Saturday, December 30, 2006

by and by they come

item #1: and we're back in business. virginia was overwhelmingly the same as it has always been. almost as if i can go there and relive any experience of the past twenty five years. the air was just as sweet, the dialect was the way i remembered, the general attitude was startling....

item #2: so saddam hussein was executed. this is just very strange - he's been such a basic part of our existence since 1992 - almost as odd as pluto not being considered a planet anymore. it happened so quickly, considering. before things were even over, if they ever will be.

item #2a: when i was in hungary, i spoke with a north american woman that said she was continually surprised to find that she was living behind the iron curtain. her entire youth and early adulthood had been spent with eastern european countries being forbidden during the cold war, and then - twenty years later - there she is, making a living in one of those closed countries. i wonder if it'll be that way with iraq.

item #3: the sun is out today + it's a three day weekend + i'm going to see pink martini with macy tonight = good.

item #4: i miss the swing in front of our house. we'd sit and sit and sit in that thing, to the point of making ourselves sick from dizziness and conversation. a few weeks ago, there was an intense wind storm, and a large branch from the tree came loose and fell vertically - landed right in the spot where we'd swing. almost as if God took a 12-foot long wooden dagger and threw it on down - close call....

item #5: i don't really know what to say about 2006. in general, it was a hard year - thank goodness we emerged from it whole and complete. i think we're on the upswing, and have been for a while now. it was a long time coming. thank you thank you thank you for promises fulfilled.

item #6: in 2007 i'd like to start russian classes again, go to italy/slovenia, quit caffeine, be less high-strung, finish anna karenina (that's 5 years in the making), not be as envious, listen more, write more letters, give more presents, pray more often, take more photographs, be more patient, eat sushi off of a conveyor belt, see crater lake, ride a train, learn how to identify clouds better, spend more time with Peter, write more often, and wear a hat with confidence.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

and here we go

it's been too long - i don't even know what to say about that, except i unfortunately haven't been in a correct blogging state the past month and a half. not sure what to attribute this to - maybe the ever increasing anxiety i feel inside (no more caffeine for me), maybe because we have windows from the 1920's in our office which makes it too cold to type, maybe because i haven't allowed myself to see things through that baratta perspective (like the pigeons that took off over burnside yesterday in a way that could only be described as oriental - all of them were black save for one that was white - and that was all it took to set me off. i felt sorry for the white one because it wasn't the same. but i also felt proud of the white one because maybe it didn't care that it wasn't the same).
even now, i feel like i'm just writing for the sake of writing - so i don't feel guilty that the last entry was on november third.
we leave for virginia in an hour and a half. i have a daydream of putting on my best dress and throwing myself into the red clay so i would be stained forever. maybe i already am.
peter & i have been tearing up I-5 between portland & seattle recently. i was headed back from tacoma today and radiohead was on and i passed that statue garden thing (truckers know what i'm talking about) near winlock. it was raining and felt like a scene from a 90's angst film.