it's the birthday of sister gertrude stein's tender, tender buttons

on the mountains of which my poems often speak.  including the one on this blog.

i'm about to read it.

i wrote this weird little piece, about christmas of all awful subjects for a poem, and was inspired by sister stein.

hope it's something.

if not, it's something.

one of the most important works.

setting off 2013                        from merry christmas chapter 22

was it starry? stilly? were clouds smoky, low, or thick were we breathing burdened air particulates from wood smoke & car exhaust? was a stave of psalmody bouncing between the walls of our mountains, here on the wasatch front, here in our valley of valleys? was our basin filled with a hymn from some solo from some lit bungalow near the lake? were the feet of the soloist beautiful? was it christmas day or right before? were we anticipating or regretting? were we disappointed yet? were we recalling pleasant havens—and glades eternally vernal—fruit & mead?

i recall that it was not altogether unpleasant to be so cold.  deer foraging in grassy starry patches down the meadow of locust lane & children donned velvets & fowls & beasts laid upon the table for us, burnished, roasted            (((flowers were continuing on the mountain and low the valley without our attentions)))                         & the families & bigger families still in the concentric way of families in private beauty places & so on & so on & we thought some one would break us & so on & we searched for a break we never found & so it was as it were                         and all

GITP six month anniversary giveaway

julie and i want you to join us in becoming unblocked. . . .

to celebrate six months of being in a tight place and trying to love it, trying to create more space in our lives, GITP is giving away a copy of julia cameron's the artist's way to a reader who leaves a comment in the comments section of this post.  we will randomly select a winner and post the winner's name on july first, the day of our six month anniversary.

Julie:  Lara, I'm on Week Two of The Artist's Way and I want to corner everyone in the playground about it.  I can't stop thinking about it, especially because the reason why I'm doing it is because the friend I know who did it changed her life in a radical way after eight weeks of "morning pages."  And I need something on the same level and scale of rad to happen to me.  So this is my way of willing it to happen and/or figuring out what it is I really should be doing to enact the kind of change I need.

Does this sound too "infomercially" already?

The summer solstice is tomorrow, too.  So I'm thinking of writing a very short story for the shortest night of the year. I also need to start assessing the last six months.  Re: the video, Lara: Like morning pages, this is annoying (the graphics, particularly) in a lot of ways, but also enlightening in a lot of ways in light of tightness. Gemini New Moon is good!



lara:


i'm half-way through week 2 of morning pages.   i've been wanting to try the artist's way for over five years, but never felt i had the wherewithal to do any kind of program.  julie inspired me to try it though, and it feels like a great companion to daily blog writing.

summer is always a tight place for me, so i'm hoping julia cameron will help me through it.  

also hoping that someone out there will be inspired to join me and julie on our path to becoming "unblocked creatives."

(and that we don't sound like an infomercial, julie!)

so far i'm loving what cameron has to say about "shadow artists" (those who support other artists in doing their work when they really wish they were doing their own work), "synchronicity" (the coincidences that happen when you set intentions), and her insight that "blocked creatives" fantasize about the work they will do rather than actually doing it.  that one has been especially true for me over the years.

so, leave a comment.  and if you've already done this program, let us know what it was like for you.  if you're blocked or unblocked, we want to know more!

wrapping it up in queen city

hiking at carkeek park

today is our last day in queen city.  what a glorious place.  i forget how beautiful it is in between visits.  we started off our last day at golden beetle for brunch with dear friends alice and jim.  ate spiced donuts with cardomom sauce, eggs mornay with a watercress salad, fava bean falafal with cucumbers and lemon, potatoes fried in beef fat, a greek yogurt fruit salad, a spring onion/asparagus scramble, a burger topped with an egg, and a house-made charmoula soda.

pike place market.  all together!  eva's holding cheddar cheese ice cream from molly moon.

 we took the kids to church, and i dropped ingrid on capital hill to visit a friend from her study abroad year in germany.

honk fest.  kite hill.  i thnk that's leslie dalaba.

 after church, we passed cafe racer and the sidewalk was completely covered in flowers.  christian and greg are attending a memorial there right now.

a small slice of the view you can see from kite hill at gasworks park.

marni cooked a delicious sunday dinner of eggplant stuffed with spicy tomato sauce and goat cheese.  i'm making that when we get home.

tights abounded at honk fest west.

don't know what this band was called, but they were all about cave-style.

 we walked to matthew's beach and saw lots of mother and baby duck groupings.  lots of spring flowers and puddles.  the sunlight was dappled, but it was a bit chilly.

christian's annual pole climb.

 i did laundry and started to get a sick feeling due to all the packing and driving ahead of me.  marni took the girls to the lake for a ladies swimming party/spring rite.  it's freezing!  i stayed behind with moses to finish laundry/pack/chill. 

shoe poetry in ballard.  we thought it was wordsworth.

a rad bike from dutch bike.

 marni and greg, mimi and thomas, as always, are such kind, fun hosts.

oyster bar with m & g.  g:  "are you gonna blog this?"

 & our kids were lucky to spend their early years with their cousins, raised litter style.

first plate of oysters.  my fave, the olympia, is next to the lemon. next to the mignonette is a little dish of grated horseradish root to mix in with the sauce before spooning it on to the oysters.

prawn crudo with roe.  the shells were fried and deliciously edible--like a prawn potato chip, if you will.

m & g's car was towed.  waiting for ride/posing for our next album cover. m & g=not amused, obviously.  stupid cops taking payola from towing company

love bomb go go from portland.  all band members had silver spray-painted boots.

happy 23rd anniversary picture.

this has been a spring of bookends--a week in nyc where i was living when i was eva's age, pregnant with her, then a week here in rain city, performing again where i first performed and first began to unravel something i'm still unraveling about why i'm here, what i'm doing, etc.  and then having all the kids together again for the first time in years is strange--adults and little dudes, both.  i guess it seems like certain phases are ending.  it feels good as long as i don't let it get poignant.

if that makes sense.

tomorrow portends the beginning of something new.

a blue sky in cloud city

we were married 23 years ago today. been making music together for even longer than that.

today was one of the most perfect days ever.

i woke up and made a stop at what i think is the best coffee house in wedgewood with marni, the van gogh coffee house (reviews and comparisons to come), then we headed to green lake for a walk around the perimeter where we saw a mother duck with ducklings, a large heron, and people doing various crazy looking gaits, warm-ups, etc.  and fishing on the dock.  christian met us when we were a little more than half way around the lake and walked with us.

then we came home and tidied up, ate breakfast, and took the kids to the lake city value village, our favorite family shopping/thrifting spot.  and we had a 30% off coupon.  so score.  eva got an amazing red dress, lula a beautiful red coat, cecily pink jeans, moses a ninja jacket & striped sweater, and christian a blazer.  i got a horrible nike hoodie, but it was so warm and comfortable and wicking that i caved on my no clothing with logos policy and bought it.  ingrid was off hiking, and i couldn't find anything that was right for her.  we missed her.

next came the honk fest at gasworks park.  this is SERIOUSLY one of my favorite parks in the world.  when you're on top of kite hill, you have a 360 degree view of seattle, especially on a day like today, blue with high white clouds.  there were three "venues" in the park and a couple of food trucks.  some crazy sh** was going down.  pictures coming.  greg played these seussian horns with an avant brass band created by a sculptor right at the top of kite hill.  we also saw love bomb go go from portland & christian climbed to the top of the poles on the playground, as is his yearly tradition. this is the kind of day that sheds light on one of seattle's nicknames,  "emerald city". when you stand atop the highest point of gasworks park, kite hill, you see so many glints and facets:  water, tall glass buildings, and green green green in all its myriad shades.  the gem-like qualities of the city are in full view.  not to mention the rather stunning gasworks themselves, sail boats, houseboats, canoes, the space needle, bridges, and the surrounding mountains.

after gasworks, eva took the children home while christian, marni, greg and i went to ballard to eat at the walrus and the carpenter oyster bar.  we put our name in at 4.30 and they had a table for us at 5.10.  in the intervening minutes, we watched a bike race on the cordoned off block near the restaurant and got annoyed at lycra.  (no reservations at walrus and carpenter).  the chef is a james beard chef-of-the-year nominee and the restaurant was named "top ten new restaurants" in the u.s. in 2011.  my foodie friends recommended it.  we had some fantastic oysters, and my favorite little plate was spring radishes with butter.  house-made cornichons were delish, roasted salted dates for dessert and salted sipping caramel with cracked black pepper.  there's more.  prawn crudo with roe, a cabbage and sun choke salad, a cheese plate with walnuts and celery, a citrusy mocktail, olives and housemade bread and butter.  oh, yeah, and fried oysters with cilantro aioli.  oh yeah, a maple bread pudding.  so a lot of good flavors and fresh tastes. 

i fell in love with the tiny olympia oyster.  it's about the size of a quarter, and it takes five years to grow to that diameter.  it's really flavorful for such a small little guy and tastes like the puget sound.  i know it's cliché, but i had a proustian moment where an entire decade flooded over me when i ate that perfect little oyster.

did i mention that today is my 23RD WEDDING ANNIVERSARY?  yep.  it's crazy. 

THEN we went back to our car, but no car was to be found.  ours and 3 other cars had been towed for parking too close to a driveway that was not obviously a drive way or marked as a non-parking spot in any other way.  so that was the one mar on a beautiful day.  eva picked us up and took us way up to 122nd and aurora to pick up the towed car.

christian and greg headed off so greg could play with seuss brass band again at a club somewhere.  girls peeled off for some girl t.v., some chocolate, and some hanging out time.

what a great day.

a more romantic couples anniversary will come when we return to utah, and a tribute to the amazing and absolutely unique person i've spent the last quarter of a centurey with, but  for now, today was just a perfect seattle day.

february winner & happy anniversary GITP & best news i've had in a while

first item of business:  random winner from the exoskeleton lottery ball!  my darling baby, who's birthday is tomorrow, pulled this name from the spinning lottery cage:

KRISTINE!!!!

congrats, girl.  we know you will make these beautiful dove-grey lace tights even more rad (pictures of you rocking them are always welcome).  message me your address, etc. and they'll be arriving soon.

thanks for reading, y'all.  it feels good to know you're out there, and julie and i adore writing for you.

millions and x's and o's, babies.

second item of business:  my oldest daughter is graduating from college in may and guess who the commencement speaker is?  (because i haven't bragged about this enough.)

mmmm hmm.  that's right.  the freaking president of the u.s.a.  

president barak obama.

eva wants me to be sure to mention that columbia has asked him, and has been turned down, five years in a row.  apparently that's what she's happiest about (maybe eva can get us the link to the article about this?).  that he decided to speak at barnard, a women's college (i believe his sister graduated from barnard).

which seems a pointed antidote to the slut-shaming, anti-woman, d-bag of the week, rush limbaugh, n'est-ce pas?

so.  yeah. that's where i'll be on may 14th. 

so excited it's ridiculous.

what a GREAT day.  (i'll blog in more detail later, in case anyone cares.

legwear:  charcoal footless tights (new, on clearance)

inspiration:  the most radical barak obama

looking forward:  dinner out with friends

Hard Core Blogging (When the Flesh is Weak)--And Two Pairs of Tights

This relentless obligation to check in here everyday and post something ANYTHING has been good for me. Tonight I'm doing it while sick with a migraine which a medicinal latte did not vanquish, Lara gave me the phrase "hard core blogging," and as we approach our TWO-MONTH anniversary tomorrow (have you entered our tights' giveaway?), I have to say how much she inspires me and how everyday I try and be as awesome as she is.

 Last night, I attended the member's opening of the New Museum's Triennial with fellow librarian, M. There was a deejay and free glowing twizzlers. We climbed the seven flights of the museum, and looked in the galleries and the people in them. I remembered suddenly why I live here.  I don't get out enough.

 When we started this blog, we had no ideas for it other than we were going to somehow write ourselves out of the tight places we were feeling we were in. I'm still in that place, but now I have a better idea of what can be possible in it.

  

Photos #1--Taken last night at the museum opening.  The girl had braids, too.  I tried and failed to photograph a pair of gray tights with a narrow red stripe up the back.

Photo #2--M with a twizzler.

Photo #3--Tights at OWS Occupy Town Square last Sunday.  WHERE did she get these??

 P.S. Davy Jones! I saw you in reruns only (in college--VCRless--I got up at 6 am to watch you), but I always loved you and your band! RIP.