now captain don't do me like you done poor shine

listening to: "i will rise up/ain't no more cane" - lyle lovett and his large band

I just love the baby cardinals. There are three of them, and a momma and a daddio, brown and red, and the babies, who I have named Albee, Ted, and Lucinda. They squeak so cute and their mouths are all yellow and wide and I like to watch Hans and Bernadette (the momma and daddio) feed them. Everyone should have baby cardinals.

The Cubs beat the Sox twice. Ha.

I feel anxious about work all the time now. It's just coffee, damn it.

I cough still.

Today wasn't the best day of all.

But I'm going to Michigan for an OE reunion at Justine's cottage-- I'm the only one who's asked for those days off. I want to go. I can't wait.

I'm going to go watch Prairie Home Companion, in further preparation for seeing Garrison Keillor at the Indiana State Fair later this summer.

Maybe tomorrow will suck less.

--i saw nobody coming, so i went instead.

I've been reading John Berryman's The Dream Songs this week, along with some historical/fantastical fiction, along with The Alchemist and Elizabeth Gilbert's The Last American Man. Spent a while at the library today and, while disappointed in their poor selection, checked out some Ian McEwan and so will be starting Saturday in the next few days. Also, my new Paste magazine came in the mail the other day and I haul it around in my satchel hoping for a spare moment.

Monday night we went to a baseball game-- the Indianapolis Indians-- minor league stuff, but fun, a beautiful evening, and great ambiance. I've been toting my blue little camera around with me most places and took some fun ones at the game.

I've been oddly under the weather lately-- a horrible cough is my main complaint, but I cough so much and so hard that my whole torso just aches from it from the shoulder blades to the ribcage. I feel fine aside from the cough, and so I dose it with a cough syrup/expectorant and go on about my business. I just worry that it won't go away and I won't be able to see a doctor until I'm insured. In August. Yay America!

We have a nest full of baby cardinals in a small tree right outside my bedroom window. I can see directly into the nest if I'm sitting on my bed. Open yellow mouths and brown fuzz and tiny tiny chirps, and the mother and father both flying circuitously around the yard, stopping by to regurgitate food into the little mouths or to sit on top of them for a few minutes at a time. I like them.

Here's a couple photos from the game:











Me and my lungs are going to go watch the Top Chef Reunion show now.


shalom.

ze plants!

the Christmas cactus from Erin in Oregon:


Shamrocks from my mom & dad at Easter:


spiky little guy:


more X-Mas cactus:





I am having fun with this little sucker. :)

i can't really say why everybody wishes they were somewhere else

I finally took the time to download the software for my new digital camera. It's such a cute camera, all tiny and blue. It was a big step for me to be okay with owning a digital camera. But ah, can't go back now. And it's fun to take little pictures with it. And I can put them on the interwebs! So, lucky you.

find my direction magnetically

listening to: "rise" - eddie vedder

It's a whole new week, and I'm told it's Tuesday night.
I've come up sick all of a sudden, but I'm getting better.
Indiana is flooding all over, but we're okay, though friends farther South are under water.
We're feeling the humidity, or at least I am.
It makes me feel slow and stupid and badly constructed.
Can't stop listening to Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago.
You should check it out.
It makes me breathe deeper.
My starling ivy is dying.
I don't know why.
Too much water?
But my Christmas cactus, the one from Erin in Oregon, it's growing.
I've been trying to get it to root since December--
I kept it in a mason jar of water for months,
until it put out some good little roots.
I planted it with Oregon agates and petrified wood,
and I couldn't tell if it was doing anything.
But all of a sudden last week, little hairs grew out of its joints.
And today when I was misting my plants,
I saw that it had tiny bright green leaves growing where those hairs had sprouted.
I couldn't be happier,
though my ivy's dying and the orchid's lost its flowers.
And last Friday night I talked to a nice boy about poetry for awhile.
I miss talking about poetry, even when I haven't been drinking.
But especially then.




I don't like summer weather: the humidity or the heat.
But I love the thunderstorms.
And there's no beating the summer vibe:
stolid, syrupy paranoia mixing with fresh days of rain.




shalom.

now you know

listening to: "flume" - bon iver

I just saw a bumper sticker on a minivan that said,

"If Mary was Pro-Choice there would be NO CHRISTMAS!"


Am at loss for words.

don't bother me

listening to: "the wolves (act I and II)" - bon iver

Last night while I was watching Hillary Clinton's speech from New York City, my grandmother sits down on the arm of my chair and says something about how Hillary has a pudgy face. Then she pats my cheek and says, "But don't worry. I love your pudgy face."

I have to tell myself that she's a little crazy. Otherwise most of the things she's said to me this week are just plain mean.

all i've got for you

listening to: "razor love" - neil young

Well, T.J. graduated from high school. Today is his party. Right now there are two grandmas, one mom, three mom friends, and one mentally disabled aunt in the kitchen. Along with five dozen hardboiled eggs that smell like farts. Everyone is crazy. And I've been sleeping in my parents' closet for four nights now.