Study group was held in the back of a spacious coffee shop in town, and we started by obtaining appropriately tasty items to soothe our palates. Despite being in a coffee shop, I passed up the chai and cappucino for a strawberry shake, which I enjoyed regardless of the dent it made in my wallet.
Shortly after we'd settled into our corner table and set up Skype for the girl who couldn't make it to the session in person, two ladies came in lugging anatomy textbooks and proceeded to embark on a study of adduction and abduction of joints, involving physical demonstration. While I was properly engrossed with my own studies, thus keeping my eyes to myself, I could not help but notice the extraordinary eyelids of the one girl. They were lovely eyelids, possessing much original character, and struck me at once as being curiously smooth and broad, suitable for her face, shiny as if they had been coated with eyeshadow and washed once.
~ ~ ~ ~
Mentioning shiny, there was a tiny jar of sparkles, labelled Fairy Dust, on the kitchen counter at Friday night's birth. I thought of Lara and smiled. Next time I meet a faery I must remember to ask for a wee bit of my own.
~ ~ ~ ~
Ariel and I stopped in at Walgreen's on the way home. While she shopped for an assortment of small and varicoloured items, I played with the bouncy balls in the center of the aisle and examined the wind chimes -- the loveliest green wind chime, adorned with a wrought-metal butterfly, would have driven me crazy: the fourth chime was atrociously flat. Right before we left I looked out the window and started, as the bird swooping past the window looked startlingly like a pterodactyl.
~ ~ ~ ~
For dinner Hagai made a delicious dish of shakshouka, a traditional Israeli food involving eggs poached in spicy tomato sauce. The fiery spices in the sauce were tempered by the cooling influence of soft goat's cheese, and while I had expected the meal to be torture after he had indicated his intention to serve a hot dish, it proved to be remarkably delicious, pepper and all.
We spread across the tiny kitchen, Ariel and I on the steps, Hagai at the table with their little daughter. Conversation touched on breastfeeding, the clipping of frenulums (of the tongue -- don't go and get any weird ideas), the politics of apprenticeship, the pros and cons of preceptors. Stories were told, amidst the flailing limbs of a wound-up toddler; after plates were cleaned (I wiped mine clear with the crust of my bread slice) we sprawled in the tiny living room-which-doubled-as-a-bedroom and played Elmo and peekaboo, slipping into baby talk as easily as we discussed our various experiences with sibling rivalry.
All in all it was a lovely evening, barring a few episodes of dodging books, ducking out from under shelves as the contents unloaded on my head, and hairpulling, all of which were more amusing than painful. I have been invited for wine whenever I feel the need to unwind, and although it isn't something to be done on a regular basis, I am considering taking them up on the offer -- just for fun. (It should be an interesting experiment; the last time I consumed alcoholic beverage was in my early teens, when I inadvertently ate chocolate cake laced with whiskey and ended up slightly tipsy. Of course, this time, as I intend to know exactly what I'm putting into my mouth, should be different.)
~ ~ ~ ~
The Nightcored version of "Get Out Alive" is blaring through my earbuds, which I nearly killed by falling asleep with a playlist still running and the buds in my ears (when I woke in the morning the laptop had fallen to the floor and the plug was bent severely to one side; it unbent for the most part when I slid it back into the jack and the earbuds are, temporarily, functional). The lyrics belong to a certain Bandit, one who has captured my imagination as neatly as if he owned it; while the words could go for more than one Bandit, they call Pipe before the eyes of my mind.
No time for goodbye, he said as he faded away
Don't put your life into someone's hands
They're bound to steal it away.
Don't hide your mistakes
Cause they'll find you, burn you
Then he said
If you want to get out alive, run for your life
If you want to get out alive, run for your life...
If I stay it won't be long
'Til I'm burning on the inside
If I go I can only hope
That I make it to the other side
If you want to get out alive (If you want to get out alive)
run for your life
If you want to get out alive (If you want to get out alive)
run for...
(...your life...)
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Friday, April 19, 2013
Small Adventures
The woods proved too hushed for comfort, almost as if it were holding its breath in expectation of some terrible event that would occur if I went forward, so after I had meandered for a while out of earshot of the house, visited with some mammoth slugs, and sheared off the side of a rotted log while descending to the ground on my boot heels, I turned around and left the forest in order to keep to the road. For a good ways back it went, winding around a dumpster, intersected by another soggy trail of twin ruts. I stopped to snap a few photos -- the mossy boots dangling from the NO HUNTING signpost, the delicate and unidentified pink blossoms on the edge of the gravel; I also paused to inform a cheeky robin that I was only passing and he could go on scrabbling in the mud because I wasn't about to stop him, no sir. Tipping his head so as to better read my countenance, he considered my assurance and decided I had an untrustworthy sort of face, therefore taking off would be the better option. I did not feel affronted by his swift flight.
Eventually the gravel gave way to plain dirt: two wide wheel tracks divided by a strip of green grass and hedged on either side by trees, grasses, and underbrush. As I rounded the curve I came face to face with a garishly coloured dumpster, and stopped to confront it. "Seriously. The road does not end with you, does it? Because that's just wrong." Fortunately, the tracks continued, though they were slightly less defined. I debated whether or not it was safe to go on, as I could not determine whether this was public road or now private property, and settled on continuing my walk, as I was inclined to do something outside of my routine reaction. (For the record, I try to break my quotidian habits in at least one small way each day. It proves remarkably helpful in the discovery of adventures; it also causes a tremendous amount of trouble if you happen to be too impulsive, as I am discovering. However, at least the negative aspects of the situation are countered by the fact that this is indeed an adventure, albeit a walking, talking, multiple-people-in-multiple-states-with-multiple-agendas adventure. It's okay. It will work out.)
((Maybe.))
After walking underneath an arch of drooping evergreen boughs, to which I bowed deeply as I passed beneath them, I left the wood and came into a clearing filled with oddly cut boulders and piles of curiously rusted tools. To my left a black lagoon languished in its ditch, along with an ancient red exercise ball which floated at one end, still and silent in its corner, and despite my practically minded tendencies I discovered that tiny shivers were lizarding their way up and down my sweater-draped spine. There was no current to set it to motion. Overhead a plane rumbled, low enough to ride beneath the clouds and in plain view; the ground trembled with the vibration. Moving slowly through the clearing, still on the path, I found myself staring at an old wooden cross, painted white long ago and now faded, and a shriveled wreath hanging beside it. The stones... what if they were ancient pillars set up for sacrifice, and what would a murder look like if it was committed in such a setting, and where would the body be hidden, and is that really a wheelbarrow over there under that tarp or is it a layout for instruments of macabre torture, laid out in the Spanish inquisition and carried forward in time for rituals, and is there a murderer hiding behind that massive stack of planting pots...?
Reluctantly I departed from the clearing of stones and continued along the path, which bent to the left and led straight past a pile of neatly stacked firewood, straight to a lovely little house with a great cement patio, by which stood a table spread with potted plants. A curious little rock sat on the wood pile, looking like a proper stone age sculpture, complete with rough-hewn nose and mouth and eyes. "Hello," I murmured in greeting, curling my hand around the cool surface of its curves.
The house itself, half-draped in ivy, sat like a little haven, set apart from the looming trees by a moat-like circle of sun. I went up to the patio and knocked on the door, laughing as I did so at the four little coasters set up against the glass (kangeroo, koala, dragon, boar...). Shigure at the door would have been too absurd for my ordinary life; instead of a kimono-clad writer ready to show off an Australian version of the zodiac, a lady's voice rang from the main room: "Come around to the front."
I went, popped myself straight into her kitchen, and fumbled to explain my random appearance on her patio. "Actually, I didn't even know someone lived back here, and I was walking, and I didn't realize you owned this property or that it even was private property...." Her eyes were blue, and dignity and curiosity mingled on her face along with a suitable air of reserve. She introduced herself, I admired the stone column behind the stove ("My husband does some stonework," she explained.), and she offered me a cookie. "They're made with coconut oil, and chocolate chips and walnuts. I hope you can eat walnuts." "Oh yes, I love nuts." Not exactly true in general, but it worked for the situation, and it wasn't an outright falsehood either. I do enjoy nuts in some -- not all -- foods, and... that is not another tangent. No. Anyway, I excused myself, cookie in hand, and kept on walking down the lane and into a dark hall of greenery.
It would be lovely, of course, if I had walked down that enchanting green lane and straight into an enchanted world inhabited by a crazy man in a box and a dancing mentalist and a prince with a kingdom-sized library, but instead I came back out on the main road and set my sights for home. The mountains were hidden behind heavy cloud cover, but I looked towards them anyway as I passed by the pine trees and hopped up onto the porch.
Eventually the gravel gave way to plain dirt: two wide wheel tracks divided by a strip of green grass and hedged on either side by trees, grasses, and underbrush. As I rounded the curve I came face to face with a garishly coloured dumpster, and stopped to confront it. "Seriously. The road does not end with you, does it? Because that's just wrong." Fortunately, the tracks continued, though they were slightly less defined. I debated whether or not it was safe to go on, as I could not determine whether this was public road or now private property, and settled on continuing my walk, as I was inclined to do something outside of my routine reaction. (For the record, I try to break my quotidian habits in at least one small way each day. It proves remarkably helpful in the discovery of adventures; it also causes a tremendous amount of trouble if you happen to be too impulsive, as I am discovering. However, at least the negative aspects of the situation are countered by the fact that this is indeed an adventure, albeit a walking, talking, multiple-people-in-multiple-states-with-multiple-agendas adventure. It's okay. It will work out.)
((Maybe.))
After walking underneath an arch of drooping evergreen boughs, to which I bowed deeply as I passed beneath them, I left the wood and came into a clearing filled with oddly cut boulders and piles of curiously rusted tools. To my left a black lagoon languished in its ditch, along with an ancient red exercise ball which floated at one end, still and silent in its corner, and despite my practically minded tendencies I discovered that tiny shivers were lizarding their way up and down my sweater-draped spine. There was no current to set it to motion. Overhead a plane rumbled, low enough to ride beneath the clouds and in plain view; the ground trembled with the vibration. Moving slowly through the clearing, still on the path, I found myself staring at an old wooden cross, painted white long ago and now faded, and a shriveled wreath hanging beside it. The stones... what if they were ancient pillars set up for sacrifice, and what would a murder look like if it was committed in such a setting, and where would the body be hidden, and is that really a wheelbarrow over there under that tarp or is it a layout for instruments of macabre torture, laid out in the Spanish inquisition and carried forward in time for rituals, and is there a murderer hiding behind that massive stack of planting pots...?
Reluctantly I departed from the clearing of stones and continued along the path, which bent to the left and led straight past a pile of neatly stacked firewood, straight to a lovely little house with a great cement patio, by which stood a table spread with potted plants. A curious little rock sat on the wood pile, looking like a proper stone age sculpture, complete with rough-hewn nose and mouth and eyes. "Hello," I murmured in greeting, curling my hand around the cool surface of its curves.
The house itself, half-draped in ivy, sat like a little haven, set apart from the looming trees by a moat-like circle of sun. I went up to the patio and knocked on the door, laughing as I did so at the four little coasters set up against the glass (kangeroo, koala, dragon, boar...). Shigure at the door would have been too absurd for my ordinary life; instead of a kimono-clad writer ready to show off an Australian version of the zodiac, a lady's voice rang from the main room: "Come around to the front."
I went, popped myself straight into her kitchen, and fumbled to explain my random appearance on her patio. "Actually, I didn't even know someone lived back here, and I was walking, and I didn't realize you owned this property or that it even was private property...." Her eyes were blue, and dignity and curiosity mingled on her face along with a suitable air of reserve. She introduced herself, I admired the stone column behind the stove ("My husband does some stonework," she explained.), and she offered me a cookie. "They're made with coconut oil, and chocolate chips and walnuts. I hope you can eat walnuts." "Oh yes, I love nuts." Not exactly true in general, but it worked for the situation, and it wasn't an outright falsehood either. I do enjoy nuts in some -- not all -- foods, and... that is not another tangent. No. Anyway, I excused myself, cookie in hand, and kept on walking down the lane and into a dark hall of greenery.
It would be lovely, of course, if I had walked down that enchanting green lane and straight into an enchanted world inhabited by a crazy man in a box and a dancing mentalist and a prince with a kingdom-sized library, but instead I came back out on the main road and set my sights for home. The mountains were hidden behind heavy cloud cover, but I looked towards them anyway as I passed by the pine trees and hopped up onto the porch.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Midweek Blurb
Where do I begin? I'm ready now.
Glad I was fit in.
Running round my head - what did I do wrong?
Tell me it's my fault,
You didn't lead me on....
So what I wanna know: why's it hurt so bad?
I'd say it's like a drug but I don't feel the high.
My heart's about to break for the final time.
All I do is ache, and I can't find some piece of mind.
Break it off - God, he knows I'm trying;
Shake it off - no more crying.
I'm done
I'm done
I'm done
You won't win this time.
Set my pride to the side,
Tear me open, look inside
just to see how many times you really made these eyes cry....
Insomnia strikes at the oddest times, and frankly, I wouldn't be putting this down if not for a promise to someone very close to me. Journal entries you want: journal entries you get, though limited by the form of oblique blurbs pasted onto my corner of the world wide web. I hope you enjoy them.
He Is We has shifted to Evanescence in my playlist, moving from "A Mess It Grows" and "Fall" to "My Heart Is Broken". I will wander till the end of time, torn away from you.... It might be brooding; I don't know. There's something about the music that allows weeping with never a tear shed, and I prefer that and a headache to sobbing and a headache, especially when tears are not there to be shed. Because really, I'm not crying. I'm not.
Despite his cynicism, or perhaps because of it, Patrick Jane is a worthy companion for the night, and I shall resume his company when I am finished scribbling. (My heart is broken... Release me - I can't hold on...) If nothing else, at least I can relate to his sense of guilt. It's a hell of a feeling, literally, this knowing that you've wrecked what you've been given of life; sometimes it seems like the greatest mercy that God could offer is to obliterate us before we destroy the people we love.
But if Jane could pick up the pieces and move on, cold and pragmatic, so can I. Sorry, Mother o' mine: I know full well that's not what you were asking to hear; now that I'm done with my little 'the-world-hates-me-and-I-hate-the-world' spiel we can move on to other things. Like dinner tonight, which was my first meal of the day and consisted of avocado, lettuce, and cream cheese inside of a high-fiber multigrain wrap thingy. The cream cheese was put in as a replacement for the blue cheese, which, for the record, retains a noticeably moldy flavour that possesses an appeal scoring on the negative side of the spectrum. Don't make a habit of eating it. It has an ill effect on the breath.
There are so many things I appreciate about the west coast. Waking up to the evergreens swaying in my window is one of them, and the mountains (real mountains!) are another. Last week Ryl and I walked through a quaint little coastal town, popping our heads into numerous shops. First it was a skinny little room inhabited by hundreds of curious little ends and odds - buttons, beads, a decorated electric guitar, and a horrendous number of Mexican-style skulls and skeletons, which looked quite ghoulish. (There. That is the fourth time I've whacked my head against the window frame in the course of this post, and if I do it once more Carol is going to come marching in to demand what on earth merits thumping her awake at this hour of the night.)
We stepped into a tri-store shop, which contained a jewelry-making store, a yarn shop, and a second-floor artisan clothing shop. I poked around the racks for a bit, then gave up shopping entirely due to the extraordinary price range; I even restrained myself from obtaining that string of vibrant green beads from the jewelry shop, though I went back to them multiple times just to bask in the depth of the colour.
It is late, my fingers are running out of energy, and I have a mentalist to rejoin. Signing off....
Glad I was fit in.
Running round my head - what did I do wrong?
Tell me it's my fault,
You didn't lead me on....
So what I wanna know: why's it hurt so bad?
I'd say it's like a drug but I don't feel the high.
My heart's about to break for the final time.
All I do is ache, and I can't find some piece of mind.
Break it off - God, he knows I'm trying;
Shake it off - no more crying.
I'm done
I'm done
I'm done
You won't win this time.
Set my pride to the side,
Tear me open, look inside
just to see how many times you really made these eyes cry....
Insomnia strikes at the oddest times, and frankly, I wouldn't be putting this down if not for a promise to someone very close to me. Journal entries you want: journal entries you get, though limited by the form of oblique blurbs pasted onto my corner of the world wide web. I hope you enjoy them.
He Is We has shifted to Evanescence in my playlist, moving from "A Mess It Grows" and "Fall" to "My Heart Is Broken". I will wander till the end of time, torn away from you.... It might be brooding; I don't know. There's something about the music that allows weeping with never a tear shed, and I prefer that and a headache to sobbing and a headache, especially when tears are not there to be shed. Because really, I'm not crying. I'm not.
Despite his cynicism, or perhaps because of it, Patrick Jane is a worthy companion for the night, and I shall resume his company when I am finished scribbling. (My heart is broken... Release me - I can't hold on...) If nothing else, at least I can relate to his sense of guilt. It's a hell of a feeling, literally, this knowing that you've wrecked what you've been given of life; sometimes it seems like the greatest mercy that God could offer is to obliterate us before we destroy the people we love.
But if Jane could pick up the pieces and move on, cold and pragmatic, so can I. Sorry, Mother o' mine: I know full well that's not what you were asking to hear; now that I'm done with my little 'the-world-hates-me-and-I-hate-the-world' spiel we can move on to other things. Like dinner tonight, which was my first meal of the day and consisted of avocado, lettuce, and cream cheese inside of a high-fiber multigrain wrap thingy. The cream cheese was put in as a replacement for the blue cheese, which, for the record, retains a noticeably moldy flavour that possesses an appeal scoring on the negative side of the spectrum. Don't make a habit of eating it. It has an ill effect on the breath.
There are so many things I appreciate about the west coast. Waking up to the evergreens swaying in my window is one of them, and the mountains (real mountains!) are another. Last week Ryl and I walked through a quaint little coastal town, popping our heads into numerous shops. First it was a skinny little room inhabited by hundreds of curious little ends and odds - buttons, beads, a decorated electric guitar, and a horrendous number of Mexican-style skulls and skeletons, which looked quite ghoulish. (There. That is the fourth time I've whacked my head against the window frame in the course of this post, and if I do it once more Carol is going to come marching in to demand what on earth merits thumping her awake at this hour of the night.)
We stepped into a tri-store shop, which contained a jewelry-making store, a yarn shop, and a second-floor artisan clothing shop. I poked around the racks for a bit, then gave up shopping entirely due to the extraordinary price range; I even restrained myself from obtaining that string of vibrant green beads from the jewelry shop, though I went back to them multiple times just to bask in the depth of the colour.
It is late, my fingers are running out of energy, and I have a mentalist to rejoin. Signing off....
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