the pressure

i have to have five thousand-word articles written by tuesday.

this explains why you won't be hearing from me so much.

but i'll do my best.

a pig's eye view of literature

click here to hear (and see!) sophie's impressive recitation (in a voice that sounds suspiciously like mine) of dorothy parker's poetic commentary on byron, shelley, and keats.

in case you would like to follow along, i've provided the words:



"Byron and Shelley and Keats
Were a trio of Lyrical treats.
The forehead of Shelley was cluttered with curls,
And Keats never was a descendant of earls,
And Byron walked out with a number of girls,
But it didn't impair the poetical feats
Of Byron and Shelley,
Of Byron and Shelley,
Of Byron and Shelley and Keats."




thanks to blabberize for the power and to photojojo for the direction.

"time is a funhouse mirror on our lives." ~sean jones

i took this picture on the bus with adam's sixth grade class. we were on our way home from a field trip in which we spent the day on a ship sailing all around the bay. his friend, whose name i've forgotten, leaned over the seat to be in the picture. the kids were all serene from spending all day at sea, in the sun. at the helm and learning knots.



i love this picture of our cat sera, who died last year. the distortion such that she seems to fit into the fishbowl except for that little spotlight of tail.







this is my grandmother lucille and i on waikiki beach in 1969. i especially love her swimcap, and the sandpail between us. i think she had her straps down because she was trying to even out her tan. she told me years later the little ways that my stepmother was mean to her when she came from the mainland for this visit. rewashing any dishes she'd washed, as if she hadn't done a good enough job, throwing any towels she'd even just dried her hands on into the dirty clothes hamper. my stepmother, she was a wicked one.

frozen in time

i found this photo of sophie today, in a box of pictures that have been in the broom closet since we moved here, going on four years ago. i don't think it was as interesting of a picture back then as i find it today, maybe because it was too recent, and i had no distance from that time. it was a frozen moment of the way things were all the time. but to have unearthed it a few years later, it has tremendous ripples all around it. just seeing it transported me back to that time, and made me miss it, and to realize that time is indeed moving at such a pace, though in the present i never feel it. somehow it reminded me that i will be an old woman, and that it will probably take me by surprise. i'll probably not even realize it until i see myself in a photograph, maybe even a blurry one.
but i love this picture of sophie. i have never been the kind of mother who wanted her children to stay babies so she could have them to baby. i've always looked forward to them growing up and becoming independent individuals. but this picture, and many of the others that were also in this box, made me nostalgic for my children's childhoods, though life was much more difficult back then when there was no time, or money, or privacy, or selfishness allowed. i am much more selfish now because i have the luxury of being so. sometimes when i think back to those days, all i can remember are the things i think i failed at. but then i see a picture like this one and i think, well, it must have been alright most of the time.

"japanese girl-power rock movie"

it is as uplifting and catchy as the Blue Hearts' song that inspired its title. i felt so good after watching this movie night before last that i just finished watching it again. it is just as brilliant and resonant the second time, a rare quality for me, for whom life is just a little too short to watch most movies more than once.


if you want a review, i really like this one.

"in poetry what matters is neither what is said, nor the way in which it is said, nor the meaning, nor the music. something else matters..."

"...and it cannot be analyzed." ~jean cocteau










1. a backward glance, 2. last sale, 3. Case, 4. All I See

"sniffing the world," starring a few of our favorites noses