Summer continues warm and sunny, with big blue skies. The pool continues oddly cold; it still hasn’t broken 80F. This is hugely unusual; it’s like the pool is a full month behind normal, and even though it’s been in the 90s and 100s in the days and the 60s and 70s at night, the water hasn’t caught up.
There is something weatherwise about this summer that is simply inexplicable; we all feel it.
Whatever’s going on, it’s incredibly pleasant. To have the air be 100 and the pool be 78 is a treat. The water is a shock of cold at first, then so refreshing. I’ve never actually felt it like this, because, well, it’s never been like this.
James came over today and rigged a come-along off of the two mesquite trees along the south fence, and we winched the Barbie Coach another twelve feet into the yard.
When I brought the Coach in, the fence was new, the B40 had just been reclaimed from a weedy alleyway, it was just a big dirt space,and it was hard to know where/how it would fit. I really like it scooted forward; he moved it all of the way to the first mesquite. It’s very sociable now, and feels like a real part of the environment.
I plan to paint it this fall, so this will give me a better chance to study it.
Orangelina watched the whole thing intently. I was going to Photoshop the bird poop off of her back, but I figured, hey. If she doesn’t care, I don’t either.
Both she and Alexander love the holes in the block wall that were left when James and I sawed the gap out of it. I meant to finish the edges, but the lizards were like, “Noooooo!!” and what could I do?
Simon was also on the scene, and his beauty and grace inspired us to great heights of engineering.
I love this kind of project. And this is a rather nice soundtrack.
Photos taken from Irina Werning’s web site (her work is astonishing, and her photos are the ones with captions below) and a string of shots that get passed around the Internets, photographer(s) unknown to me.
Buttercups, daisies and most anything They wither and fade after blossom in spring
Time conquers innocence, pride takes a fall in knowledge lies wisdom, that’s all
Everything changes, weather blows hot or cold Through alchemy iron turns gold Quicksilver baby, so hard to pin down
As destiny wills it, so seasons will change Just like you
I’ve had a swim, done my shipping, folded my laundry, told at least one lizard I loved them, admired at least one cardinal baby, petted two cats, posted on the Book Blog, talked to my King, and I have time for a photo session (I’ve got two difficult and exciting pieces on the studio table) a nap, a draft of our Press Kit, another swim, and a spin at Electric Larryland. My kind of day.
This is one of the tailoring shots I put up this morning, showing how switching to smaller beads, taking darts, and decreasing Wings all make for a smaller bangle.
Monday… second only to Sunday at the bottom of the Days I Love ranking. Back to school, back to work- even though I manage to avoid having to go to either anymore, so many other people do that the whole air vibrates with it. Drivers are grumpy, rightly so, and I can feel them from Broadway. And as I found out to my horror, having children does sort of mean having to go back to school. Bill’s doing all of the heavy lifting now, as planned, but even so the academic schedules and academic performance of others command me from afar; I am responsible at whatever level. Of course I am. I care.
I dream about slipping through a hole in the floor and landing in another world, one in which I have no name, no possessions, and can live on air. Because I really don’t want to go to the brightly lit air conditioned store in the gas-burning car and buy food.
I’d be happy as hell to pick up a woven basket and walk down a cobbled street filled with civilised people also walking about and beautiful old buildings and houses and stop at an open-air market and have an espresso, and pet a dog, and buy fresh, real food from the people who grew it or made it.
I always feel this way at this point in the year… summer is so glorious that it opens all of the ports in my mind and suddenly I remember that I badly want to go to Paris, or Rome, or Barcelona, or London, or Madrid, or Manhattan. It’s funny how it just hits me, like a rock falling out of the sky.
I’m awfully glad I have plans to do so fairly soon. England, Bryan Ferry and Spain, I am pointed at you. Make ready.
The audio on the clip above is atrocious, I know, but will you just look at the people backing him? Luther Vandross, for one, and a young David Sanborn on the sax. Goddamn 1974! I was so young, I couldn’t go see ANY of it! I think I was ten when this show aired, when Roxy was rocking, when Zeppelin was huge. Sigh. I caught up later, but at this time… I was just catching edges of it, subscribing to Creem Magazine, ordering posters through the mail.
The birds and I had a meeting in the yard this weekend about the nectar feeders. I came prepared, and I showed them a photo of Wilford Brimley, and we talked about diahbeetus, and the danger of horking down sugar water all day long.
They seemed attentive but I could tell halfway through my presentation that we all look like Wilfred Brimley to them and the point about “you don’t want this to happen to YOU” was lost.
And another perfect day of solitude in the glittering desert opens with warm sun, chittering finches, wheeling raptors, quail families.
On Sundays, Simon and I like to do the NYT crossword together, drink a lot of really good coffee, and watch the birds. He sits by the pool while I swim, but does not come in. I thank my lucky stars that no one is in charge of me, making me visit relatives (this might be why I hate sitting on couches, the second I sit on one I feel a valve open and my life starts draining out of it) or go to church.
There is no dinner to cook, nowhere I have to be. But still, just thinking of Sundays can piss me off, which is absurd, seeing as whatever dudgeon I have about all of that stolen time is fairly dusty- I’ve been free for over 30 years.
Apparently, it’s a permanent grudge. What a waste of energy.
No one has ever made Miss Fish visit anyone, or listen to bizarre, unpleasant, myth-based threats of fire and brimstone, of terrible End Times ™ and a jealous, petulant Creator who tortured nice people just to see if they went bad and pretended that you might have to kill your child to prove your love. Meh.
But of course I’m also still disgusted with the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, Jr. High, high school, college, corporate life, politics, religion, and just about every other organized societal structure. You see why I have to live alone, with lizards?
Just the slightest whiff of bullshit, and I’m done. Which doesn’t leave much, and frequently leaves me out as well.
It’s rude to go all paparazzi on someone’s little baby, so this is really the best I can do. But look! CARDINAL BABY!
Saturday is my favorite day, like bourbon almond brittle is my favorite ice cream. I am speechless at the beauty of everything outside right now. I should be walking in the mountains, but I love being here at the Ranch so much that I rarely leave.
One of my summer projects is to work on the excellent Barbie Coach, a 1956 Traveleze with two single bunks. I’d like to get the little kitchen and bathroom working; they each have pretty little cast iron pink sinks, and there is a full shower as well. Yesterday afternoon, I was trying to get model shots of my new bangle, and was mostly unsuccessful in terms of featuring the beadwork, but I did get a nice Girl and Her Travel-Eze portrait.
I woke up in a kind of a funk this morning, which might possibly have had something to do with drinking a half of a liter of Chianti last night at Caruso’s. But it was so delicious! And I was with Susan, and we ate huge gorgeous plates of Southern Italian food and salad, and the birds were chittering in the cyprus trees, and the patio filled up around us as we dined. It was very festive and I would definitely do it all over again, especially the half liter of Chianti.
I medicated my case of existential angst with a swim and an hour with the birds (although I could have tried Tylenol as well, as I learned listening to Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me a few weeks ago that it seems to alleviate that condition).
And I listened to a little music.
IMAGINE MY SURPRISE when the Baronet and Mrs. B. showed up to the feeder this morning with a child. I about fell over. I’ve been puzzling over why the heck they haven’t been on a nest, when in fact the two weeks I was gone must have been a time of sitting and hatching. Hopefully there is another chick or two to meet.
Their baby was adorable, with a little crest and a black beak, doing that shivery cheep-cheep thing they do when they ask for food.
As if that weren’t enough, IMAGINE MY DELIGHT when I saw Alexander sitting on a brick. It’s been almost a week since I saw him last, and I was getting philosophical about him. He seemed to sense my thrill at the sight of him, and he turned his head this way and that, showing me his goldy today-colours and dark black and purple neck stripe.
I woke up a bit late this morning, as I went back to bed after feeding the cats. I like to see what happens in morning dreams, but only once in a while. (Want a soundtrack to this post? This fits.)
Life is happening, I don’t want to sleep through it.
Around 6:30 a.m., Bill texted me a photo of himself in some sort of medieval re-enactment (very kingly, I like it) and then Miss Fish nudged me up to fill the bird feeder.
(Paint filter applied to protect the innocent)
The Fishstick dislikes it when the feeder runs dry, because she watches the spectacle like TV. Luckily she rarely tries to catch anybody (except nocturnal field-mice, she would never pass that up).
The birds mostly ignore the cats. You can’t really see the Uncle Albert Towhee in the lower right of the photo below, but I’ll admire him or her for you. They have the tiniest little heads, but also, black is very slimming and their faces are black. I might just believe that they have tiny heads, just like I thought that their name was Albert.
Allison told me that they are Abert’s Towhees, and I did not forget it. But I still call them all Uncle Albert, the name tinged with faint sadness for its inaccuracy but mitigated by the pleasure of knowing that I know the actual truth as well.
When I was at Carlisle’s this week, sitting in her pretty front room with spider plants and rugs and books and pictures of animals, waiting for my monthly massage (you should do this too, have a massage, I mean, the waiting isn’t really a factor in my recommendation, I was just behind one of those tedious people who won’t shut up and leave when their time is over) I put in my headphones and took out the book I’d brought along to read (Strunk & White’s Elements of Style, Third Edition) and then this poem by Hugh Prather fell out.
It’s one of my favorites, and I kind of read his little book Notes To Myself until it fell apart, so now I can carry individual pages around. They aren’t numbered, anyway; the book seems randomly arranged, so any random page is right, wherever it lands.
I only amend this poem for myself to add the responsibility to try to say how this feels, not just to do it. It’s all I ask of myself in return for a beautiful, rich life. Just to tell the truth about how it feels.
Sometimes I succeed, mostly I fail. I don’t mind about THAT. That’s just what writing is like.
The past few days, though, my head has been swirling, and some parts of the swirl shout out to be written down, like my sudden refusal to accept (and this coming directly, like a slap, after watching Bryan Ferry’s gorgeously produced video short about making the Gatsby music) the fact that I don’t have jack shit prepared as a package release for my sudden and certain vanishment from Terra.
I can and should do better.
I don’t want a sloppy exit. I’ve decided that my Love Letters project, which is the longest-brewing project of my entire life so far (and by that definition ought to the best result) should be exactly that, my celebration of everything I loved best on Terra. My co-author Doriot and I will be together for almost a month in Europe this summer, and although my official agenda is to write the text for CGB Volume II (from Barcelona no less!) I hope to also rough out a living farewell. I’ve hoped this for two years now, but it hasn’t been time.
After making CGB, though, I have a lot of ideas about this; I see no reason why a memory palace shouldn’t be alive, like a garden, and magically morph into a goodbye package at that moment of abandonment, folding outward from itself like one of our Fortunetellers, and spitting out, like seeds, a series of things.
This part of my life, it has simply got to be classed as high season.
I mean, every second of it should have been, I see that now.
But if I were an apartment, it would be now that my rent would be through the roof.
