My friend Gary Short was here this weekend. He’s touring around the west for his wonderful new book of poems: Ten Moons and Thirteen Horses. We had a great weekend, but come Monday morning, I find myself with that sloggy feeling one gets after a weekend of dinner parties. It was great fun, but there was a lot of food, and a lot of wine, and much good talk … but even after coming back from the gym I had that ooh-I-overdid-it feeling. So what’s the cure? Weed soup, of course. I was outside this morning checking the garden beds…
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Is so not living small, but sometimes, a girl just gets sucked into the bedding aisle at Target. And when you can give your entire bedroom a makeover for under, well, for more money than one might have wanted to spend, but less money than one would have spent on similar stuff at a less-discounty kind of store, then, as our friend Martha might say, that’s a good thing. And I guess living a tiny bit large isn’t going to kill me (despite post-spending terror that my job will get outsourced to India). So now I have a very fluffy,…
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I have deeply mixed feelings about the Martha Stewart verdict (says the woman who just blogged about ironing for goodness’ sake). On the one hand, it seemed pretty clear from the beginning that she was guilty of insider trading, but on the other hand, insider trading happens every day among folk of her ilk. Why the vigorous prosecution? Why not just a fine and have it done with? I mean, Ken Lay destroyed the retirement savings of thousands of his own employees, (to say nothing of the Neil Bush’s role in the S&L crisis of the late ’80’s — anyone…
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I’ve blogged before about ironing. I iron — or at least I did before. I got teased for it a little bit last summer by Patrick and his girlfriend — they’d come over for dinner in the backyard and we’d have a nice, ironed tablecloth and ironed napkins. I believe in table linens, they were the first thing I learned to iron years and years ago at the resort we’d go to in northern Wisconsin. I was a kid who was often bored, and who liked to help, and somehow I took to hanging around the laundry (the bag of…
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I’m still not the cheeriest bunny on the block these days, but I have to say I’ve been glued to the TV and San Francisco Chronicle website all weekend watching with tearful glee as the city by the bay stands up for Love. Big L Love. As they turned their gorgeous City Hall, truly one of the most elegant buildings around into a great big old wedding chapel and not just married any and all gay people who showed up, but married them with pride and joy and tearful wonder. Mark Morford’s column sums it up this morning, sums up…
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Normally I’m not particularly invested in things, especially in light of having spent the past three months trying to figure out what to do with all of Patrick’s belongings, but this week has brought both the arrival of Patrick’s furniture from California, and today, from my grandmother, two lovely silver trays that belonged to my great-grandmother Charlotte. It’s kind of nice, these family things around me. When I left California, I felt so bad for leaving Patrick that I gave him all the good furniture. And while this is the last way I would have wanted to wind up with…
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Back home in my cozy house after my tour of the Rockies. Ten below outside, so no dog walk this morning, and I’m planning on just hanging out in my sweats catching up on old NY Times, reading and puttering around. Christmas was wonderful, thanks to my friends Hope and Matt — I cried all the way across Wyoming on my way down there, overcome by the reality of Patrick’s death, and by the fact that, for the moment at least, I had no home. I love doing Christmas, and when Patrick and I were roommates we had several festive…
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I bought a new car. My old car was originally Patrick’s. He bought it in a fit of uncharacteristic fiscal responsibility — a 1998 Honda Accord. I was still living in Salt Lake, finishing my PhD. Patrick called me up and said he was thinking of selling his big Ford 150 4-wheel drive truck and buying a car. For anyone in a similar situation, services offering cash for cars in Bondi Beach make it easy to sell an old vehicle quickly and profitably. Many dealerships offering used cars in phoenix provide certified pre-owned options. These vehicles go through rigorous inspections…
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Ordering a Lamb Well, I ordered a lamb yesterday. It “won’t be ready” for a couple of more weeks, which means it’s still out there at the Schilling’s ranch, eating and growing and being a lamb. Which not only doesn’t bother me, it reassures me. It’s a happy lamb. It lives in my neighborhood. It’s being raised by responsible ranchers. And it’s a meat animal — that’s its purpose, so I’m not sad it’s going to die. I’m just relieved to know how it lived. When it’s big enough, about 60 pounds, it’ll go off to Big Timber to the…
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Pink! Over the weekend I renovated my office .. it is now a deep, bright, wonderful raspberry pink. The trim and the ceiling are bright white, as is the new desk, and the shelving (although I painted the cardboard backings for the shelving units the same pink as the walls). There’s a sort of spiffy-looking track light that gives me these dramatic pinspots and the whole thing looks like something out of a magazine. It makes me inordinately happy to be in here, which, since I work at home and spend most of my time in this room, is a…