hearts and bones

here's the deal.

nablopomo was a bust. it was an intense month. i will do better next time. but that's alright. real life's more important than blogging, methinks.

i just got back from a week in new york. i have miles and miles of photos, but no camera battery to be found. so that will have to wait.

the ocean, the ocean. the ocean happened.

so did other things. more to come.



by the way: i'm still doing the twin cities literary scavenger hunt. the mn center for book arts and wild rumpus book shop are this week's stops, and the prizes are good (some weeks have been disappointing, but these are worth it).

what a day!

"The Busy Road"

I am so used to it by now
that when the traffic falls silent,
I think a storm is coming.

Lydia Davis, Varieties of Disturbance

what are you gonna do with your free life?

insanely beautiful day. 70 degrees. wet hair drying in the sun.

dan wilson, free life. in the car. cruising northeast. boxing studio, moreno's barber shop, orange crush apartment.

glad to be here today.

window washing. artichoke/pickled beet/parmesan sandwich and buttermilk-squash soup on como ave. micawber's (they are not doing seasonal hiring, but they did sell me some robinson and some chang).

art attack at the northrup king building. tiny candles in brown paper bags. twinkle lights. ppl. music at night.

the end of another week.  it's supposed to be in the 60s this weekend.  maybe the last weekend of fall.  if it turns out that i am to remain in minneapolis through the winter, i resolve to investigate the following: snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, rock climbing, yoga.  yeah, you heard me.

high five

photo: christine buckton tillman (this piece is from the 2007 coe alumni show)

you, my friends, are looking at a gainfully employed gal.  in the loose, retail-y definition of the word.  i've secured a part-time job at a fairly ethical big box store to supplement my meager intern income.  the whole application process was kind of depressing, but it'll be good to have some extra change in my pocket and some retail experience under my belt.  right?  and i guess, technically, this takes care of number eight, though not, perhaps, in the way i originally envisioned.

now, back to shinier things, like my hot steamy coffee and homemade pumpkin bar with cream cheese frosting.  mmmmm.  

message to the universe

hello, you.

i'm presenting this officially in writing: sometime in the next ... soon ... i want to find myself living in proximity to the pacific.

california, oregon, washington, british columbia, baja, oaxaca, japan, australia, new zealand, tasmania, samoa, fiji, vanuatu, hawai'i.



i am putting it out there. so there it is. help me, universe. all ye citizens of the universe. does anyone know of a reasonably affordable way for a poor recent graduate to live, volunteer, study or work in any of these places? fellowships, scholarships, service programs, young worker exchanges?

there's wwoof, the peace corps, the state dpt, even jet. i'm looking into all of these, but would be interested in any advice others might have to offer.

love,
me

goin' ninety, i ain't scary / cause i got my virgin mary

saw cool hand luke for the first time last night. what a stud that paul newman was. mercy!



i've been watching and re-watching a lot of "classic" movies, the kind of movies guys my dad's age like to quote - cool hand luke, scarface, taxi driver, the good the bad and the ugly - mostly westerns and mob movies. i'm consistently amazed by how well they hold up - their grainy aesthetic, the atmospheric soundtracks ("plastic jesus"!), that classic hollywood accent, and the ungodly sexy men.

plus it's kind of fun to finally understand the origins of all those seemingly random dad quotes ("what we've got here is a failure to communicate." ah, okay.).

souped

we've been on kind of a soup kick around here lately, favoring creamy orange squash and carrot purees and spicy yellow curries. last week i made a spicy ginger-coconut-peanut hmong curry from lucia watson's savoring the seasons of the northern heartland.

before that we improvised an incredible hmong squash and chipotle puree from one of my uncle's recipes. i'm not sure what the squash was - we got it pre-chopped from a hmong vendor at the st. paul farmers' market, then stewed it with obscene amounts of butter and cream, a little clove and nutmeg, and a pinch of chipotle for that back-of-the-throat heat. mmm. over the weekend we grabbed a container of carrot ginger from the finnish bistro (formerly taste of scandinavia) over in st. anthony park. so, so yum, but maybe a little bit too buttery, so today i'm attempting a variation. carrot and ginger with cinnamon, onion and cream.

the verdict: the adapted soup, which was basically just sauteed carrots, onions, and ginger cooked with chicken broth and cinnamon, then pureed and creamified, had good flavor - just the right amount of cinnamon and ginger, with sweet fresh carrots. it was a little too watery, though. my recipe called for eight cups of broth, and even though i took out about two cups before pureeing, it still had more liquid than i like. still, nice flavor.

cute, no? i want to start doing this, or maybe i just want to go to new zealand.

november one

yikes. probably don't want to start off a month of daily postings by forgetting to post.



there was nothing explicitly or dramatically wrong with today, but it was one of those days it's good to have over. chaotic shopping, sickness, lost objects.

i think it's time for some kettlecorn and cool hand luke. maybe not such a bad day after all.

you know what i hadn't listened to in about a million years but am currently over the moon about?

mason jennings.

this was the soundtrack to my high school years, much as u2 was to middle school (yeah, i know) and the beatles have been for ever and ever amen. do you know what i'm talking about?


photo credit: sorry, wish i knew

mason jennings. mason jennings.

it's maybe kinda sorta not cool to like mason jennings, now that he's living in california and signed to jack johnson's label. but you know what? i like jack johnson. i never used to, it made me feel sheepish and generic, but now that i am a driving kind of gal, i like to have something soft and rhythmic and friendly smiling at me through the car speakers while i stop and go down lowry every day. it makes me feel calm and okay. and there ain't nothing wrong with that.

but back to mason jennings. i wore through mason jennings when i was in high school, and listening to it now makes my heart go all crinkly. happy and sad and back again. the way things feel when you're sixteen. do things ever feel like that again? i think it's good and bad that they don't.

he was folksy and funny and sometimes a little mean but mostly sweet.  and not that many people knew about him, at least not outside the twin cities.  he belonged to us.  

i liked a few tracks off century spring and birds flying away. "sorry signs on cash machines." "century spring." "adrian." "ballad for my one true love." and then for years...nothing. i'd listen to "big sur" or "1997" when they came on my ipod shuffle, but that was about it.  it seemed like he was less obscure, less local, and, by extension, less cool.  good for his career, i guess, but sad for my insular little list of favorite singer-songwriters, populated by the likes of danny schmidt, brady earnhart, and richard buckner.  but you know what?  i guess i have room to share.  my ears can have these boys and so can the rest of the world.

(almost) 80 days

i'm a few weeks late in posting this. no matter - it's been too fun not to mention, late or not. from october 10th-december 26th, the twin cities literary community is going all out with a city-wide literary scavenger hunt: "around the literary twin cities in (almost) eighty days." clunky title, fun concept.



the idea was started by staffers at one of the cities' best (local independent non-profit literary) publishers, coffee house press, when they realized that 2009 is not only chp's 25th year in business, but graywolf's 35th, milkweed's 30th, and the loft's 35th. it's pretty incredible that a city the size of minneapolis can support three thriving, premier independent publishers, all of whom get along with one another.

here's the idea: each week a literary trivia question is revealed in the star tribune, and after figuring out the answer scavengers must take their "passports" (available at all destinations and downloadable online) to one or more of that week's featured literary destinations (book stores, publishers, museums, etc.) for a stamp and a prize. at the end of the 78 day hunt, scavengers can send their passports to the loft: the person with the most stamps wins a grand prize (every title published in 2009 by chp, graywolf and milkweed - that's over fifty brand new books - plus a loft membership and season tickets to talking volumes), but anyone who sends in a passport is eligible for one of three consolation prizes. pretty great deal.

the hunt kicked off earlier in the month at the twin cities book festival. this year was the first time i'd gone, and i'm already excited for next year. what a fun, hectic, exciting gathering of book people. so far i've stamped up my passport at each of the three publishers, the loft, the coffman union bookstore, uncle edgar's and uncle hugo's, the mia store, and barnes & noble. not only have i been discovering tons of new places all over the cities, but i've been racking up a lot of great loot. we're talking five new books (like this and that), modern art postcards, piping hot coffee, and a couple of pretty sexy tote bags. who knows what's to come? i'm especially excited for the rumpus, common good books, and the red balloon book shop.

so. there's still plenty of time to get in on the action. if you're in the twin cities and into books, adventuring, and free booty, that is.

nablopomo?

alright folks. i've been seriously neglecting this blog lately. a combination of not that much to tell and not having my camera in working order (who wants photo-less posts?). and it's not like that's some morally reprehensible state of being - some might even argue that cutting down on the blogging is a good thing. who says i have to share little pieces of my life out there for the interwebs? nobody, that's who.

but...i miss it. maybe just a little. but i think that blogging more could be positive for me right now. it focuses my attention, inspires me to look at the world around me a little more closely, a little more inquisitively. i want to live a life of curiosity and beauty and wonder, and that doesn't have to mean jetting off to foreign cities every two months (as is my wont). so i'm giving it a try.

to give me a little boost right off the bat, i'm joining nablopomo for the month of november. not sure that i'm actually going to join officially (is there a reason for joining?), but the plan is to post something every day in november. not promising anything cosmic or extended, but just a little bit, regularly. here we go.

#21

hmm...i've been ignoring the list lately, but here's a check from way back in august: