slackin' away in blogland

Just thought I'd check in. I'm on a sort of spontaneous blogging semi-hiatus. I've been reading you alls' here and there but not feeling inspired to post. I will say that life is good these days. Life is very, very good.

Oh, and that the concerts with the community chorus I joined while doing the AW are happening this weekend. I'm not particularly moved by the piece, but we're performing with a full orchestra and some kick-ass professional soloists, which is cool. I'm glad I got inspired to join: all this rehearsing and fruity singing is making me feel more musician-y again. And it's just so nice to do a concert in May, with flowers and lush greenness exploding everywhere. It even takes me back to some happy high school memories. I do love being on stage.

Oh, and I had a nice little email exchange with my friend and dream bandmate (that phrase is rather cringe-inducing, but it's concise), the one who is moving back to this area for awhile starting this summer. He once again mentioned in a newsletter that he and his wife, who will be sharing a professorship at a local university for a year, are looking to start an American music ensemble open to anybody. I told him I really wanted to join. As I suspected, he's not positive the school will be okay with nonstudents in the project, but he hopes they will be, and he'd love it if I can join. Thank you, AW! This is such a sweet little synchronicity for me. So easy; so not a big deal. AHHH.

Still haven't painted a wedding gift vase, and the alloted practice time quickly draws near a close. Must get on that. Will take photos to share. Over and out.

my shoes

Here they all are. The collection sprawled out in its considerable entirety looks somehow less obscene than I anticipated it might, but as this observation reignites a faint spark of longing, I'm not sure that's a good thing. (If I bought less footwear, maybe I'd have the money to replace that godawful wallpaper.)

I actually only own one pair of shoes that aren't boots, sandals, clogs or some other funky girly-type thing like mules or mary-janes--you know, shoes, with laces, that aren't sneakers. And I forgot to put them in the picture.

Here's a happy shoe story for you:


Menacing, aren't they? (If by menacing I mean FABULOUS...)

The first time I did The Artist's Way (well, some of it, anyway), when I completed the excercise of listing ten specific items I really wanted to own, I included big black bad-ass boots, sort of like cowboy boots, but not. I didn't know what these were called, and I hadn't even seen enough of them to formulate a clearer description. Nonetheless, a week or so later I found a pair that fit perfectly for fifteen dollars at a yard sale. None more bad-ass. I loved the harness, the thick gleaming leather, the square toe. That pair had wedge-shaped dips in the front and back of the top of the shaft, like cowboy boots. They needed new heel plates, so I had nice thick ones put on, and while they were in the shop I decided to have straight pieces of leather stiched in to fill those gaps. Then they were perfect. Heavy, chunky and black, the perfect counterpoise to my straight skirts and spaghetti-strap dresses. They seemed to bond themselves to my feet and calves under some metaphysical principle; the deepening creases only made them more and more perfect. I reheeled them again when the time came. Resoled, too.

Still, the tough, angular toes eventually started to round out, and my beloved friends began to lose their edge. I'd take them out for comfort, but my clothes were becoming a little embarrassed by them and began demanding something new. The time came to buy a new pair. The replacements were spanky and trim - decidedly unshabby - and they were eagerly trying to please me, but they just could never be my real daddy. I consoled myself by buying a pair in chestnut brown as well. These helped a little.

One night while I was rocking the brown ones, a friend of mine, to compliment my footwear choices in his own quirky way, said to me, "Hey, Eliza, can I have all your old boots?" As he is a special friend, one whose fashion sense coincides nicely with mine, and because one of the many benefits of being an amazon is the ability to share shoes with boys, the next time I saw him I presented him with my treasured old friends. And, lo. They actually woke up and took on a whole new life on him. It was like seeing an older dog getting adopted at the shelter, bounding gleefully into his new person's car. That was probably six years ago. I believe my friend is now on his second replacement pair.

The ones pictured above are my original replacements for the special boots. As you can see, with a little love, time and patience, they got good, too.


Here are a few more of my favorites:


Platform soles? Faux patened leather? Lined throughout with fake fur? I got these for eleven dollars several years ago, and they were so dreamily weird I bought a second pair for when the strap breaks on this one. I get a compliment just about every time I wear them, the most frequent being "those are beautiful." This makes me smile, since the reason I like them so much (apart from the fur - COME ON) is their eccentricity. There's just no accounting for taste!



The Cruel Shoes. I guess most women have at least one pair of shoes they blindly adore despite the physically abusive nature of the relationship. These are mine. Guaranteed lacerations. But aren't they hot? You should see them on. When will some enterprising woman inventor get on the stick and market invisible, padded, virtually un-dislodge-able bandaids?



I ordered these on clearance from a catalogue aimed at teenagers. When they arrived I was dismayed to note that the platform heel was at least five inches tall - a bit much. I drew a line around the soles at the height they'd be if teenagers were reasonable, and asked my then landlord (the sawmill owner) for a little bandsaw-related favor. And it worked!



Being cheap, I have a long and happy association with Sharpies. Chip a red ceramic bowl? Nothing a red Sharpie can't handily camoflage. Sick of the contrast stiching on that brown belt? You know who to call. These sneakers are of good quality and are very comfortable. Unfortunately the only color on the clearance rack was pink. No problem!



Speaking of how cheap I am, I found these lovelies on sale at a tacky discount department store seven or eight years ago (when clogs such as these had recently been trendy and were now available on sale at tacky discount department stores). I have tried and failed many times to put them in the giveaway pile during closet purges. The substantial sole just feels so... substantial under me on the ground; they weigh about three pounds each. They fit me perfectly. Plus, you gotta love the jacquard. Someday I will find a cool way to wear them again, I just know it.


It's a strategy that worked for these:

These comfortable retro darlings were purchased seventeen years ago and kept optimistically on hand but rarely worn - UNTIL I got my fabulous favorite new jeans a month or so ago. The jeans are long enough for heels (a rare and beautiful treat for me); their slouchy bootcut leg loves the seventies, and the wash of the denim craves brown. It's a perfect combo. I've worn these seventeen year-old glogs more often in the last month than in the preceeding sixteen years and eleven months.

Sharing my shoes is making me giddy. I took many more photos and could go on longer, but why don't I leave it at these:

Do you have a pair of shoes that you don't wear as often as you could because you're saving them? These are mine. At least, that's what I tell myself. As you can see, I have several pairs of platform boots, most of which are less interesting and far less sexy than these. The others do make me happy to wear - the drama of three- or four-inch heels on a six-foot-one-inch woman is always lots of fun - and I usually have my reasons for wearing the others instead: chunkier heels are a bit less death-defying (not to mention less overtly, well, sexy), plus of course there are the other colors to consider. And I don't want to wear out my best.

But every time I do wear these boots, I feel deliciously indulgent - to the the point of a sort of shame -, like I'm granting myself a pleasure I've been denying. I don't think the photo captures it (because it's not just the boots but the way they fit me), but they're cut in a way that makes me understand why in the days of floor-length women's clothing, men used to get excited about a well-turned ankle. They're also of better quality than most of the others. I see now that the main reason I don't wear these boots more often is that on some level I think they're too good for me. Well, balderdash! My new jeans are long enough to wear with them. And though doing so will make me want to spend money I don't have at the moment on some smashing new top, I will wear them out as soon as it's feasible. Modesty may have its place, but there are times when a girl has got to screw self-deprecation. Right in its ear.

More Sunday Scribblings here!

checking in (the lusty month of may)

Well, I bought some ceramic and glass paints, a couple of different kinds. I splurged on three fancy paint-pens for glass, with which I plan to adorn glass vases as wedding gifts. I got fooled in the store by another type that said "dishwasher-safe," which was for either ceramic or glass and which required no baking. It was cheap, too, and came in a set of several decent colors. Could I really personalize dishes this way? If so, why doesn't everyone know about this? I should have known it was too good to be true. When I looked more closely at home, I saw the warnings about carcinogens and birth defects. Hmm. Perhaps I'll not use it to paint plates.

I know that food-safe ceramic paints exist. I haven't looked very hard yet, but now I'm not sure if anything fitting that description can be found outside the world of paint-your-own pottery places or home kilns. Very disappointing! I will keep looking, however, and let you all know. In the meantime, I'll paint some vases. That will be fun. I'm aiming for quality, though, not crafts-y. I don't want to give something away that I wouldn't love and be proud to to own. So wish me luck!

I'm happy to report that the painful seasonal transition time appears to be behind me. My beauty-tolerance capacity is way up, just in time for a stretch of sunny and warm, get-out-yer-tank-tops summery beauties this week. Trees and flowers are bursting everywhere like time-elapsed fireworks, and things are starting to become lush. Shade has returned to the road, and it looks momentarily out of place. A billion birds are chattering and singing praises out back. And the heady smell is almost too much for me - I actually get dizzy sometimes out walking, because I inhale too deeply and too often. I love May so much it hurts a little.

My practices are all going great. My synchronicities lately have all been too powerful, too personal, and too deeply spiritually oriented to find a comfortable home here on my blog, but, well, it's going on. And musically, fifteen minutes has begun to stretch more often into twenty and thirty and forty-five. I may not be writing yet, but I'm singing, improvising, playing harmonically challenging songs off the top of my head by ear, and generally finding my groove. The love is back.

The Ob I spoke with last week was very supportive, as was the friendly nurse who checked me in and could see no call for doubt, who said three or four times, "Oh that's so exciting." I now have a sort of plan, a timeline for adding this and that medical strategy if it comes to it. (Just a couple. Not the works. Too many babies in the world already in need of a family and of love, love, love. Perhaps one of them is ours? That would be okay, too.) But more important, when I left the office I felt youthful, dewy and burstingly fertile. And I must say, May is an awfully nice time to be trying to conceive!

It's been a good week.

sunday scribblings - why i live where i live

Nowhere else smells like New England.

I'm tempted to leave it at that. Oh, sure, there are other reasons. I like to live where there are co-ops and ponytailed year-round sandal-wearers and lots of gay people with lots of happy little kids. I can't afford organic food or premium cheeses just now, but I'd hate to live anywhere I had limited access to either. Of course, even for the specialty food and extended movie selection, I'd rather not be a city dweller. I don't like my wildlife sitings to be accompanied by the accute dread for the fate of the animal. The beaver and deer I see around here are at home; I'm the interloper.

I'm also a yankee. I'm independent and rather a smart-ass. It's not that I don't appreciate and enjoy overt friendliness when I visit places to which it seems indigenous; I do. But eventually, I feel exposed and worn out in cultures like that, and I'm glad to return to the optional MYOB, hands-off annonymity of my home. I like the fact that not saying hello to strangers is acceptable and sometimes prefered. I like how honesty is valued just as much if not more than manners. Don't get me wrong - I think our culture as a whole is slipping horrendously in the manners department, and I'm all for genuine kindness and consideration. It's just that - in truth? I prefer bracingly honest rudeness to fake two-faced niceness. If someone wants to say "Kiss my ass," then I wish they'd just come out with it rather than saying "Have a nice day," and MEANING kiss my ass. Or how about those mean fake "smiles" where the corners of the mouth turn up but the eyes scream "Please die." I say, cut the B.S. But I digress.

It's not that we're un-nice around here. We can be friendly. And when it comes down to it, we'll probably do just about anything for a soul in need. We're just not generally... agressively... nice. We can opt to keep to ourselves. We can keep our guard up if that's just how we are. We can stay in a little bubble of rumination or of reverie all day or all our lives if we want to, and it won't be taken personally. We're not expected to chat up the cashier at the market. And even though I can sometimes be a real cashier-chatter-upper, and even though some of the younger chatees adopt a look that suggests they believe themselves to be in a sort of peril, still, I like that.

But - bottom line? Nowhere else smells like home. Every season - every week of every season - there are gradations of change: something different is blooming, or filling up, or getting mowed down or burned, or going fallow. It's complex, of course. Each town has a river or a factory that broadly imprints its unique contribution. Salt water and sand add something different from corn fields or suburban pavement mazes. There are stinky muddy marshes and sunny baseball diamonds, shady rows of maples, dark piney depths and mossy stone walls. Each state has a different smell, like each state has a different feel. (Have you noticed? In many spots, the shift is palpable as you cross the borders.) And there are regional areas, sub-feels, sub-smells.

But all together, New England just smells like home. Many people who live here say they couldn't live without the seasons. That's true for me, too, but - rich spring soil, smoky snappy autumn leaves, hot dusty pavement and thirsty lawns, wet tree bark and snow - I think the shifting pallet of aromas is what's at the root of my love for the seasons themselves.

My house is the most house we could get for the money when it came time to buy. Two years later, we still regularly well up with gratitude at our luck. We love it. It's big and funky and friendly; it's solid. But one of the reasons I knew this was the one was the way the air up and down our street reminded me of the air on the playground at my old elementary school. Home.