at the kitchen table

Tuesday evening, and a rainy one. The first real rain of fall, actually, and you know after this things won't quite be the same. The sun will no doubt return, but you'll want to soak it up on a warm rock somewhere instead of sneaking around in the shade and waiting for the light to fall. As I've said before, September is a good month by me. It's calm. The cats sleep inside. My big sister comes to visit. The mornings are cool like a fresh glass of water.

Grand Canyon Morning

"I lay on naked rock, sipping nectar that  an hour earlier had been snow, and all around me the sun distilled voluptuous scents. A whiskered ground squirrel bounced onto a rock, froze, blurred, and was gone. Beyond shadow that still belonged to the night, a day's incoming sunlight streamed across the rock reefs. Noon pressed down onto the Esplanade, hotter each day, more ponderously silent. Evening came, and a softer, richer silence."

Photo via Discovery Channel.

My moms sent over a book, The Man Who Walked Through Time, by Colin Fletcher. Mr. Fletcher walked the entire length of the Grand Canyon in the 60s, all alone, and then wrote about it. My mom read it 30 years ago. Now me. An interesting cycle. Anyway, a quiet, relaxing text with much lovely language describing the hugeness of geologic time, the nature of beauty in the wild, and such. Made me want to pack up a satchel and split straight for the desert.

Hungover Owls

It was late at night. I was staring at the computer. I was working. I was tired. Then I clicked on a link via McSweeney's. And suddenly all was right again. Hungoverowls.tumblr.com is, simply put, a "website featuring photographs of owls who appear hungover." Totally asinine, yes, and also quite random, yet hilarious in a way that only hungover owls would be. Head over there. I know you will LOL.

Although many are good, my favorite might be the August 23rd entry. August 16th is also quite fetching.

Cinematic Magic

Some cinematic magic for you today. First, a little montage via Johnny Le concerning the final Department of Skateboarding session/BBQ I reported about a while back. Watch it. It'll make ya smile. Keep an eye out for the "Lance clip," and BGPs from me in a giant green shirt.

And this one you mighta seen before, but I hadn't. Astonishing. Mind-boggling. But I think I'll stick to skating mini ramps.

naked ladies and so on

It's a bit of a tradition around here. Bunch of females clean out their closets of unwanted clothes, get together over like eight bottles of wine, dump all said clothes on the ground, and pillage the pile. One can find many new treasures amidst other people's castaway junk. It's officially called the "Naked Lady Party" (I believe cuz there's a tradition of people getting naked right there in the living room to try stuff on? Which didn't actually happen—sorry gentlemen). Definitely try this. And make sure to invite people who got good style. And people who work at large apparel companies. And people who are really really good at thrift-storing. Yeah I had all the right ingredients at my Naked Lady Party. My favorite finds? A handsome vintage purple house dress, Cathy's old skate jeans that fit me like a glove, and a lot of "wicking" performance workout wear via Nike and Ashley. Awesome.

Before.

During....

After! P.S. it was Melissa's birthday and after we pillaged the clothes pile we ate cake out on the back patio.