Favorites 1.5.15
Rock-and-roll house shows: When your friends take out their instruments and play live music in a living room so that you can rock out and also appreciate how rad and talented they are—that's the good stuff.
Going back to work: Vacationing is good, (you need it to rest/think big picture/fall apart and put yourself back together again, all phoenix like), but for me, creative work and the life surrounding that is better.
Finishing a book: Doesn't have to be a good one. Just putting in the work to read all the words and sentences so that you can close the back cover on ’em—it's enough to get you high on the validation of accomplishment.
WTF by Marc Maron: He's a comedian. He's whip smart. He's fired up. His interview-based podcast called What The Fuck delights me. Fave episodes include: RuPaul, Bob Mould, and Martin Starr.
2014: A Year In Pictures
Life! The days are short, but when you go to count 'em up, you find that entire years have amassed.
January: Indoor concrete. The spark of a brand-new year. Cold nights, the moon frozen in the western sky.
February: Heart-shaped cookies. Sunny days and then days of blizzard. Ducking inside to drink tequila and then walking home through a snow globe.
March: A bouquet of waterfalls. The pine-laced air of central Oregon. Rain, sun, and how all the cherry blossoms pop over night.
April: Long walks 'neath the flowered drooping trees. The institution of backyard mini ramping. Lefty in the morning light.
May: Golden-hour grinds. Campfire nachos and sleeping under the stars. That sweet, pine-sap smell that tells of an Oregon summer.
June: Falling down a kind of rabbit hole of summer.
July: Zoo-bombing on warm nights. Skate camp. And that night we took the rainfly off our tent and peered straight up into the dome of stars.
August: Heat. Haze. Big roving rain clouds. Summer ends softly like a feather floating to the ground.
September: One last river day. Trish and Cairo, tying the knot. And all of my buds in my backyard for my birthday.
October: Warm fall nights, soaring down empty streets with the leaves flying away. Halloween hijinks that are done by 10 p.m.
November: When your life turns on a dime.
December: Backyard skate secrets. Forgetting things that need forgetting. Copious celebrations and an apocalyptic wind storm.
Traditions/Habits
Christmas holiday in Colorado where my fam lives. It’s a tradition. Do you have those? I don't really, just habits. But “traditions” sounds nicer.
Seems like there’s always a good reason to go home this time of year, although sometimes it’s not to celebrate. That’s okay. Just gathering together with the people who gave you life and share your blood is a kinda powerful observance on its own.
Everything was irrefutably caked in snow.
I took nephew Pat to the ski mountain, and we spent the day lost in winding tree trails.
I got a sturdy pair of kitchen sheers, for snipping the shit out of chives and such.
I smelled salted caramel.
I ate toasted pecans.
I watched the dog eat scraps of shiny paper.
Now won’t it be grand when all this holiday crap is over??
Wild Hunts
Hi from the solstice. Not that "the solstice" is a place ... it kind of is, though. It's the heart of winter, an auspicious day back in pagan times, for, you know, cosmic reasons. Me? I think the sparkle of today is just the promise that life will return.
Isn't that why we drag green branches into our home when there's nothing green outside?
It's interesting, actually, to remember why we do all the shit we do this time of year.
"The symbolic use of plants at Christmas effectively transforms the modern-day living room into a place of shamanic ritual," reads Pagan Christmas: The Plants, Spirits, And Rituals At the Origins Of Yuletide.
Saturnalia and the Wild Hunt. Yule logs, the cult of tree worship, and magic mushrooms that let your mind soar the sky like it's on a sleigh. That winter holiday, the one we forgot about, sounds a whole lot rowdier and more darkly magical. And I'm down for that ... I can't speak for you, of course.
The mistletoe I hung—for kissin' season. The Druids would be proud.
Ye olde Christmas ficas tree.
Favorites 12.18.14
Sitting in nooks: The dog lays under the coffee table. The cat climbs into any empty box on the premises. And I sip coffee in my breakfast nook. Why? Because everyone just wants to feel contained.
Forgetting things that need forgetting: An act of will, yes, but possible.
Coconut flakes: Raw, carved straight from the mother ship. I like how the flavor is subtle, coming in at the end there like the fog moving in off the water.
"New Partner": Bonnie Prince Billy does himself doing Palace Music doing this song. Pow!