moody

I used to worry a lot about the drive to kaaawa, which hosts the occasional smooshed jogger because of a bend in the road. Then I spent four years driving the long winding cliffs of Maui, and it put the 15 minute stretch of beachside highway in perspective a bit. I drove up to the beach, listening to music and feeling stupid about fussing all those years ago. There is a lot I would change, if I could go back and pry my hands loose before I strangled the things I was so scared to lose.

I discovered years ago that little soothes like sitting on a beach in the middle of the week in the longest part of winter. The same song has played on the radio during these drives for the past 6 years. A few weeks ago, we traded in the Chevy for a smaller car - a car so plain and functional as to be invisible to all speed traps - and its radio is just as possessed as the last one.

Near the infamous bend in the road, traffic halted, and I rubbernecked dutifully as we inched past three cop cars and a truckload of surfers. A too-young teen was slumped on the ground against the fence with plastic cuffs and a "well, shit" expression as he watched traffic go by. The cops were in jeans and body armor, clustered in the shade over paperwork on the hoods of their Chargers. Glimpses of lives I don't intersect.

I sat on the beach and read while Leif drew swirls in the beach with sticks. Tourists stood in the surf and jumped and flexed for cameras. I feel like a time traveler, watching happy moments become old vacation memories.

We ate an orange and I sunned my ham hocks.

Everything happens the only way it can, I tell myself. I don't believe myself, but it's a nice thought.

Busywork

I'm mad at my knitting, but it's doing ok despite me.

This productivity while I defer to a more patient math tutor than myself. Howling "rawr just do it!" and throwing star stickers in the air doesn't appear to have any educational benefits. Its gotten the floor pretty clean with all the sweeping time-outs I've given myself, though.

Still no crimes to solve, except for Who's Been Peeing on the Scale. It's down to one of the cats.

Death Match - MAMMOTH

Prehysteria. Mammothry... Werewolves.

Prehistoric weremammoth has a sad.

All her friends are extinct. The books she's been reading are ancient, and she hasn't had anyone to sharpen her claws wit  on for ages.

Now she just watches youtube videos and gets into arguments with paleo-dieters on the Internet.

Weremammoth contemplates next evolutionary step.

Robotaday and Yermits have more mammoths. sarahapple has been acting out various plagues throughout history, and will be joining us later is back among the living.

Week 34

Maura sleeps by my legs all night, and has decided that my feet are her enemy, savaging my toes any time I move in my sleep. Because I am nice and understanding, I slowly inch them closer and closer to her throughout the night, until they are tucked under her tummy, then dig my toes in and tickle her violently. All her extremities - including her tail - sprout sharp teeth at this point, but ha, that is why feet are thick skinned.

My mother has started pining for Indiana, daydreaming about apple trees and wood cabins and 5 acres to build an aviary without neighbors. I remind her about wet wool, and icy roads, and children with chapped faces, because I am helpful like that, but I knit her a pair of socks to make her feel cozy. And I knit them in three days; my new speed knitting powers owing to a mishap with lactic acid a few nights ago, not unlike the origin story of a very sedentary superhero. Drowsing out of a deep and delicious dream, I curled my toes down before I could wake enough to remember NO NEVER POINT THE TOES and triggered a massive leg cramp that tore my muscles all to hell and inflated my leg like a zeppelin. Where was the foot-eating alarm-cat when this happened, I would like to know? An ounce of prevention is worth a pint of blood, as the saying goes.

And here is an unrelated picture of Astrid as couch throw.

Notable: I managed to get the child up to the topside playground, winning a battle against gravity. There I drew a tree while throwing a stick for him to fetch. Parenting is easy.

turtles and bread

My mom's procedure went without incident, apart from my appalling city driving.

So things are back to the usual slow roll. 

This is still happening. And I am down to one pair of pants that fit. Will be improvising some sheeting for the final weeks.

I baked bread that looked like a turkey.

Ran out of yarn on the second kilt hose. Ordered more, in scant quantity. While waiting, started a new project, which I will also run out of yarn for.

(Improvised toddler verson of the Intertwined Cables Pullover)

The kid has just this week made a brain connection between letter sounds and the words he wants to write. I attempt to help pad this vital thread of brain fat with repetition and piles of buttered bread.

I like the slow pace of things, but have started thinking about being one of those knitters who solves crime while drinking tea and cutting witty remarks. So far, have been spying on the neighbor kid, who appears to be dealing drugs at the dialysis center, using a basketball as his secret signal. Haven't figured out exactly how to go about sleuthing, being as a) nobody has died conveniently on my lawn and b) the neighbor kid has known me for 10 years and will probably recognize me. Crime solving is hard. Just need the right shoes, probably.

Slowing down

Heavy. Tired. We have momentum in the mornings that ends in fat feet and a spine that wants to stay adhered to the couch. We hurry to sweep, load dishes, change laundry, paint, do worksheets, and make dinner before everyone gets home, sucking every molecule of vertical stamina from my iron supplements.

I have been having moments of comfort and happiness, of excitement at the end of a new milk frother and assortment of k-cups. The old dark thoughts have gone walking again at night when my guard goes down, and they catch me while driving sometimes.

We went to a Royal Scottish Country Dance party and the highland instructor blocked the door after seeing the length of the boy-child's legs. I sat knitting kilt hose for those stick-insect limbs while the old ladies nodded and winked at each other.

Feet like a draft horse.

Pattern to come as I write it down. And OF COURSE I ran out of yarn 3 inches from the toe and needed to order another ball, which of course is back-ordered until February. Became overcome by visions of rampant hose knitting and bought a book of old kilt hose patterns. Who am I?

The cats and my mother have stolen the ugly striped blanket I made, and huddle under it all together against the freezing evening rain, so I have started a new baby blanket.

Umaro, by Jared Flood (Brooklyn Tweed)

Editing illustrations, which I am always certain ruins them completely.

Things are slowly moving along.

The quilt is DONE

ITISDONEITISDONE

Now Leif just needs a bed. This being temporarily disassembled and shoved under the big bed until we work out the furniture arrangement in the bedroom. Which we have... Oh, 8 weeks or so to do.

Lighten up

A year needs a theme. I'm unburdening; letting go of losing my house and job and belongings and bodily autonomy. Putting down embarrassment, shedding weight - and hair, and vital fluids - and letting myself slow down and enjoy my people and the time to listen to music and draw.

I have a list, too. I'm leaving off the obvious stuff having to do with life and not dying.

Go to the museum
Make another bronze
Publish 2 more books
Drink ALL THE HOMEBREW
But not all at the same time - no hangovers or drinky emails. Except to Sarah.
Learn to spin yarn
Make a buche de Noel with meringue mushrooms
Finish Leif's quilt
Knit Christmas stocking
Knit kilt hose
Mail things to canadaland
Read more Terry Pratchett
Keep the house cleanish
Do project 365
... Will add to this.

Today people went back to school and work. We got started.


I will get the binding on this thing.

If I can get the effing cats off it.

Did some math, worked out a pattern, and started a pair of kilt hose for Gavin.

Sketched a spot illustration. Then ate a burrito. Checked the kid's progress in his workbook. He writes like a 4 year-old. 

The kid and I got out the acrylics, and stole my mom's egg cups to use as paint palettes.

cat and dragon

There was a checkup. No matter what my symptoms were - headache and chills, fever and stomach ache, missing limbs - the diagnosis was, "You are having a baby. You need a shot."

The year and I are on good terms so far.

the annual end-of-year questions

Oh, this is not a good idea this year.

1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before? WHAT ARE YOU IMPLYING, QUIZ?

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I did. I vowed to set everything right again, and get my family back together on Oahu. Unfortunately, I took a sledgehammer to the first 7 months of the year before figuring out I had other tools.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? We had a stillborn in the family, which was terrible and sad.

4. Did anyone close to you die? My mom and all my aunts tried. Evidently this was the year we learned about our family's predisposition to heart failure. My heart joins my uterus in ticking ominously toward detonation. And my grandfather fell on a turtle tank and slashed his arm open down to the bone and nearly bled to death.

5. What places did you visit? Kihei, Maui. This sounds fancy until you realize it is 15 minutes away from where I shopped at Costco, but we dragged ourselves all the way across the valley and went to the ocean center and mini putt for a long weekend, annoying cashiers by being white and still asking for Kamaaina rates.

6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012? fish and chips at the Highland Games.

7. What dates from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? Oh god.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? I published another book and relocated to Oahu in a permanent manner.

9. What was your biggest failure? Letting the "say yes and figure it out later" memo from work bleed over into my personal life. Evidently I am too naive to survive on my own in the wild.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? burned thumb, sinus infection, and a cold. And I tore my thumbnail on a piece of oatmeal and on the seam of my jeans.

11. What was the best thing you bought? I gave my royalties to Gavin for his trip to Indiana with my mom this summer. He poisoned himself with a hot dog on a train, but had an amazing summer among the bats and fireflies in Bloomington, ate at the Runcible Spoon, and met my dad for the first time.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Mike's, for getting a good job with the university, confronting his personal issues with a professional, and coming to rescue me from Maui.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Mine.

14. Where did most of your money go? childcare and food.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? I was happy about the new season of Sherlock, and my friends sent me some amazing mail.

16. What song will always remind you of 2012? pass

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? happier
b) thinner or fatter? much, much fatter
c) richer or poorer? haaahaha, shut up quiz.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? reading and drawing and interviewing.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? backing the car into things.

20. How did you spend Christmas last year? Drinking Santa's scotch.

21. Did you fall in love in 2012? Once again, the love I already suffer from remained firmly hooked in my heart.

22. What was your favorite TV program? Sherlock! Downton Abbey!

23. What did you do for your birthday in 2012? There was a lot of Mongolian beef.

24. What was the best book you read? The Hogfather. 11/22/63.

25. What did you want and get? one-way tickets back home.

26. What did you want and not get? a job to go with the tickets.

27. What was your favorite film of this year? I only watched the Avengers and the Hobbit, but they were worth the trips. Even with the weird evil-albino sub-plot.

28. Did you make some new friends this year? Very much the opposite of this.

29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Bagging a transfer before the preschool blew away.

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012? expansive and depressing.

31. What kept you sane? it is very predictable to say "friends and family", but that is usually how it goes. The people you can weep and gnash and flee to are the ones who keep your marbles from spilling out your ears.

32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Watson's sweater.

33. What political issue stirred you the most? I was dealing with the school massacre well enough until people started suggesting that teachers wear guns.

34. Who did you miss? Everyone in turn, the same people in particular. There was a lot of loneliness this year.

35. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012. "Say yes and figure it out later" is a TERRIBLE TERRIBLE MOTTO. "Say fuck no and take it back later" would be better.

RIP Kamikaze

The smallest Java finch was the most intrepid. First to dive out of the nest, first to fly clumsily into the seed bowl, first to hop into our hands and nip our noses. Gavin and my mom took the birds into the cat-free safety of the bathroom every day to let them stretch their wings and bathe in a lid full of water. Yesterday, for no visible reason, Kamikaze squawked in pain and fell dead while flying. Our best guess is that her heart gave out.

We held a little funeral service by the tree behind the house. Gavin cried very hard as he put the little bird into its box, Leif cried because his brother was distressed and the bird wasn't moving, my mom cried because she loved the little thing and her grandson was heartbroken, I cried because the whole thing was so sad. Mike dug the hole and helped the boys pick flowers to put in the tiny grave.

We talked about pets and loss, about loving them while they are with us and grieving them when they go. The two birds left in the cage looked forlorn to Gavin, so we went to the pet store and let him choose a finch to bring home.

Enter Finn.

Pets - and people - are heartbreak waiting to happen, and that's exactly why we have to love them whole-heartedly while we have them.