, Joe, it’s me can you help me out?’ And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, ‘Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here.’ The friend says, ‘Yeah, but I’ve been down here before and I know the way out.’” - John Spencer as Leo McGarry on The West Wing (Season 2, Episode 10)

[Image from here.]

Noticing loss...

“The greatest danger, that of losing one’s own self, may pass off quietly as if it were nothing; every other loss, that of an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc., is sure to be noticed.” - Soren Kierkegaard

"Dirge Without Music"

"I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,--but the best is lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love, --
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave,
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned."

     -- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Fresh New Year

This is one of the first blogs I go to in the morning to see if there is a new treat. The colors are so satisfying.

Image from Yarnstorm.

January First

from “January First”

The year’s doors open
like those of language,
toward the unknown.
Last night you told me:            
                                 tomorrow
we shall have to think up signs,
sketch a landscape, fabricate a plan
on the double page
of day and paper.
Tomorrow, we shall have to invent,
once more,
the reality of this world.

—Elizabeth Bishop

Excerpt from “January First” by Octavio Paz, translated by Elizabeth Bishop from The Complete Poems 1927-1979 by Elizabeth Bishop. Copyright 1979, 1983 by Alice Helen Methfessel.

 

A Walk

A Walk

My eyes already touch the sunny hill,
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has its inner light, even from a distance----

and changes us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it, we already are;
a gesture waves us on, answering our own wave...
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.

-Ranier Maria Rilke

Create and let go

Ah, New Year's Eve. I've given up on elaborate 24-point planning processes. I have notebook after notebook of fancy goals and aspirations, many undone.

So over the years, I've honed my New Year's planning down to a simple two-question process, which I'll complete later tonight: What do I want to create in 2006, and what do I want to let go of?

Sometimes it's the letting go of that is the most important, whether it's toxic people or processes or expectations.

What do you want to create in 2006? And what do you want to let go of?

Happy new year!

These would really come in handy...

I love letterpress printing.

And I can think of several uses for these.