zirconium

[The subject line's from Thomas Hardy's "The Phantom Horsewoman."]

Shuffling to my study at 2:30 am to get a poem out of my head hasn't happened in a good long while. I'm not thrilled about the timing, but I should be able to sneak in a disco nap before I have to drive anywhere, and there are worse fates than communing with Thomas Hardy (while looking up rondeaux and triolets) and the indoor rose over a mug of valerian-camomile tea.



I do not need a Maestro Wu knife, but I am glad to know about it. (Via Grub Street's profile of Yun Hai Taiwanese Pantry, in Brooklyn. The blades are "forged from scrap metal and bombshells that mainland China fired on Taiwan.")

A new word to me, via Joelle Taylor: lemniscate. She highlights it as one of the six words that summarise her.

Dwelling on this a bit: the first six words that come to mind for myself form a portrait of whom I want to be, not an accurate resume of me as I am. So I shall make myself another mug of tea and then snatch some sleep, with an eye towards the former. (Not that I'm inclined to write specifically about me in my poems these days, but amused, buff, calm, dangerous, elegant, glorious lend themselves to better arrangements of words, and sleep is a means...

In peering at the news: I am laughing immoderately at Russ Jones's characterisation of Jacob Rees-Mogg as "the harrowing outcome of a bout of hate-sex between a Dalek and a bassoon" (and, predictably, someone in the replies has already protested that that's unfair to bassoons; h/t aunty_marion).

I have not been paying attention to Wimbledon. I do miss some of the craic, but my current headspace would rather dwell on transplanting tomato and pepper seedlings and spreading pine straw, so that's what's happening between coding, corresponding, and tumbling into lakes.

Tu b'shevat arrives tomorrow, and Middle Tennessee is supposed to get whumped by snow by then. Coincidentally, a crepe myrtle the Beautiful Young Man had ordered at the start of November was delivered this week, so he's planting it as I type.



The miniature rose bush I bought at the supermarket a year ago put out some glorious blooms. They were also havens for dozens of tiny bugs, though, so I chucked them into compost sooner than later. The Christmas cacti also put on a good show throughout December.

I'm going to chop up a fir wreath for mulch after I post this. I usually deal with it the day after Epiphany, but I'm still ill (!@#@!#@ lungs), though I'm managing a walk across the neighborhood most evenings. Many of my neighbors still have Christmas/fairy lights up, and I'm enjoying them as I stride through the gloom. There's also a new-to-me greenhouse in one of the alleys I tend to cut through, that may or may not be a commercial venture.

There's sorrow: relationships foundering, people dying. There's hilarity: recent reading has included K.J. Charles's Band Sinister ("You've been waiting your whole life for someone to write a Gothic novel about you, haven't you?"), Flight of Magpies, and A Gentleman's Position ("If you're obliged to cross a man at all, nail him to one while you're at it"), and I may confine my Instagram posts this winter to #CatsInPictureBooks. There's the annual gorgeous Lunar New Year card from a cousin in Kaohsiung. There are the tomatoes I canned and froze over the past two summers that I've been using now in soups and sauces. There's being terrified for the future of my city (those FUCKERS in the legislature . . .) and country and doing what I can anyway. There's pushing through paperwork and code, and trying to keep the pitcher plants alive, and adding smatterings of sparkle and substance to ongoing conversations when I can, and holding my peace and keeping my own counsel plenty of other times, and all this adds up to life being a lot even though the coughing + Omicron means I've been sidelined from singing since November, and I haven't seen anyone socially since December 18. (I do like plenty of time alone, but I object to my style being cramped. Grrrr.)

But! Neighbors brought by smoked cream cheese and Texas caviar, and friends sent galaxies and other goodies, and I made ginger tea with homegrown ginger root earlier this week and fixed a keyboard lag issue this morning. On to weeding and wreaths and mailings and daube marseillaise.

Today's subject line is from the middle of Robert Frost's "October," which has these lines near the middle:

Oh hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.

The days seem so brief indeed. This poem ends with grapes, which sent me to another Frost poem -- "Wild Grapes" -- that knocked me off my feet, so to speak, when I first read it back in grade school:

I said I had the tree. It wasn't true.
The opposite was true. The tree had me.
The minute it was left with me alone
It caught me up as if I were the fish
And it the fishpole.

A few days ago, a colleague called me a rock star, which feels especially good right now both because I've been enjoying Anna Zabo's Twisted Wishes romance trilogy (pansexuality, aromaticism, bondage, trans hero, mouthy performers, snarky PR manager, art, music, pie, very good coffee, and more [*]) and because there are miles of learning curve to scale at the job. Very appealing vistas; trying to pace myself accordingly -- hence romance novels instead of Big Data slides on this day of rest, with some champagne from an event I emceed last month, and artichoke-anchovy carciuga left over from an impromptu dinner I hosted a week ago.

[* The author has some free short stories on their site. I just giggled my way through the one about the rival neurobiologists.]

The friends who came over had suggested going out, but I didn't have a good feeling about that, both because of Delta and because Saturday nights in Nashville tend to bring too many hipsters, bachelorettes, and other species of extroverts into not enough square feet for my preferred level of cope. Turned out to be a brilliant call on my part -- traffic around my neighborhood was hosed for hours, what with 70,000 people attempting to see Garth Brooks at Nissan Stadium and the thunderstorms that forced the organizers to eventually call the night off. More important, I had everything I needed at home to improvise a nice pescatarian meal -- marcona almonds and Indonesian spiced cashews, fish ball soup, tomato salad, mushroom-carrot bao, and eggplant stir-fried with tofu. I didn't have time to make the ginger marshmallow fluff I'd hoped to offer with cinnamon graham crackers and chocolate (aka fancy s'mores), but that was for the best, since our lovely guests brought with them two kinds of ice cream mochi, along with seaweed salad, cocktail fixings, a sheaf of homegrown lavender, and three heads of garlic, also from their garden. I seriously like being an adult.

Of course, being an adult also means calculating which platters to keep spinning and which to let crash amid competing demands and recurring waves of disappointment, rage, and frustration. I think I'm getting a mite better at recognizing (lack of) capacity -- it hasn't stopped me from going, Oooh! The dragon dance team is recruiting! Ooooh! Little Debbie sculpture contest! Oooh! Toaster oven in a freebie pile! but sleep is winning out over FOMO more often these days. As some of you know, I signed a contract in January 2020 to perform in a professional immersive theater production that would have taken place in June 2020. Things got as far as a photo shoot, but when the venue published its 2021-22 schedule earlier this summer, the show was no longer listed, and while that isn't in any way a surprise, nor would I want or expect the artistic or logistical teams to have decided otherwise, it had been a thrill to be chosen, and something with a lot of potential, both creatively and socially, so yeah, I've been in a bit of mourning over that.

And, although I do better on my own more than many, I've lost ground over the past sixteen months from not singing regularly with others and not hitting the Y every day and it's going to take time to rebuild my voice and get back into form. My current Ailey class pass is about to run out, and it's just as well, because I do not have the focus right now for Zoom Zumba or any other online sweat session. Paddleboarding's on hold until later this month, because I pulled a back muscle last week and because traffic will be impossible this weekend and next. (Ironically, I received invites from two newer friends to go paddling within the past two weeks.) It's fine, but I'm massively annoyed about having let things fall out of shape, but also cutting myself slack, because look, we're dealing with coups and viruses and literal crowds of white supremacist fascist knucklehead grifters, and even Energizer-bunny rockstar me is going to have patches of "fuck off, I need ten naps and a pint of stracciatella before I can deal with any more of y'all."

I have been cracking half-baked Oz jokes for the past month, in part because that's the name of the venue I would have been performing at, and also because my zip code is in the Emerald City "LifeMode Group" of a recent study. The description isn't wrong. (h/t NashToday)

Anyhow, it's time to figure out where I put the library books that are due in six days, sort through yesterday's tomatoes, and get going on today's Spanish homework + freelance pages. Many of my friends were at English Country Dance Week up in Pinewoods (Massachusetts) the past seven days, and as with so many other things right now, I'm a muddle of envy and nostalgia and thank-god-I'm-not-there when I think about them allemande-ing and waltzing without me. (Pinewoods changed my life, for the better -- I'll write more about that some other time -- but I wouldn't be there even in a normal year, because I am unapologetically a housecat and there are dance/music vacations that don't involve outhouses and ticks and camper chores. Just sayin.') And I'd like to be better at playing tunes from Barnes by the time I fully rejoin the ECD universe. Speaking of more things to work on. After today's nap.)

Today's subject line is from Bachelor's "Stay in the Car," which has been earworming me since I heard it on WXNP earlier this week.

Dance recommendation: Anna Morrissey's All Together Alone, a modern take on "Ebben? ne andrò lontana," which I've adored since playing viola for it eons ago. Up until May 29. Warning for light-sensitives: there is some strobe action in it.

I keep meaning to mention the Stay at Home Choir's recording of Christopher Tin's "Sogno di Volare," which I sang on. (I chose to participate audio-only on this one.)



A Catholic composer who had also been involved with "Sogno" contacted me via Instagram about joining the virtual choir for one of his recordings, so that's in my practice folder now. I've sat out most of this year's SAHC projects, but they're doing another run at Ode to Joy, this time with a new German text by Michael Köhlmeier, and there's no registration fee for this one. It's unclear if there will be a recording involved, nor can I make the first alto sectional, but I do not care -- any time I can spend with that piece will help me refuel.

Today I squeezed in two dance sessions -- one for a reel that will be shown at a UK folk festival in June, and Karen Arceneaux's Beginner Horton class with Ailey Extension, where we're learning a combination to Billie Eilish's "Lovely" that Karen choreographed with Mental Health Awareness Month in mind. My back and shoulder are not 100%, and I stepped on a splinter last night (ow!), and there's like forty hours of work to fit into the next fourteen, so I'm pleased with myself for showing up (on camera, even!) and staying more focused than not.

It's not all wine and roses here, but my roses are doing very well this year, and my mom-in-law brought two bottles of prosecco to lunch on Sunday, along with this bouquet:



What I served (for four people total):

deviled eggs

bacon jam balls on red pepper strips

cashews

pickled garlic

tortellini with shrimp in a radish-lemon-anchovy sauce (adapted from an Anita Lo recipe)

green beans seasoned with butter and raspberry balsamic vinegar

zucchini soufflé

almond layer cake from Sweet 16th

The next afternoon, the other two members of the museum editorial team came over for our production meeting. I made another plate of deviled eggs, the junior editor brought Russian tea cookies, and we collectively put away more cake while having ourselves a merry time and discussing at length All the Things Due.

A week ago, something decided to eat every mallow seedling in my back yard. It left the adjacent zinnia seedlings alone, and I hadn't spent too much time thinning out the mallows, so I was amused as well as annoyed: I mean, clearly it was a really tasty snack for the critter? It had even consumed the scraps I had pulled from the ground earlier that Friday.

Being slightly ridiculous, I had put some of the bigger thinnings in water in hopes of transplanting them, and by yesterday some of them had developed long plump roots, so they went into some of the dirt patches out front. Fingers crossed . . .

I'm such a sucker for kawaii packaging. I hadn't planned on buying more mooncakes this season, having already splurged on two boxes and a CAAN festival feast last month. But, BUNNIES!!!

(The cakes are gorgeous, so I placated my household budget gods by designating three of the four as gifts to colleagues/family. And I subsequently received a box of four from a vegetarian friend who had purchased them before realizing that they contained lard.)

Autumn Sky Poetry Daily published my poem "Vinegar" this week.

Herding deliverables to their destinations has been grueling, and I missed dances, chats, and services this week. And an alternate service I attended for a few minutes was off-key enough that on five hours of sleep across two days, I couldn't take it. On an un-whiny note, though, it's indeed a silver lining to have multiple options for all three, and to be able to catch some of the recordings later. This week's video sessions also included London Art Week's webinar on 15th-century frames, whose presenters in turn recommended Closer to Van Eyck, which may be of interest to the medieval/Renaissance, restoration/conservation, and interactive programming nerds who happen to be reading this. Today's dance (hosted by Iowa English Country Dance) included "Hazelfern Place," which I had not encountered before, and a breakout-room craic with dancers/musicians in Atlanta (with bonus rubber chicken) and Bristol (UK).

Pounding through piles of pages (and spending hours de-snarling some tech tangles) also meant not restocking on groceries until today, so we'd run out of eggs, bacon, waffles, lettuce, and other staples by this morning. But I was able to produce Uncle Nearest jello cups and deviled eggs for a tiny outdoor gathering, and spiced banana muffins to cover a couple of breakfasts, so go me. I have more work and correspondence to whale through tonight, but first I'm going to make chili with some of the tomatoes I grew:


The green bananas are to help ripen the green fruit I'll have to bring in early because of rodents or frost. speaking of which. . .

The BYM (gestures toward scrabbling in the walls): Can you do something about that squirrel?
Me: Burgoo.
The BYM (shouts at the scrabbling): Hear that, mf? KENTUCKY IS IN THE HOUSE.

The subject line is from Yehuda Amichai, whose poem "God Full of Mercy" is among those I bookmarked in Into English, which I finally returned to the library this morning. The book was recommended by Marissa Lingen earlier year, and I posted about it Monday morning and yesterday night at Vary the Line.

Reading Robert Alter's compilation of Amichai poems would fit my mood right now, but I'm not ready to borrow print books from the library, so it will go on my someday list. It's not as if there isn't plenty to read and do in and to this house. I am almost-put-my-phone-in-the-washer tired, I will be working this weekend on tasks I'd hoped to go yard on a week ago, I didn't make time for the three e-books the library will reclaim today, I missed a meetup with Asheville dancers because my shift went past twelve hours, and both my workout and mindful eating practices went to hell.

But! And! I met a bunch of deadlines and planted more tomatoes, and sowed seeds for basil and cornflowers, and poured two bags of cedar mulch around the roses. I have a fresh stack of postcards. And I did in fact remember to look at the moon tonight (as well as smelling and sipping good coffee all week).

After dedicating 60+ hours to the museum this week, compounded by 3 days of missed workouts, I did not try to persuade brain or body into executing any should-dos today, other than a few maintenance rounds of Duolingo (Day 169) and dealing with food on the edge of going bad. So, for breakfast, a bruised and nicked Envy apple got paired with Kunik cheese (from a box received last month). Lunch included the last of the chocolate pudding I made ten days ago.

Late in the afternoon, I split the package of ten chicken drumsticks from last week's K&S run into two batches: one is marinating in the spice paste from Jody Adams's recipe for Roasted Rock Cornish Game Hens with North African Flavors (in In the Hands of a Chef), and the other I cooked tonight in a variation of Adams's Ginger-Turmeric Chicken with Lime Yogurt and Coconut Rice. We have only green onions on hand, so I used the white bits for tonight's dinner and put the green bits into my jar of shrimp stock. I did not bother with chicken stock or cilantro, but a limp crown of broccoli had reproached me all week from its shelf, so it got added to the roasting pan. The result looked and tasted fine (though I gather from the BYM that the coconut rice is the real keeper):



Discovering that Jody and Ken had revived their blog (their last pre-pandemic post had been in 2015) was a pleasant surprise. I've also been vegging with a slew of Grub Street Diet entries, which I came across while looking up discussions of Jody's Soupe de Poisson. I really like Margalit Cutler's illustrations, and the people interviewed say relatable things like "I am always doing something, it’s just rarely the thing I most need to be doing" (Julia Turshen) and "cut fruit is Asian parents’ love language" (Priya Krishna). [The day/week-in-the-life genre is a species of Pegnip, I guess, even when I think the metrics are nonsensical (cf. Philly's Sweat Diaries, where the accounting of money spend rarely factors in food already on hand).]

Also from the "Back after a long break" Department: David Handler took like 20 years off between Book 8 and Book 9 of his Stewart Hoag series, and has since produced 3 novels and a short story I didn't know about until recently. So those are part of the escapism party pack, along with dance videos, such as this performance by the Still River Sword troupe.

Speaking of performing, I appeared in a balcony scene Thursday night (it starts at around 59:30, with at least two cats and some verrrrry Southern accents in the mix). This week's mayhem also included pitcherfuls of wintermelon-rum-campari slushies and sober-yet-daft conversations about chive reproduction (occasioned by the below salad). Dull doesn't stand a chance around here.

Via kirbyfest, kass, antisoppist, and others...

1. Are you an Essential Worker?

No.

2. How many drinks have you had since the quarantine started?

1 bottle of chardonnay
5/6 bottle of Bordeaux
2 beers
1/3 bottle of Louisa's Liqueur ("Louisa Nelson was a woman of remarkable strength and character. . . .")

3. If you have kids... Are they driving you nuts? n/a

4. What new hobby have you taken up during this?

There still aren't enough hours in the day.

5. How many grocery runs have you done?

5? If counting from around the Ides of March. We are down to one scant cup of soy sauce and no mirin, and I ate the last apple this morning, so I cannot put off donning the face mask much longer.

6. What are you spending your stimulus check on?

It will be split between part of a mortgage payment and the fee charged by our new estate lawyer to get our wills and directives updated. (See #15.)

7. Do you have any special occasions that you will miss during this quarantine?

The plans canceled so far through July would fill a whole entry.

My birthday is next month, and I hadn't planned to host a party anyhow (because of rehearsals for Grand Magnolia), but I'm still thinking of ordering an almond cake from Sweet 16th, even though I might end up freezing 3/4 of it.

8. Are you keeping your housework done?

I'm able to tackle more of it because I'm home all day (and because I'm less okay with all the dust and grime now that I am), but done? Cue fit of derisive laughter.

9a. What movie have you watched during this quarantine?

Saw You Gave Me a Song: The Life and Music of Alice Gerrard Monday night, courtesy of the Southern Circuit Film Festival.

9b. What are you reading right now?

Good Omens and The Graham Kerr [aka the Galloping Gourmet] Cookbook

9c. What video game are you playing?

I consider Duolingo a video game. Diamond League, my dudes!

10. What are you streaming with?

YouTube/DailyMotion/Vevo, Spotify, and Hoopla (thank you, Nashville Public Library)

11. 9 months from now is there any chance of you having a baby? Oh hell no.

12. What's your go-to quarantine meal?

Fried rice, with ketchup and a scrambled egg added to whatever odd tasty bits can be scrounged from the fridge and the yard.

13. Is this whole situation making you paranoid?

It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you.

14. Has your internet gone out on you during this time?

It's periodically flaky, especially when I'm juggling both home and work connections.

15. What month do you predict this all ends?

"All" being the pandemic, or broad "safer at home" measures? Being deeply cynical, I suspect social restrictions here in the South might ease up by summer solstice or even earlier -- resulting in the curve roaring up three or four or even more times before people truly finally register (if indeed they ever do) that it's not going to end until enough of us cooperate with scientific realities and enough policymakers get their heads out of their asses for an effective vaccine not only to be developed but manufactured and distributed in sufficient quantity to inoculate the general population regardless of socioeconomic means. Which I'm guessing will be more than 18 months out, and given how such things often take far longer than hoped for, it would not surprise me if it takes 36.

All that said, I'm still mulling over whether to continue my membership at the Y. I'm leaning towards no, because I imagine that I will feel for a long time like I'm unnecessarily tempting fate every time I use the pool or sauna or shared equipment, and it's going to feel less safe walking alone across downtown given how many more people are now in dire straits. But I am so much better about pushing myself when I'm a regular at their classes. I am also admittedly reluctant to cancel since I would have to pay a new joining fee if I ever wanted to return, and I wouldn't get the discounted rate I have now, and who knows what their offerings will be once things get back to some pretense of normal. But that is bad math on my part -- the new fee would likely not exceed two months of what I pay now, and the full rate not exceed the total otherwise wasted on two or three years of minimal use. And moreover, pressuring myself to resume going to the Y before I truly feel safe there because it's paid for is the sort of daft thing my brain doesn't need to be doing to me.

(So, yay meme for nudging me into spelling all this out instead of the half-baked dithering I'd applied to the situation thus far.)

16. First thing you're gonna do when you get off quarantine?

Get a haircut and a massage. (Yes, there are people I miss, but it's not like I saw them every week or every month pre-pandemic, and I'm not a hug-my-colleagues gal.)

17. Where do you wish you were right now?

I was supposed to be sea-kayaking near Charleston right around now. (Though I'm also side-eyeing the hotel's email, sent last week: "We thought you would have rebooked by now...")

18. What free-from-quarantine activity are you missing the most?

Swimming laps and English country dancing and waltzing. And right now I don't know if I will return to any of those after the pandemic ends, although in English maybe it will become okay to wear gloves outside of formals.

(I mean, I probably will. I can be as stupid as many people when it comes to disregarding risk because the prospect of missing out becomes too much to bear. But I also don't lack for other diversions -- or, for that matter, obligations. And there's also working to help save the republic . . . )

(Not incidentally, my stats as of Monday: More than 1300 postcards sent since mid-2017, including 123 for Jill Karofsky (Wisconsin Supreme Court). Plus additional cards sent in response to recommendations from Americans of Conscience, plus some self-initiated messages and calls in reaction to other feeds and sources.)


19. Have you run out of toilet paper and hand sanitizer?

No, although the current stash of TP is on the scratchier side than what we usually keep on hand.

20. Do you have enough food to last a month?

No. I like fresh produce and meat (and general variety) too much (just ask my friends in Detroit who had to put up with me craving salad when we were hitting dive bars). Although I also have trouble resisting sales, which is ironically why we have a good supply of paper towels and wipes (both purchased pre-lockdowns), along with three boxes of Hamburger Helper, a huge bag of tulsi leaves, and other testaments to past bouts of impulsiveness and ridiculousness.

It's rarely a good sign when I'm quoting Wordsworth, since I do not care for him or his verse, and that's all I'm going to say here about world affairs.

I am exasperated about many things and at many individuals, including myself. Among other things, I had managed to coax a rose seed into sprouting after stratifying it from November through January -- but then forgotten to water it for a week or two, what with deadlines and drama occupying too much of my brain. It's a tiny failure amid the many things I succeeded in pushing across finish lines this month, but dammit.

On an upside, there's a new late bloom on one of the Christmas cacti, and some shoots are peeking out of the indoor daffodil bulbs. I danced for 3.5 hours yesterday and 2.5 today, the latter at a Zumbathon that raised $600+ for a Puerto Rican family. I'd planned on going to classes in the morning as well, but the need both for extra sleep and extra hours at the office prevailed.

I am wearing slippers and pajama bottoms with sheep motifs, and this popped up on my Duolingo screen not too long ago:



It's not always bad to feel seen.. ;)