think of it as inspiration...

...not a time suck, procrastination heaven. Really.

Some link love for you, this Memorial Day holiday. If you have some time and an appreciation for puzzles and such, seriously spend some time with Mateusz Skutnik. I really love his games, especially the Submachine series. Lovely.

Ahem.

Sorry if I made you throw up all over your keyboard after reading yesterday's post. I was delirious, I suspect. Or mushy. Delirious mush. Let's just say that moment is over and we're on to real life, like debating who gets to sweep up all the balls of dog hair swaying like seagrass over our floors. Oh, the romance. The answer is still pending.

That said, I do have to brag some more and say that Pat's getting ready for a HUGE gallery opening at the Folk Art Center. The opening is Saturday afternoon, 3-5 p.m., so come if you're around. His furniture is amazing, all curvy and sultry, except for the bed which seems to be inspired by an accordion. I find that hilarious! Plus he has a new manly haircut, so prepare to be impressed!

I feel like I can't write anymore. All I can do is watch the trees sway in the wind outside the window next to my computer screen. This new house must sit on the windiest patch of grass in Asheville. The trees are always in a state of sway. The air is always filled with swirl of tiny petals of locust and wild cherry blooms; it looks like there's always a wedding going on outside, the old weddings when people would throw bags of rice at the couple, way before they realized that birds bellies would pop from the rice kernels. Is that true? Or an old wives tale? All I can do is think about how 10 years ago Pat and I were sitting in my parents' den watching the Weather Channel. Would it rain? Would it not? Kathryn and a woman I don't talk to anymore for some reason or another -- time, distance, nothing important, but just space -- would be arranging the flowers we cut out of neighbors' yard into all the vases we could find in the house. My grandmother would be sitting at the round cherry kitchen table her husband, my grandfather, made, peeling the shells off of boiled eggs to make platters of deviled eggs. My mother would be smoking cigarettes and laughing. My dad would be sitting in his recliner with his feet propped up, happy that there were all these people around.

We don't have many pictures of that day, but there is one all of us in the den, our eyes glued to the TV. I remember thinking I couldn't believe all this was happening. Not the rain, that I didn't mind, really. What I couldn't believe is that I would be in a wedding. My wedding. It felt so foreign to me, like I had stumbled onto a game show and was trying to play along until I figured out the rules. I didn't know what to do or what to say. I didn't know what to feel. I didn't know anything. No one told me what to expect and I guess I was to full of pride to ask. I remember feeling so scared that I was making a huge mistake.

This morning, I woke up early. There is one bird that starts singing outside our windows at about 5 o'clock nearly every morning -- a small tweet, a sweet hum out in the darkness. It wakes me up nearly every day. Today, though, I was still, quietly listening to it when I realized Pat was awake, too. I don't know what it is that lets you know someone is awake. The way they move to shift the covers, the sound of their eyes opening? There is a stillness that lights up, though, and you know.

I didn't move for a while. I just listened to him and wondered what he was thinking. I could hear his breath pass over the sheets, a cool zip, a small sigh.

I love him, I thought. I love him more than anything.

see below for bribe

Hey.

Thought I would stop by to check in. What's up? Me, I'm avoiding going to sleep by 1: using The Google to "find out more" on the Dateline crime story Pat and I were grudgingly sucked into at 10 p.m. tonight only to find there really isn't anything more on the Dateline site, but did you know that traveler's insurance doesn't cover scuba diving or potential murder? Who knew? 2: being ridiculously excited by the flower seeds I planted in a patch of hard, hard clay next to our driveway, which I began digging up in a fit of panic regarding upcoming deadlines, and which I plan on sowing with even more seeds (did I tell you I got seeds for sunflowers that may grow to be TWELVE FEET TALL? That's tall, people!) tomorrow when the deadline panic is sure to continue? 3: realizing that my 10th wedding anniversary is in 1.5 days and I have 0.0 presents to offer my betrothed, who is trying to sleep next to me and continually shows saintly patience as I do various things such as freak out and dig up the front yard. You'd think 10 years to prepare would be enough. Turns out, not so much. Would an IOU work? How about the promise of towering sunflowers?

*Sigh* Will pay small reward for inspired 10th wedding anniversary gift ideas left in comments.

OK, then

Reading an article in The Guardian today about Feist, stumbled on this:

But it wasn't long ago that Feist was supporting herself by cleaning toilets. "I was a bar-back," she nods, "which is the person who cleans the bathrooms at the end of the night in the bar, and a cook. I had kind of given up. I was into backing other people up. Music was something I just did on the side and I don't think I had the energy to pimp myself out, like call people up and ask them to book me to play. I'd just done it for so long, I needed a breather."

Ex.Act.Ly.

run run run

Hello there.

It's been a hellofacoupleamonths, friends. Run together, run down, run away, run out.

This winter was one of the hardest for me on record for many reasons, but mainly because I came face-to-face with myself in some ways I didn't expect. I was surprised by the turn my insides took, a sharp left and a sharp right and there I found the things I thought were long gone, long resolved had climbed up, dusted themselves off and demanded my attention: family, expectations, disappointment, faith and trust. They're still there. Today, they're just a ghost parade following me through the house, blowing in my ear now and then. But they aren't screaming at me like before. And when they pulled me into that hole I thought was as wide as the muddy Mississippi, swift flowing and deep as the Atlantic, then comes a bright, clear day after a deep, dreamless sleep (no dreams anymore, please; I don't want them) and the girl Cardinal at the bird feeder, with the brightest orange beak, and the neighbor mowing his wet, wet grass at 8 a.m. And I feel the kernel of hope again, and here I am.

I know I'm the most unpredictable, unreliable poster. I realized that I really don't like showing the mess. I like things to be clean and neat and organized. Most people do, I suppose. But the reality is that most everything in the world is a mess, really.

KFW wrote this week about her own spot in the Internet, about finding, no, stating, an identity among all the keyword-focused, tagged blogs in the world. (Me, I am so bloody sick of all the food blogs, craft blogs, mommy blogs, theme-of-the-moment pithy blogs cluttering up the world because I'm sick of compartmentalizing and outlining life for ease and acceptance and AdSense revenue.) I don't know what this spot is about. Which begs the question of why write it at all? But I guess I believe that we don't have to always have to state the answer, to write the nutgraph. I guess I think if I'm going to write here at all, it'll be a lot about the mess, the swirling confusion, the uncertainty and questions. That's where I'm roaming. That's where I'm roving. And until I score another trip to Rome, that's where this'll be.

kittens!

Play the game yourself.

And, wow, one reason to go to SXSW, though I think I'm about a billion years too old.