By the end of the day, I don’t recognize myself. I feel infected, some viral version of myself that is spreading now slowly in the crawling last seconds of daylight. I don’t recognize myself and I find myself giving in, the way the sun must feel when night is pulling down on it like gravity.…
Category: What’s Called Home
In which I discuss places around this place we call home, in various stages of undress.
Making Snickerdoodles
by
We volunteered to make snacks for our friend’s free concert and I enlisted the very enthusiastic help of three eager assistants. I love to bake– pretty much in inverse proportion to how much I do not like cooking. I think it has something to do with the outcome. I see food on the table as…
My American Dream…
by
… has nothing to do with $$$, and never has, although travel always requires work, which requires money in exchange for goods and services. … spent 3 years in London, and very much likes the Idea of British. … is sometimes melancholy, and loves thick lyrics that make me want to sing along. … eats…
Dinner’s Ready!
by
I had a revelation whilst reading a recipe suggestion from my friend Jeannie today. Midwestern recipes seem to always involve spraying a pan with Pam and sprinkling Durkee Fried Onions. We’ve been revamping our eating as you might guess to make things a bit more family friendly. Suggestions for dinners have been very “bake and…
Taking Care of Scraped Knees
by
Or, The Case of My Dad and Neosporin I’d like to say, for the record, that I always thought it was weird that Neosporin had the word “spore” in the middle of it. That might have been, partly, why I always liked it. I also know that I liked it because my Dad was totally…
Garrison Keillor’s Voice
by
“You can’t imagine how much a dead man weighs.” – What the grandfather of Gabriel Garcia Marquez often told him. Quoted from “A Writer’s Almanac”, March 6, 2009. I’ve gotten quite taken with the sound of Garrison Keillor’s voice on my Honda Fit speakers. His Lake Wobegone days are too sentimental for me most of…
It’s No Secret…
by
… that Colin and I are NOT YET with children. I mean, you can look everywhere around our house for kids and all you will find is one very strange cat who will not, for any reason, allow you to pick her up. The curious thing about being married in the suburbs in Connecticut and…
Spring, in Wings
by
By this time of year in London, I’d be stir crazy and ready for the end of winter’s short grey days. One big difference between Connecticut and London, in winter most especially, is LATITUDE. Stratford is on the 41 degree parallel and London is at 51 degrees. In terms of quantity of sunlight, that makes…
Planning Oscar
by
Well, it is that time of year again. The Nominations are out and I have, as of this moment, 23 days to get two big things done. 1. Come up with a quirky theme/invite for the annual Oscar party. 2. See about 9,000 films in an effort to, this year, FINALLY, win my own ballot…
A Midwestern Crossing
by
Photographer David Ottenstein Stops Time in Iowa The last thing I expected to see when I went to a gallery meetup at the Ridgefield Guild of Artists on Saturday was HOME. The Radius 2008 Exhibition featured the best of their emerging artists from the last 10 years, and one of those was photographer David Ottenstein,…
Why We Gave Up
by
So Colin and I were going to do The Master Cleanse. Which is a great way to lose weight, but not the reason why one should do it. It’s a cleanse, after all, designed for clearing out toxins and getting you healthy. Day one was yesterday and as mentioned in yesterday’s post “Hungryland”, I spent…
Our First Christmas
by
Of course it isn’t. But it is, really. Because Colin and I are spending Christmas, each of us–for the first time in over 18 years– at home. Here’s our first Christmas tree together. We got it pre-cut this year from a great little family-owned, fifth generation nursery called Q-Gardens. Next year we’ll probably cut one…
Home, Here and There
by
Whenever I stop myself from trying too hard and whenever I look and see what it is I am searching for, it Is almost certainly the long, wide flat spaces of home, the first. It is easy enough to reason away life in the mid-hinterlands. How can I ever get the culture or the speed…
Steeling Myself
by
The good news is that I have completed a semester’s worth of teaching. The bad news is that I must somehow complete a semester’s worth of grading, if I can, in four and half days. That includes those grades that will, inevitably, be less than a ‘C,’ thus requiring these students I have come to…
My Amazing Husband: The Hole in the House
by
Happy Thanksgiving. Colin and I are away for a few days (guard cat Betty is home and in charge!), but I wanted to make sure I said my Thanks here for Colin, who is, by all accounts, amazing. I won’t bore you with a laundry list, I’ll just provide one or two examples, in images.…
