zirconium: tulip in my front yard, April 2014 (tulip)
The subject line's from a Willow Branch Song by Ch'ien Ch'ien-yi (1582 - 1664; translated by Irving Yucheng Lo). The full verse:


A crescent moon hangs on the tip of the willows,
New leaves are like eyebrows, the moon's like a hook.
Wait till the moon is round and reflected in a mirror
To lift from my eyebrows ten thousand layers of grief.


I generally try not to be around people the week of St. Patrick's Day. It's the anniversary of my mother's death, and today is the anniversary of Mama Nancy's death, plus even years outside of pandemics it's mid-term and not-quite-close-enough-to-the-end-of-the-quarter and almost everyone is so tired of winter and more than a little frayed.

Taking the whole week off wasn't feasible this year; to stay logged off on Wednesday, I worked until 4 a.m. that morning, and I'll be marking 40+ pages of proofs this weekend as well. But it did feel good and right to do some deep cleaning that afternoon, which included tossing out scraps of paper with topics I'd meant to blog about, but the moment(um) had faded (George Clooney's love of writing/receiving letters, contemporary songs about dementia/memory loss, the Megan Rapinoe/Sue Bird feature in GQ . . .).

Nashville journalist Natasha Senjanovic has an invitation for y'all:


You can hear me talking about bao and Duolingo and reading "Climb" at https://www.bestofpossibleworlds.com/audio.

Also recently published: "Truth and Dare," at Autumn Sky.

Finally - written ten years ago, and published the following spring:
On Embodying an Asian Fantasy


Measured Extravagance is out of print, but if you'd like a copy, send me proof of a donation ($6 or more) to NAPAWF, Tupelo Pres, or Postcards to Voters, and I'll beam a PDF to you.
zirconium: Photo of 1860 cast of Lincoln's hand (Lincoln hand)
Subject line = quote from stellaandbow's Instagram.

At Manhattan's Central Synagogue, senior rabbi Angela Buchdahl (with backing clergy) performed Cohen's "Hallelujah" in tribute:


Cedille Records' statement includes a beautiful portrait by Constance Beaty. Earlier this month, I received a Soirée Cedille gift bag. It included recipe cards. (The bluefish spread is now on my To Make list.)


zirconium: Photo of 1860 cast of Lincoln's hand (Lincoln hand)
Today's subject line comes from this weekend's Live from Here broadcast, in a reading by Lulu Miller, I think around 1 hour and 40 minutes in.

Today's photo is of a jar full of stars -- a birthday gift recently delivered to me:
jar of stars

I do not like having to multitask as often as I do, but being able to fry bacon and mushrooms while attending my church's congregational meeting is a plus, especially as it trundles through its second hour. The meeting started with an exceptionally good tutorial, and I've been jotting down Zoom navigation tips from other members (new to me: to change your name within the Participants list while in a meeting, put the cursor over your name and click "More ->").

The frying is for a quiche I'm pulling together, since there were carrot and kohlrabi tops from last week's market bag. In looking up how to prepare kohlrabi, I ended up giggling at this bit from Martha Rose Shulman [NYT]:


Every time I work with kohlrabi I wonder why I don’t buy it more often.

If you receive it in your CSA basket and you’ve never worked with it before, you may find the thick-skinned vegetable puzzling, maybe even daunting. As the nutritionist Jonny Bowden describes it in his book The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth, kohlrabi “looks like a cross between an octopus and a space capsule.” That’s true, especially if the greens are still attached. If they’re not, it just looks like a space capsule.


As I told a friend last night, I'd like fewer bugs (both literal and figurative) and more sleep. I'm saying "no" and "later" to various projects to make the more sleep possible, but the docket still overfloweth. The congregation meeting hit the two-hour mark right before the chalice extinguishing. Up next, in my Franklin-Covey-ish blocks:

[A]
  • finish assembling the quiche (with a substitute for the heavy cream we don't have on hand)

  • prep for Monday presentation to interns

  • mark edits to wills/directives

  • attend an online birthday celebration

  • write Postcards to Voters

  • participate in a CalTwerk or Limon workout

  • do enough Duolingo to stay in Diamond League

  • log into an SFEMS workshop (aka getting my butt kicked in both theory and sight-singing to get better at both)

  • laundry



  • [B]
  • pick up batteries, mayonnaise, and other sundries

  • whale through more work

  • collect library holds

  • financial housekeeping

  • yardwork

  • some personal correspondence


  • [C] (aka not tonight but this week)
  • finish three library books, with a Vary the Line post related to the one on translation

  • yet more paper slinging and filing

  • research for a nonprofit task force

  • dance homework

  • start learning The Armed Man for Stay At Home Choir. First UU's choir sang it 11 years ago for Music Sunday, but I remember very little about it and may well have jumped in on soprano or tenor instead of alto.

  • continue working on the pieces already assigned to me

  • more cards and notes, including to some addresses on the Americans of Conscience list

  • figure out what to plant in the straw bale
  • :

    IMG_5314

    [D] (aka things I might not have time for but may do anyway if I get too crispy around the edges)
  • watch Stratford's Love's Labor Lost

  • improve the peanut-butter-whisky + coffee slushies I started mixing last week. I totally admit that I bought the bottle because of the label. (Netting an appalled look from the BYM was merely a bonus.)


  • Signal boosts:
    The Okra Project
    Wiggle Room (disclosure: a friend is on their team)
    The SIJS (Special Immigrant Juvenile Status) Project (disclosure: a friend runs this)

    Onward, y'all. Stay safe (within what's feasible, especially considering the demands made by both the rest of society and our individual souls) and keep in touch.

    meme

    Apr. 15th, 2020 07:57 pm
    zirconium: medical instruments @High Point Doll Museum (medical instruments (miniature))
    Via [personal profile] kirbyfest, [personal profile] kass, [personal profile] 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.
    zirconium: snapshot of my healthiest hollyhock plant (French hollyhock)
    Today's subject line is from painter Bee Sieburg, in the March 2019 issue of Asheville Made.

    Pre-physical distancing, the plan for today was to participate in a vocal clinic, with the combined choirs of First UU Nashville and UUC Huntsville working on "I've Been 'buked" and two other pieces for tomorrow's service.

    That didn't happen, but there's an IG video of Alvin Ailey dancers dancing in their own spaces (some with doggies!) to "Buked." So that's a fine thing.

    Debbie Allen made the full video of her IG class available. Dancing to it is definitely on my list for next week.

    Today's pleasures included receiving notes from other dancers, cooking (pancakes; lamb (the last of the shabu-sliced bowlful I bought earlier this week) and sugar snap peas; turnip cake (modified) and broccoli), and napping. I also picked yet more shingles out of my yard (plus some debris from my neighbor's), scraped paint flakes off the patch where I'm hoping to sow some zinnias, and scrubbed various surfaces. And now it's time to write more postcards.
    zirconium: of blue bicycle in front of Blue Bicycle Books, Charleston (blue bicycle)
    Today's subject line is from Rick Bragg's essay about Atlanta traffic in the May 2018 issue of Southern Living, which also talks about blood pressure as a metric for measuring gridlock: "I think this city has sent more truck drivers to the cardiologist than Little Debbie."

    My predictably ornery subconscious devoted my two most recent REM cycles to (1) me playing harpsichord at a crowded expo, and (2) me managing all the logistics of a work-related party. Neither dream was relaxing, but considering I went to bed thinking of guillotines, I should be grateful that they at least didn't feature my own death. No, I haven't been insider trading, but I can't help recalling that intellectuals ended up on the wrong ends of guns and blades during the French Revolution -- U of C made me read Michelet three times -- and the Nationalist takeover of Taiwan. My Aunt Cherry lectured me at length during a phone call some years ago about all the people murdered on Chiang Kai-Shek's watch, including scholars, which is among the reasons why she refuses to speak Mandarin if she is talking to someone who can understand English, Japanese, or Taiwanese.

    That said, I've been working on my Mandarin this week, since Duolingo has it and I have relatives with whom conversations aren't going to get very far if I don't get functional in it. I'm about to reach checkpoint 1 in that course, and just passed checkpoint 2 in French. I took a break from Spanish this week since it's tied to work.

    Trying to tame the reflux cough means I'm eschewing booze, caffeine, citrus, mint, onions/garlic, spicy dishes, and chocolate at the moment (least successfully with the last two), so when I stopped at Sweet 16th yesterday (which is currently allowing only 5 customers at time in the store, and there was no one at all at around 1 p.m.), I bought a bandana to make up for the cupcakes I'm not currently indulging in. (Plus, I'm going to need more head coverings if physical distancing stretches out beyond a few more weeks. I'm relieved that I no longer have to renew my driver's license in person, even though it means being stuck with the current photo for another half-decade...) Lunch was the pimiento cheese sandwich I picked up from there, plus hot and sour soup from stuff on hand: chicken bouillon, shiitake mushrooms, thin-sliced lamb, Taiwanese spinach, and black vinegar. Dinner was more of that plus a made-in-USA Chinese sausage.

    It's not Good Friday yet (which is when one should get to planting, according to the late great Jace Burch's granny), but it was so sunny yesterday that I went ahead with sowing some lettuce, radishes, and peppers. (The seeds for the first two date from 2014, so who knows if anything will sprout...) I also moved four jonquil bulbs from the back room to the future hellebore bed, in hopes of them doing better cushioned in mud than resting on top of pebbles and water. Bates Nursery is open, so today's mission includes fetching a carload of dirt.

    The World Is Moving

    Over in the Triangle, VAE is hosting an auction of toilet paper art for NC artist relief. So I grabbed my pens and markers and came up with the above. You can bid on it and other originals at https://e.givesmart.com/events/h0V/i/_Auction/atKl/ if you feel so moved. ;)
    zirconium: Photo of 1860 cast of Lincoln's hand (Lincoln hand)
    spread from GOOD TROUBLE

    . . . fierce, universal, nonviolent, openhearted, deeply rooted RESOLVE . . .

    Spread from Mark Noxon's GOOD TROUBLE: LESSONS FROM THE CIVIL RIGHTS PLAYBOOK
    zirconium: Photo of 1860 cast of Lincoln's hand (Lincoln hand)
    Not really, of course - I love cities with the fervor of a bluestocking who grew up in a county without a public library. That said, I have belatedly come across Emma Stone's lip-sync of Blues Traveler's "Hook" (starts at 1:55 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLBSoC_2IY8) and, yeah. (And her take on "All I Do Is Win" starts at 5:40.)

    I've been binge-watching Lip Sync Battle clips. The gateway was Tom Holland's Umbrella. Other favorites:

    The Rock: Shake It Off
    The reactions to Matt Iseman channeling Cher (1:42)
    Julianne Hough: I Just Had Sex
    Taye Diggs: Let Me Love You
    Big Bird: I Gotta Feeling (I don't even like that song...)
    Lupita Nyong'o: Bailando

    Part of the fun has been finding out the names/performers of songs I first encountered at the Y, including Booty, Low, Fireball, Gasolina, and "M.I.L.F. $" (and it is also funny that some of the raunchiest songs I know are being taught by unapologetically devout Christian women. They are good teachers, and I am more than a little torn about one of the classes being in conflict with English country dancing).

    Speaking of Not Really Safe for Work content, I dove into Deadspin's "Why Your Team Sucks: 2019 Tennessee Titans" this afternoon. The Titans were leading 17-13 in the 4th quarter when I opened the tab ... and ended up losing 19-17. Ooof. I love my city, but some of the vicious jabs directed at it are called for. (I'm nodding especially at "full of racists feigning as libertarians." The language of my tweeps turned a particularly vehement shade of blue on Friday when our new mayor-elect declared that "Nashville cannot and will not be a Sanctuary City.")

    Also, Deadspin gives every team in the NFL the treatment. I am looking forward to pairing some of the others with a bourbon or beer some other rest day. (These days I seem to be most invested in are the Titans, the Eagles, and the Bears, in that order. Then there's the teams-friends-care-about-that-aren't-the-Patriots-or-Steelers-or-Packers tier, featuring the Lions, the Saints, the Panthers, the Browns, and the Vikings. Then there's the teams-I-may-add-to-this-list-even-if-they're-the-Patriots-Steelers-or-Packers corner, where I'll be paying attention to whomever has the cojones to hire Ryan Russell or Kaep.

    Before returning Good Trouble: Lessons from the Civil Rights Playbook to the library, I snapped some hasty last-night shots to share with y'all bit by bit over the next few weeks. (The link will take you to the publisher's page, which contains a better-quality sample of the artwork.) The author is donating all proceeds to The Center for Popular Democracy.

    Today's glimpse:


    "...if you wonder what you would've done if you were alive during the civil rights movement, remember one thing: YOU ARE."
    zirconium: picrew of me in sports bra and flowery crop pants (Russian tins of fish)
    Since last night, I've been living with the urge to howl holy hell at North Carolina.

    What has helped: cranking up the volume on my car stereo and singing along as it plays "Stand" over and over. (That chorus!)

    The Nashville Public Library is ordering copies of Good Trouble for its collection.

    Team Tug of Warhol (War-HAUL!) was not victorious, but we were valiant, and apparently provided a good deal of entertainment for our colleagues back at the ranch via Facebook Live (as well as those who joined us at the park, where it was 91 freaking F at noon).

    It's been an intense day. I dreamt at length about my late honorary mama and her family last night. I was up at 6:30 a.m. for an early meeting. A training session for our upcoming Native Women Artists exhibition included a viewing of The Indian Problem, which -- god _____, Tennessee. Gdi, North Carolina. I followed church class with ten minutes on the erg at the Y. I'm looking at the Road Scholar catalogue that just arrived -- Honorary Mama had suggested doing one of their trips together, and while that never happened, there's at least one that another honorary relative might be up for.

    But first, bath and bed. And reinforcing that figurative breastplate.
    zirconium: snapshot of oysters enjoyed in Charleston (oysters)
    Today's subject line is prompted by a statement by Pomo Indian artist Susan Billy, whose baskets will appear at the Frist Art Museum this fall: “As the baskets got smaller, people asked me what I put in them, and I realized what I put in them is intention.”

    I am raising money for the Cumberland River Compact as a member of the TSRA dragon boat team. No contribution too small! https://crc.kindful.com/dragon-boat-2019/peg-duthie.

    Tonight the sky was dark when I got home from the gym. It is still very much summer -- at the Y, the instructors were pulling down shades to ameliorate some of the heat and glare -- and yet, staring at the stars and the silhouettes of treetops tonight, and now sipping on cider -- fall is but a handful of weeks away.
    zirconium: photo of squeezy Buddha on cell phone, next to a coffee mug (buddha and cocoa)
    Tonight's subject line comes from the first line of a letter Elizabeth Bishop wrote to Robert Lowell on April 1, 1958. It was actually a sunny day here, but I liked seeing the phrase just now, as well as the pleasure of peeking at a letter written sixty years ago (replete with frustration about a worker stealing apples and singing awful songs, a snotty jab at my beloved Ciardi, and kinder talk of work and mental health, along with paragraphs on babies, birds, books, and cities).

    It would have been nice to go singing, shopping, or simply walking/biking around in the sunshine, but my body was tired, my brain fried, and my kitchen filthy, so I put on a nightgown when I rolled out of bed and have spent the day moving slowly between chores and diversions. I wrote a postcard poem and postcards to voters:

    postcards

    I abandoned my plan of trying a new recipe with the chicken thighs in the fridge; instead, I tossed them into a pot with bay leaves (from my big sister), carrots (that had been in the fridge for weeks), a yam (that had been on the counter for weeks), the dregs of a jar of pasta sauce, and garlic (from Penzeys) and let it all stew for a while. Tomorrow I may add lima beans and an onion, but I may also just let it sit some more, as there will also be two services to sing in and tax paperwork to tend to. Plus I'd like to paint my nails and retouch my hair and sleep for about a week more before heading back to the office. Wishes, horses, la la la.

    The timing is not right for me to sign up for The Iteration Project Partner Program, but it sure sounds cool.
    zirconium: my hands, sewing a chemo cap liner (care caps hands)
    A local radio station has been playing an ad with Mavis Staples the past couple of weeks. Which in turn reminds me of the Ysaye Barnwell workshop I participated in a couple of Junes ago, which included improvising verses to "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round."

    ==

    From Bill Penzey's latest e-blast:

    One of the things I admire most about conservatives is their sincerity in their belief that they take responsibility for their actions. As Lincoln said, we can all be fooled some of the time; there is no shame in that. The trick is to not fall into the crowd that can be fooled all the time. What matters is what you do next; you can dig your heels in and become what you've stood up against your whole life. Or you can simply make amends and move on.


    ==

    Resources:
    https://5calls.org/
    https://jenniferhofmann.com/home/weekly-action-checklist-democrats-independents-republicans-conscience/
    https://calvinslist.org/
    zirconium: picrew of me in sports bra and flowery crop pants (US/POW flags)
    The subject line is from P!nk's "What About Us":

    ]

    September 17 is Constitution Day in the United States.

  • My friend Katy boosted the signal on the "We the People" jewelry by Slow Factory (proceeds to the ACLU, hoop earrings become available this Monday): https://slowfactory.com/


  • A certain medal pin collector tried to drag Kaep for not mentoring guys in the hood. That sound you hear is New York and Tampa clapping back:







  • I've given the NYT pieces of my mind at least twice this year, and link to them probably less than 1/8 of what I used to, because [profane rant redacted here], but the wedding section remains a guilty pleasure, in part to glimpse how other connections are made:


    "Melissa you’re going to like this guy," she recalled Amanda Lynch, a former Harvard roommate, telling her. "He has the preamble to the Constitution tattooed on his back."


  • At the New York Public Library (which will star in a documentary that comes to my town next month), there are people meeting monthly to write out the Constitution by hand. [NYT]


  • Andrew Johnson


  • Tennessee's Andrew Johnson was a very, very, very flawed man, but when I first learned about him (in my US Presidents coloring book), what the one-page biography stressed was his profound love of the Constitution, and how he was buried with a copy of it under his head.


  • political cartoon
    zirconium: picrew of me in sports bra and flowery crop pants (flask with feathers)
    The subject line is a chant from Chicago's March for Science. This photo is from this morning's march in Nashville:

    March for Science Nashville

    It was taken by a woman whose mother had knitted the hats; she was there with her grandson, who worked toward getting a selfie with the dog as we chatted:

    boy at March for Science Nashville

    I've posted a cross-section of photos to my Twitter account (@zirconium). I'll add some more later, but I actually do have a grant application deadline to meet.
    zirconium: of blue bicycle in front of Blue Bicycle Books, Charleston (blue bicycle rear)
    Thank you all!

    Flint water fund receipt


    Heading off-blog for the rest of the year. See you in 2017, loves.

    daybreak
    zirconium: Photo of cat snoozing on motorcycle on a sunny day in Jersualem's Old City. (cat on moto)
    Today's mailman asked about the dog, having not seen her for a while. He said she was one of the few who didn't bark at him. I might be snuffling as I type. Read more... )
    Finally: I started this entry some hours ago. Night has fallen, so let there be light.

    first night
    zirconium: of blue bicycle in front of Blue Bicycle Books, Charleston (blue bicycle)
    My big sister will be matching my St. Stephen's Day donation. That means your purchase of a $5 book (or posting/tweeting about this poem) will send $4 to the Flint Water Fund. More details in the previous entry, and heartfelt thanks to everyone who's participated so far!
    zirconium: picrew of me in sports bra and flowery crop pants (sanguine)
    My offer: buy my book for yourself or someone else you're fond enough of to spend 5 USD on (at Amazon or elsewhere), send me some indication of the purchase (order #, screencap, whatever...) by 12:01 a.m. CST on December 26, and I will donate $2 per copy to The Flint Water Fund.

    Alternatively: mention my poem "Look at that, you son of a bitch" on one of your social media platforms by 12:01 a.m. CST on December 26, and I will likewise donate $2 per mention.

    ETA: My big sister is going to match my donation!

    What's the cap? $200.

    Why the offer? A sudden urge to goose up my royalty/readership figures.

    Why $2? Because "useful, oddly very crisp," and categorically queer (for certain iterations of "categorically" and "queer") could well be used to describe me.

    Why December 26? It's the Feast of Stephen. The first Christmas carol I ever learned to play on the piano was "Good King Wenceslas," which is but one of the reasons it's deeply embedded in my blood and bones -- if there's a carol I can sing in my sleep, it's that one. And as my friend M'ris might could tell you, there are a multitude of ways to sing and hear about the snow so deep and crisp and even. (And about what we know to tell, for that matter. Hence the subject line.)
    zirconium: photo of ranunculus bloom on my laptop (ranunculus on keyboard)
    ["Under the oak leaves" - a line from "Au clair de la fontaine" (By the clear fountain)]

    The senior minister at my church is on sabbatical, and Rabbi Rami Shapiro is visiting monthly as a guest preacher. On September 11, he brought with him a shruti, which he played as the congregation learned a new round:

    I am a fountain

    Longtime readers/friends may recall that I do have a thing about fountains... though this past month my scant spare time has been more on lake and river. My Labor Day getaway plans having fallen through twice, I decided to get on a paddleboard four out of my five days off, and last Friday I watched the full moon from my lantern-lit plank on the Cumberland.

    Elsewhere and elsewhen: Paying work. Housework. Homework. Paperwork. Footwork. Speaking of--
    Dancing: hip-hop, flamenco, Afro-Cuban (orishas), English country.
    Friends: Visiting from France and elsewhere. Running for office.. Organizing campferences. Selling taco + lesbian farmer buttons (coupon code here, btw). Preparing for High Holy Days. Coding. Cajoling. Caretaking. I could go on ... in short, inspiring me.
    Harvesting: peppers.
    Deadheading: zinnias.

    Recently published:

  • At unFold: "Spacing for Sky," with typography by J. S. Graustein


  • At Folded Word: "O Margaret, Here We Are Again"


  • At 7x20, a weekful of polished micro-poems: 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5


  • There is more to say and write, much of it off-blog, but a guest arrives tomorrow, so for now it's back to cleaning. Onward!

    Profile

    zirconium: picrew of me in sports bra and flowery crop pants (Default)
    zirconium

    January 2025

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