tell your feelings.

we are in the last few days to submit comments regarding the bridge plan for utah lake.

let them hear you, asap.

click here to submit comments

so many good things this year!

so many good things this year.

the fog is heavy and quiet.

i love my family very, very much.

of course it's carl.

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

Recuerdo

Edna St. Vincent Millay

We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable--
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed, "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

albums i liked this year.

10. Clinging to a Scheme--The Radio Dept.
9. I'm New Here--Gil Scott Heron
8. Genuine Negro Jig--The Carolina Chocolate Drops
7. Brothers--The Black Keys
6. Be Brave--The Strange Boys
5. Age of Adz--Sufjan Stevens
4. The Suburbs--Arcade Fire
3. Broken Hearts and Dirty Windows--Songs of John Prine
2. Phosphene Dream--The Black Angels
1. High Violet--The National

Here's some listen:

for the love of our lungs.

please consider riding the bus, carpooling, riding your bike, you know, whatever.

http://airnow.gov/

forgive me my naïveté.

bobbing along.

consume this!

the best things about going to costco were:

1. being with my mom
2. seeing timp's white glory in the alpenglow.

i am not the bread and the knife.

i love this so. still.

in the fake plastic earth

chris jordan's artwork

Il faut être absolument moderne.

rimbaud, 1873.


in rebellion,

nap,
a cat,
friends,
my crochet,
debussy,
a book,
soup,
tea.

lifted from npr tumblr, now i must read it.

“The other afternoon, when you fell asleep on my shoulder, I drifted off too. But before I did, it occured to me, looking around at all your things, and all your work, and going through all the years of work in my mind, that of all your work, you are still the most beautiful, the most beautiful work of all.”

patti smith, just kids

crane your neck.

listened to rosalie winard talk about her fotos tonight. beautiful.





(i don't know what they want from me. it's like the more birds we come across, the more birds we see)

how do you get into the duck club? sounds prestigious.

first and foremost, one must be a duck.

tundra swan (numbering in the thousands)
common merganser
american avocet
marsh wren
northern shoveler
eared grebe
common grebe
american coot
nothern harrier
gadwall
canada goose
sandhill crane
red-winged blackbird
black-billed magpie
american kestrel
ring-necked pheasant rooster and hen

much to be learned.

futile devices by sufjan stevens

make it big.

Sufjan Stevens - Futile Devices Music Video from Freddie Paull on Vimeo.

worthy 18 minutes

Jared Diamond on why societies collapse | Video on TED.com

every full day.

the last week or so has been full of people who remind me to live every day at top enthusiasm.

effervescence.
joie de vivre.
vitality.
passion.
raison d'être.
vibrancy.
zeal.

poetry slam with Michael Dimitri and the other poets (why AREN'T we here?)
Terry Tempest Williams (her article on the BP spill)
Katie Lee (91-year-old sticks it to the man)
Sufjan Stevens (sincerity, and a song i am loving)
Subhankar Banerjee (exuberance)
Alexandra Fuller (you never know who you're waking up)

day of the dead.

i feel like i'm going through a breakup.






ps i love my dear friends.

in true halloween spirit

zim woke me today by sneezing in my face.

then he tried to bury my friend's coffee cup. the cup was sitting on the wood floor.

he then, with flashing eyes, climbed to the top of the ponderosa pine, meowed, and made his way slowly down.

and then, climbed as fast as fast to the top of the ash, meowed his triumph, and made his way down.

and now, he sits quietly in the sunlight, as if none of this ever happened.

he's a brlack cat.

things to remember.

no, you can't only love when you want to.

the strange boys

there's winter all over the floor here.

i like the snow when it is wet and sloshy and the windshield wipers swish it off without scraping. i like the gush gush gush sounds on the ground.

i've listened to the song heartbeats, performed by jose gonzalez, enough tonight, but i'll keep listening. quando m'en vo, heartbeats, repeat. weird combination.

i went to class tonight. there was no class. i locked my keys in the fat boy. a new friend called AAA.

there's an empty space between my sternum and my heart.

returning to high

i dreamt about notch peak last night, walking through the bristlecones, looking straight ahead at the cliff face, nearly falling over the edge.

not distracted.

abstracted.

go see "angels in america" performed by the salt lake acting company.

part one shows through the 31st.

in4mation

warmer longer.

colder soon.

ahora, sí, estoy enamorada

the serviceberry leaves are red.
the oaks are dropping acorns.
the bigtooth maple leaves are sugary and falling.
the male tarantulas are wandering.

today, i found a dead bumblebee clinging to a rabbitbrush stem.

everyday with the garden will be missed.

Por donde fuimos, islas o puentes o banderas,
violines del fugaz otoño acribillado,
repitió la alegría los labios de la copa,
el dolor nos detuvo con su lección de llanto.

Soneto XXVIII, Neruda.

afuera

The brushing of teeth, since he was a child, has always been for him an outdoor activity.

TEP, p. 86

to expose our follies.

i have around 500 fotos in my photobooth application. 85-90% of those fotos are of myself and zim.

success?

The plain fact is that the planet does not need more "successful" people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every shape and form. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane.

David Orr, What is Education For?, 1991

angle of repose

genevieve, a geomorphologist, explained to me last march that the angle of repose is the degree at which rocks and debris rest after mass fail, or erosion.

this weekend, i was down on the staircase, looking at the rocks, comme d'habitude. they are beautiful because they have fallen. they're at rest, but they'll fall again. and something new will be beautiful.

was the quiet i always felt in you really repose? i wish i thought so.
wallace stegner, AofR, 12.

i myself like the porcupine.

fenomenally simple animal fotografs here.

often enough

i wake up to myself rearranging the stacks of books next to my bed.

i should put them on the shelf.

one cannot fathom such things.

if texas was populated by only women, and they had to stand two feet apart at all times, would texas secede from the union?

(8 year old boy)

what are you doing?

i'm kicking my butt.

(i asked the question. a 6-year-old girl answered it.)

if we could.

The boy steadied his breathing and told himself firmly, "You are not afraid of this. This is just a human heart, that's all. Just like in the encyclopedia. Everybody has one of these. I have one."

WUBC, p. 420

i knew i was in for a good week when one of my small ones asked me, "do you want to enter a time and space portal?"

(child, kicking each thistle plant as he walks by)
you're no good at soccer.
you're no good at soccer.
you're no good at soccer, you don't even have hands, you couldn't even be goalie.

why did the chicken cross the road?
because he got ranned over.

why did the chicken cross the road?
to fart.

why did the apple cross the road?
applesauce.

knock-knock.
who's there?
banana.
banana who?
aren't you glad i didn't say banana?

knock-knock.
who's there?
boo hoo.
boo hoo who?
you're crying.

knock-knock.
who's there?
andrea.
andrea who?
don't you know yourself?
why would i be knocking at the door and answering the door?
i don't know.

knock-knock.
who's there?
andrea.
andrea who?
andrea rabbit head.

these children are not afraid to hold hands.

one little sweet babe squeezed my hand twice, and whispered "robin!"

and, walking up the switchbacks this morning, we came upon a rattlesnake. he was just off the trail. i wanted everyone to get a chance to look at him.
i thought we were done when i heard little sweet babe crying. i asked her if she was afraid of the rattler.
"no," she whimpered, "i didn't get to see the snake."

i keep referring to the "kids" as "people".

we all know that children don't become people til late in their fourteenth year. we all know it, except me.

no apologies.

allow me to nerd out.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NESTCAMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this one i remember.

saturday night, sleeping on a slab of slickrock hanging over fish creek, i dreamt i was sleeping under a blanket made of tufted evening primrose. beth says i startled her when i thought it was floating away.

i'm ok with my decay.

i quit. then i didn't.

but i might again.

in love with this song.

so our end of mabey drive is torn up. i'm living the american dream on a phreeking cul-de-sac.

two days ago, when the street got ripped apart and large machinery started to appear and orange safety signs materialized, etc, it was a beautiful day. i got home from work, drank iced mate and laid on the grass with my guitar and z-flavor. i watched as drivers ignored the road closed sign, tried to power through, and were forced to turn around. if i caught the driver's eye, i couldn't help but laugh.

well, joke's on me. and z. the czar has a weird thing for large machinery. just as beth and i were about to leave on a sunset bike ride, cub cub rubbed his face on the greasiest, narstiest tractor bits. and then he proceeded to let his tail join in the la brea fun.

some people get angry when it rains just days after washing their car. i get annoyed when the chug rubs on tractor tar just days after a bath. who bathes their kitten two times in one week?

and now, shivery kitten, still wet, huddles on my lap. poor fing.

the quiet.

sometimes things should speak for themselves.

the attention economy.

interdisciplinarity. made up, but i'm using it.

funny how when it gets dark you can't see out the windows. only dark reflections.

these glass rooms with kids studying, writing on the glass with markers, so intently.

give me litany or give me death.

michel foucault: a good looking human. archetypal, almost.

yes, i do see you checking yourself out in the reflection.

that stegner quote is bullshit. only being in the desert cures desert desire.

the waitress from indochine, who remembered everything perfectly without writing a word.

times like these, i'd like to be with my guitar.

how the hell did 552 fotos of me end up on phacebook? i have no privacy, and it's my fault.




sometimes the attention lapses into a catatonic informational philandering while one does one's homework in the library.

blood and dust.

i have to fill my tank today, or i will run out of gas the next time i drive.

(and i don't want to live through another "running out of gas" incident. always ridiculously embarassing.)

so here's the problem:

i started working at red butte garden (which is my new boyfriend by the way. i love it/him very much) and i haven't figured out the bus schedule/shuttle schedule/etc yet. so i've been driving. the fatty. fatty fatkins. and though he is a kind and reliable friend, i don't love driving him.

i miss my little walk to the bus stop. i miss seeing my favorite tree on 27th south. i miss my little friends, who wear rain bonnets and say HELLO so very loudly, who discuss the weather with me. i miss zoning out and staring out the window for approximately 15 minutes each way.

absence makes the heart frown, sometimes imperceptibly. i need to figure this out.

but this is a list you want to kiss.

in the garden yesterday.

a pair of red-tailed hawks
a pair of woodpeckers (hairy maybe, but maybe i don't know)
a pair of canada geese (courtship dance and mating included!)
a flocklet of ruby-crowned kinglets
a pair of quail (not california quail, but some big fat quail, maybe chuckar)

i wish i knew birds.

there will be no pictures of you and willie mays pushing that shopping cart

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised- Gil Scott Heron
Uploaded by larsen42. - Explore more music videos.

i am ready

for a barefoot summer.

the takeaways.

i have a crush on 65 year old woman who is deeply enthusiastic about geomorphology.

pleistocene rewilding is not a figment of my imagination and the nine-banded armadillo is a proposed species of the project.

sandbar willow has another name: coyote willow.

and finally, i don't know about this blog.

silence.

play a little.

thermals.

http://mrdoob.com/projects/harmony/#shaded


reading old blog posts. funny how things change.

date the landscape.

i'm pretty exhausted, but i think the exhaustion comes from returning.

i could stay out another week.

and now i'm pharting around on phacebook.

let's take and informal vote: should i go back to the desert in one week or two weeks, or bolth.

overhead.

The White Mountain (extended) from charles on Vimeo.

i'll take three earths, please.

my eco footprint

So Thoreau.

Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labour in.

a whole flock.

Cedar Waxwing

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

from http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html

subconscious coleoptera

Last night I dreamt that I found a beautiful cerambycid on the curtain of an old house. When I went to get a bottle to hold him, I found a beautiful buprestid on my wrist.







The cerambycid was a powdery white color and had deep texture on its elytra. Its head was a powdery blue with a slight sparkle, like snow. Its antennae were powdery white and had cleary defined squatty v-shaped segments.

The buprestid was black underneath, black legs, dusty gold elytra. Some very faint lime green in the gold, near the head.

today we're all busdrivers.

singing loudly at the busstop is permitted, and appreciated.

and a joke that goes something like this:

x: let me see your phone.
y: ok. (hands x the phone)
x: guess who i'm gonna call.
y: (interrupted)
x: ghostbusters. (laughs a good laugh)

on the ride home i briefly considered becoming a bus driver during the summer.

it is a noble job.

and i miss my friend harold (or was it howard? how unreliable my mind!), who used to drive my route and tell me all about the charms of wendover.













zim is singing to the juncos and chickadees at the feeder.

ever

watching up in the air made me want to die a little bit. good movie; weird/sad commentary about how we live. the phrase "cocoon of self-banishment" hit me in the face.

in better news, i did a translation of the poem recited here.

Today I awoke outside myself
and I went to search for me.
I walked over ways and paths
until I found myself
seated on a mossy edge
at the foot of a cypress
chatting with the mist
and trying to forget
what I cannot.
At my feet,
leaves, only leaves.


Today, Humberto Ak'ab'al

gaga oh la la!

i want your love. love love love i want your love.