nine words

ideas are one thing and what happens is another.
-john cage

may I recommend

a couple of packs of vinyl helvetica stickers, a little creative thinking and a few hours around town. best money you'll ever spend. promise.

saturday night

and my feet are cold. but there's a fire burning in the fireplace, first one of the season. I don't know when it happened but the record player blew a speaker. stevie wonder now sings at me through a tiny fuzzy megaphone but I listen anyway. I turn the record over and lower the needle, adjust the volume. the house smells like wood and smoke and it is maybe the best smell in the world. which is when my mind turns to list making. list number thirty-eight: best smells in the world. but before my mind can settle, it spins off in another direction. and another and another and another. I am full of ideas tonight. but I am also full of pessimism. the kind that sits in a stiff, sour place and will not budge.

I woke up in the middle of the night last night. we'd fallen asleep on the big green couch. again. with all the lights on, television on, legs uncomfortably intertwined. what I am going to tell you now is that the television was turned to PBS. and I am all for PBS, I love PBS but I can't imagine what we could have possibly been watching on public television on a friday night before we drifted off. we are almost always watching reruns of seinfeld. anyway. american masters with bill t. jones was on and I forced my sleepy eyes open because this what I would call luck. I am a big fan of mr. jones. I was pretty out of it but at three in the morning, I listened to him talk about abraham lincoln, watched him yell at dancers, then at musicians, watched him push and pull new work into place. and I wanted to cry because this is a world that I miss. I miss dance, I miss that sweaty, messy place. I miss class, I miss rehearsals, I miss choreographers. I miss my old body. I miss my old body so much. the credits rolled just then and I turned the channel. and then I fixed myself a bowl of cereal because I didn't want to think about it anymore.

we will probably fall asleep on the big green couch again tonight. to the sounds of the television, the dying of the first fire.

11.11.11

(bathroom self portrait taken at 11:11 this morning and posted at 11:11 tonight)

kosovo in polaroids, part four

(at the saturday morning market, where you can find everything from hand-carved wooden spoons to adidas sneaks to fresh produce to old-fashioned shaving cakes)

(for the record, that yellow raincoat is killing me)


(it was the height of pepper season in gjilan and I'll tell you, peppers were everywhere, giant bushels of bright-colored peppers e v e r y w h e r e)


(the small neighborhood shops that sold nothing but eggs charmed me to no end)


(six whole days of sunshine and on our last day, our one free day, it rained)


(in a single image, this is gjilan)

sort of a dream to walk the streets of gjilan, kosovo with my trusty little sx-70. thank you so much for looking, friends. and I thank you for the kind words.

kosovo in polaroids, part three

(këmishë= albanian for 'shirt')


(vildan, who came to the workshops and cut and pasted and painted, vildan, who loved having his picture taken)


(everyday we passed this market and everyday I thought about how much I loved these letters, how much I loved the bright red and yellow)


(peja, the unofficial beer of kosovo)


(like poetry)

(from gjilan, kosovo)

kosovo in polaroids, part two

(I don't know how how the light around her head happened but I sure do love it)


(awesome albanian teenagers)


(inside the studio of the fantastic albanian painter artan hajrullahu, whose work I fell head over heels in love with)


(and while we were visiting with artan in his studio, his mother brought us hot mint tea and apples she'd hand-picked from a tree in their backyard)


(while visiting albanian artist filloreta maliqi, she introduced us to her grandfather, a fine photographer and the first in his village to own a polaroid sx-70 back in the day)


(plastic colored clothespins, oh plastic colored clothespins)

sometimes I like to pair words and descriptions with my polaroids, sometimes I don't. scratch that, I don't. but something about the kosovo polaroids seems to call for it. more words added to part one and: parts three and four on deck.

for the record, it brings me great joy to share these polaroids from gjilan. it means the world that you even look. thank you.

kosovo in polaroids, part one

(biçycletë= albanian for bicycle)


(I raised my camera at them and they smiled but when I crossed my eyes, they broke into laughter)


(songs that hang)


(ian, co-teacher and polaroid partner in crime)


(I sort of wanted to marry this garage door)

(gjilan, kosovo through the lens of a polaroid sx-70)

shout who you are

(an oldie but a goodie)

so far

no film in the canon, not even close to finishing that one thing, socks sad and matching, crochet needles still cold, bike still motionless.

but-- the halloween candy is dead to me and I am practically BFFs with the rain. more importantly, a last minute trip to astoria put a little color in my cheeks and this magic little polaroid in my hands. take that, wanton slacker self.

photobooth friday

this weekend, I'll load up the canon FTb. I'll finish that thing I need to finish. I'll intentionally mismatch my socks. I'll ask my mother-in-law to teach me how to crochet. I'll get on my bike and I'll ride. I'll not steal halloween candy from you know who. I'll not complain about the rain.

you?

more halloween

she was all set to go as nancy drew and then she saw that pink wig at target. I've always wanted to wear a pink wig, she said. well okay then, you should wear one, I said. because surely halloween was invented for this very reason. for that somebody somewhere who just wanted an excuse to wear a pink wig. I would know nothing about this, of course. nothing at all.



and then there was all the tusken raider business, which I really wish I could take credit for, but I can't. the tusken raider business is totally the husband's doing. whom, I believe, was really making the costume for his inner nine year-old self. meanwhile, ezra fell so deeply in love with it that he vowed to wear it every single halloween until he is old. old like a teenager, he said.



yep, halloween 2011. year of lady bonbon, year of the tusken raider. and one for the books, that's for sure.

oh, time

halloween 2005 vs. halloween 2011. or, the beatnik and the butterfly vs. the tusken raider and lady bonbon. I guess there's nothing I can really do to stop time. or at the very least, slow it down a little. because boy howdy, time is flying, people. flying.

nablopomo!

people, it's nablopomo (aka national blog posting month) and every year I participate. every year, I try to post something (anything) everyday for one month. and every year, I fail. but I do love the trying. I do so love the trying.

hello november, hello nablopomo.

around the house

(halloween happy-making)