stella's day out

isaac and i took the bus to boston yesterday to spend a day playing with stella, who was visiting with her mom and dad and their friend caroline. doesn't she get cuter by the second? it was such a treat to spend a day with her!

an improbable fiction

despite my baseline "hot and cranky" status, it turned out to be a pretty great day. i have my team of melissas to thank for that, actually; the dancer inspired me to get up and get going in the morning by meeting me at north star for coffee (mine was iced) and a walk. then later i had an exclusive tea party with my other favorite melissa at her lovely new apartment (which is magically only an eleven minute walk from my house). i am still thinking about her jasmine iced tea now, seven hours later. and finally, the dancer and i met up again this evening to see the fenix theatre company's production of twelfth night at the deering oaks wading pool. it was so incredibly funny. i think i may try to go back and see it again on saturday night.

he's not my dog, he's my friend

here is a gratuitous cute picture of minnow for your viewing pleasure.

different from what any one supposed, and luckier

i cut a whole bunch of hydrangea from the yard. seeing it around the house makes me feel like a gardener, even though i actually have nothing to do with it.





























































it also makes me feel like i'm really reveling in the summer. it's pretty easy to be content here in maine when it's summertime. the air feels so good these days, warm and breezy. my favorite smell is that icy-edged ocean air that blows through the windows at night.































we haven't had too much time for lounging on the beach or anything, but still it's been such a nice long, slow summer.


































and as far as what everyone's up to, here's a brief rundown:

mark and i are trying to squeeze out as much milo in maine as we can, given limited resources and various issues here and there. we are also getting some house projects done and keeping the weeds at bay in our yard.

zoë is employed at a "fast food franchise," as she puts it. she wears a very special polo shirt and visor to work. she is working a bunch of hours, putting lots of money in the bank, and continuing to job hunt. she is making the most of her days off, heading to the beach today with miss gliss and to funtown tomorrow with gliss and maggie.

isaac has been speeding through his summer reading for school (so far, he's read and written about the absolutely true diary of a part-time indian and the curious incident of the dog in the night-time), writing a screenplay, filming short movies, playing video games with his friend anthony, playing poker with his friend jack, riding his bike around town, and getting involved with blunt youth radio.

as for minnow, he spent those really hot days looking for the zipper on his dog costume, but he's feeling much better now.

the alamo: thirteen days to glory

they all die, even
alec baldwin. oops, should've
said, "spoiler alert!"

here in topeka

the past week's been a blur. last thursday, max left for his four month trip to spain and beyond, and the goodbyes were emotional.

that night, mark learned that his dad had died a few hours earlier. he had been diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis many years before and in recent months had grown more ill -- mark went to visit him in february knowing it might be the last time he'd see him. while it wasn't unexpected, it was very sad news. the four of us flew to kansas on saturday morning. we rented a car and drove from kansas city to topeka, stopping for dinner in lawrence at la familia, a mexican restaurant that was one of our favorites in college.*

entering god's country:

we drove past the sweet little house we lived in when we got married (which we did before we graduated from college. which may sound crazy, but it worked out pretty well in the end). we lived here with our great friend laura.

we also went by the house where i had my first apartment, which i shared with my dog ben. i lived on the second floor, and the first friend i made at k.u., megan, lived downstairs. i met mark in her apartment, where he was lounging around bouncing a ball off the wall (i know, romantic, right?).

it was wonderful to see mark's family. i haven't visited for years and years, although mark makes an effort to take zoë and isaac at least every couple of years.

i helped his mom sort through a bunch of old photos to take to the funeral home for people to look through.

i especially love these wedding pictures. mark's parents got married when they were seventeen and nineteen (every time this fact came up, mark's mom would rush over to zoë and cover her ears). they were married for fifty-two years.

the cemetery is near a pond with resident ducks and geese. after the burial, mark's sister tracey stopped to feed them.

in my very limited experience of death and funerals, i've found it to be an incredibly meaningful time. as sad as the occasion is, it feels like the most important thing in the world to gather friends and family together and talk and eat and laugh with them. i'm so glad we were able to be there.

oh, and i'm so glad we were able to pose with mark's dad's gun collection.**

*we met at the university of kansas in lawrence when i was twenty and mark was twenty-one. if you've never been to lawrence, you should go there because it is magically one of the best towns i've ever been to. no, it's not flat. also, la familia used to be located in a house in east lawrence. i mean, it was a house: you would walk into the living room and sit there or in the dining room, and if you used the bathroom you would see that there was a bathtub in there.

**note: we are not gun people. mark's dad wasn't a gun person either, but these belonged to his father, and he kept most of them in a gun rack in the laundry room. note also that zoë was not interested in participating in the gun photography project.

a streetcar named desire

"a line can be straight --
or a street -- but the heart of
a human being?"

big it up

vegenaise + sriracha = an unholy alliance. also, utterly delicious. i recommend making a boatload of vegetable sushi with this spicy sauce inside, like i did last night, and then inviting some fun people over to eat it with you.





















afterward, you might want to try playing 1000 blank white cards, which we did not invent (unlike the aforementioned spicy sauce). it involves a constantly evolving deck of homemade cards. they might tell you to do a dance, act out a scene, eat something, make a noise, or - perhaps - cut off a chunk of your hair and glue it to your chin to make a homemade goatee.





















or, possibly, let your brother draw a tattoo of his choosing on your body with a sharpie.





















some members of our party had to leave early, thereby missing a pretty awesome game of foursquare. the dancer got the hang of it fast.





















jill's feet, isaac's feet.





















foursquare, jill style.





















meanwhile, zoë and artemis waltzed on the playground.





















a thing of beauty is a joy for ever:/its loveliness increases; it will never/pass into nothingness...





















 and also, here is something artemis and i have in common.

my girl

is still job hunting (i don't think i ever told you the story of the job she had and immediately lost through no fault of her own). she's applied just about everywhere in this town, and i'm positive she'll soon land one.

we walked downtown together a couple of times this week, despite the heat. this barbershop will always make me laugh now, because of this.





















the library = hours of free, air conditioned entertainment.





















this book made me think of young billy joe isaac:






















seriously, books are funny.





















my girl is a little blue because max is leaving in one week for his farming adventure in spain. he'll be gone several months, and then in january the two of them will head off to india for their joint adventure. it's going to be very strange around here without him.

no impact man

no toilet paper?
living with this guy's smugness
would be the hard part.

katonah

my dad, isaac, and i handed the sweeties off yesterday in katonah, which is more or less halfway in between new jersey and cambridge. my family lived there for about nine years, from when i was eleven until i was a sophomore in college. it's not where i'm "from," but at the same time, it kind of is.

oh, before you continue reading this, you really should be listening to katonah by rufus wainwright. even though we weren't burying jack johnson or anything. still, the song is about katonah, and even mentions  "taconic" and "westchester," words that are not often sung about.

we had lunch at the katonah restaurant, which was a diner when i lived there (though it was always called the katonah restaurant). holly and i used to go there for fries and diet soda. was the wait staff always this cranky? i can't remember.





















we drove up wildwood road, past our old house. some of the houses look exactly the same (same names on the mailboxes and everything). ours is unrecognizable. i didn't take a picture because there was a guy out front working on something. there is odd siding and a pointy roof and a second story and a wide stone chimney where once was a basic l-shaped, flat-roofed ranch. there is still a day camp directly across the street (holly and i both worked there several summers. i could stumble out of bed in the morning, throw on my katonah day camp ringer t-shirt, and stumble across the street to work).





















 i went to katonah elementary for sixth grade. i learned to juggle there.





















i have blocked so many memories about john jay junior high (now middle school) that i'm not even sure if it looks different now. probably. i still have nightmares about trying to find the right bus in this circular driveway.





















and finally, a stop at my high school. and there you have it, the tour down memory lane! isaac was very tolerant about getting his picture taken in scenic locales and hearing stories about how what is now a pizza place used to be the other deli, also known as the "murder market," though i don't really know why. i pointed out the scenes of various crimes, my friends emily and eva's house, the house where "crazy esther" lived, the path through the woods we took to walk home from downtown, the things that are the same and the things that have changed. i almost feel sorry for people who stay in the same place, or maintain their connection to it consistently. because it's really fun to have the perspective of returning somewhere after years have passed.

rabbit rabbit

already?! yes, already.